When the Grammy Awards were recently postponed from January 31st to March 14th due to Los Angeles-based COVID-19 concerns, many’ve pointed out that the new date is two days shy the Grammys first live telecast 50 years ago.
While the host (Andy Williams) and producer (Pierre Cossette) of that first March 16, 1971 show are no longer with us, many of the artists who won awards that night are alive and well, including Paul Simon & Art Garfunkel, Richard Carpenter of Carpenters, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr of The Beatles, Dionne Warwick, Ray Stevens, The Oak Ridge Boys, Stephen Sondheim and producers Roy Halee, Thomas Z. Shepard and Sesame Street co-creator Joan Cooney.
That 90 minute debut show featured performances by The Osmond Brothers, The Carpenters, Anne Murray, Aretha Franklin, Warwick, Charley Pride, Conway Twitty, Wanda Jackson, Marty Robbins and Hank Williams Jr. Five decades later, the 2021 broadcast is slated to last 3.5 hours and can be seen on March 14th, 2021, at 8PM CDT on CBS.
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Photo: Tore Sætre