[78-L] Polkas eliminated as a Grammy category

[Dnjchi at aol.com]

Does anyone from the NYC area remember Ed Poli's Polka Platter Party on  
WKEY every Saturday?
Don Chichester
 
 
In a message dated 6/5/2009 12:33:24 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,  
petquality1 at gmail.com writes:

This is  sad.  I see their reasoning, but it's a shame.  The music of  the
past seems to be getting more and more marginalized in the media... or  am I
wrong?  Well at least there;s still the Big Joe Polka  show...

Andrea

On Fri, Jun 5, 2009 at 9:25 AM,  <soundthink at aol.com> wrote:

>
> June 5,  2009
>
> Polka Music Is Eliminated as Grammy Award  Category
>
> By BEN SISARIO
> After 24 years, polka has had  its last dance at the Grammys.
>
>
> Jimmy Sturr, polka  superstar, has won 18 Grammy Awards.
>
> The Recording Academy,  which bestows the Grammy Awards, announced late on
> Wednesday that the  polka category would be eliminated, saying in a 
statement
> that it had  been cut “to ensure the awards process remains 
representative of
> the  current musical landscape.”
>
> To many in the polka world, that  read as a kind of industry code meaning
> that their genre — once  capable of supporting artists with 
million-selling
> hits, but long  since relegated to micro-niche status — had slipped off 
the
> mainstream  radar entirely.
>
> “It’s devastating,” said Carl Finch of Brave  Combo, a band from Denton,
> Tex., that has won the Grammy twice. “Polka  is so misunderstood, you 
know,
> the butt of jokes. Having a polka  category was the most important step to
> legitimacy that we could ever  hope to achieve. To have that taken away, 
it’s
> like it was all for  nothing.”
>
> The news was met with sadness but little surprise.  The number of albums
> considered by the Recording Academy for the polka  award has dwindled in
> recent years. In 2006, for example, only 20  albums were considered, and 
of
> the five nominees, only one album had  wide distribution.
>
> “When it gets down to around 20 entries,  just by entering, you have a one
> in five chance of being nominated,”  said Bill=2
> 0Freimuth, the academy’s vice president for awards.  “That’s not as
> competitive as we’d like these awards to  be.”
>
> Winning a Grammy can be a huge career boost for any act,  particularly 
those
> in genres like polka that get little other  mainstream attention, said 
Jimmy
> Sturr, who with 18 Grammys — only one  fewer than Bruce Springsteen — is 
the
> music’s biggest  name.
>
> “There are a lot of great bands in the polka field,” Mr.  Sturr said. “I’
m
> not going to say I’m the best band in the whole  world, but we’re just as
> good as any. But this put us over and above.  It made us almost, almost a
> household word.”
>
> The polka  Grammy was first given in 1986. (It went to one of the genre’s
> last  big stars, Frankie Yankovic, who died in 1998.) But it has long been
>  under fire by critics of the awards, who say that the field is simply  
too
> small to sustain its own category. Some also complain that it has  lost 
its
> value since the competition has been so dominated by Mr.  Sturr, a slick
> nontraditionalist whose albums feature guest  appearances by the likes of
> Willie Nelson.
>
> “It’s  basically the same person winning it all the time,” said Dave
>  Ulczycki, president of the International Polka Association in Chicago.  “
I
> like his music, and I like the person himself. But Jimmy is not a  polka 
band
> per se.”
>
> Polka is not the only genre  affected by the reshuffling. The best
> contemporary folk/Am
>  ericana award — which was won this year by Robert Plant and Alison  
Krauss’s
> “Raising Sand” — will be split into two categories (best  contemporary 
folk
> album and best Americana album), and best Latin  urban album has been
> combined with best Latin rock or alternative  album into best Latin rock,
> alternative or urban album. The total  number of categories decreases by 
one,
> to 109.
>
> Next  year’s Grammy Award ceremony will take place earlier than usual, on
>  Jan. 31.
>
> Mr. Sturr said that the loss of the Grammy and the  mainstream visibility 
it
> brings would cause damage to polka as a  genre, but that he had no doubts
> about its ability to endure. “Polka  isn’t the biggest,” he said, “but 
it’s
> not the smallest,  either.”
>
> ***********
> Cary Ginell
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