The recording industry's most prestigious award, the GRAMMY, is presented annually by The Recording Academy. A GRAMMY is awarded by The Recording Academy's voting membership to honor excellence in the recording arts and sciences. It is truly a peer honor, awarded by and to artists and technical professionals for artistic or technical achievement, not sales or chart positions (GRAMMY Awards Voting Process). The annual GRAMMY Awards presentation brings together thousands of creative and technical professionals in the recording industry from all over the world.

The Winners

Best American Roots Performance Mavis Staples See That My Grave Is Kept Clean

Best Blues Album Buddy Guy Born To Play Guitar

Best Folk Album Béla Fleck and Abigal Washburn Béla Fleck and Abigal Washburn

Best Regional Roots Album Jon Cleary Go Go Juice

Best Jazz Instrumental Album John Sofield Past Present

Best World Album Angelique Kidjo Sings

Alabama Shakes takes the trifecta, three Grammies!

Best Alternative Music Album Alabama Shakes Sound & Color

Best Rock Performance and Best Rock Song Alabama Shakes Don't Wanna Fight



See the complete list of Grammy Awards on grammy.com

Because these musical events have become so over-the-top that they're absolutely worth planning a trip around. 

Music festivals are good—for the soul, for the mind, and for the spirit. This is a rare fact agreed upon by both millennials and baby boomers alike. In photographer Cherly Dunn’s latest book, appropriately titled Music Festivals Are Good, Dunn recounts her many festival experiences through photos, from Woodstock ’94 to Bonnaroo and the Warped Tour in the early aughts. Dunn’s raw, gritty, and damningly fun look at music festivals around the world served up some major inspiration to search for the best music festivals on the planet—and which ones are worth traveling around the country (or across the globe) for this year.

Read more on TRAVEL+LEISURE

From Coachella, Glastonbury, and Stagecoach to Governors Ball, Lollapalooza, and Ultra, music festivals clearly play a role in the economies of cities. They bring in huge numbers of tourists and revenue, attract large audiences, create significant platforms for musicians, and help to build city brands.

In his new book, Music/City: American Festivals and Placemaking in Austin, Nashville, and Newport, Jonathan R. Wynn—a sociologist at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst—explores the rising “festivalization” of our culture.

In preparation for Music/City, Wynn developed his own participant observations by visiting these cities and festivals and conducting over 100 interviews with musicians, festival promoters, city leaders, and more.

Read more at city lab

The 2016 Festival Season is near. That time of year when tough decisions are made by Worldwide Festivalists. Graphs drawn. Spreadsheets created. Maps plotted. Do you go to Festival A or Festival B — or better yet, skip A and B and you can go to Festival C, Festival D, and Festival E.

Is more better? Is it logistically possible to go to two or three regional festivals in a weekend? Do you take off in April and go on festival tour until July? You knew there'd be some choice, some sacrafice. Maybe you didn't realize how complicated it is to be a festivalist.



A number of articles were published this week about the upcoming festivals, and here is a random sampling...

Kaitlyn Brown, The Volante, writes in Verve Blogs
volanteonline.com.com
Music festivals offer great getaway for music lovers

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Dan MacRae writes in Uproxx
uproxx.com
Sort Out Your 2016 Major Music Festival Options With This Helpful Video Guide

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Maria Sherman & Thomas Nassiff write in fuse
fuse.tv.com
22 Music Festivals You Need To Attend In 2016

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Arminta Wallace writes in The Irish Times
irishtimes.com
What's on: The festival guide for 2016: Ireland guide to the best arts events and festivals

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Come party with Blake Shelton, Tim McGraw, Dierks Bentley & Many more, right on the beach!
April 15-17, 2016 in Ft. Lauderdale, FL.

Everyone has a favorite season. Some people like spring, when snow melts and flowers bloom. Some people are into autumn, with all the leaves changing colors and apple cider and shit. I personally like Season of the Witch (2011), the fantasy adventure film starring Nicolas Cage and Ron Perlman. My close second favorite is festival season, and if you’re reading this, there’s a good chance it’s one of your favorites, too. Lucky for you and I, this year’s festival season is shaping up to be one of the best in recent memory.

Read more at CoS