It was a huge night for North Carolina at the 53rd Annual Grammy Awards on Sunday.
While the state has never been a stranger to Grammy Award winners, this year’s program seemed to feature North Carolina musicians at its forefront.
Perhaps most exciting is the capturing of the Grammy’s top prize, Album of the Year. Award winners Arcade Fire are certainly not from the Old North State, but their label for the past six years has its roots firmly planted in Durham.
Merge Records was founded on do-it-yourself values more than 20 years ago by Superchunk’s Mac McCaughan and Laura Balance. Over the course of those years, the label has released albums from Spoon, Neutral Milk Hotel, The Magnetic Fields, She & Him, Richard Buckner and a host of other indie rocks favorites.
But this year, the label brought home its first golden gramophone with Arcade Fire topping the category Album of the Year for their LP The Suburbs.
Merge was so unprepared for the win that Mac and Laura were in Japan on tour and didn’t attend the live show. The label’s publicist, Christina Rentz said there was virtually no campaigning for Grammy votes aside from a small ad in Billboard magazine.
“We don’t play the game. We don’t know how it’s played. And this happened,” she said. “Hopefully it’ll encourage musicians to know that you can do it your way and have recognition from the bigwigs.”
Outside of record labels, North Carolina musicians saw a healthy bit of the spotlight on their own accord.
High Point native and American Idol Fantasia Barrino accepted a Grammy off-camera for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance for her song “Bittersweet” from her 2010 album Back To Me. The album itself was nominated in the category Best R&B Album, but was bested by the John Legend/The Roots collaboration Wake Up!
Also accepting a gramophone off-camera was the Carolina Chocolate Drops, who took home the award for Best Traditional Folk Album for their 2010 album Genuine Negro Jig. The three original Drops — including Justin Robinson, who recently announced his departure from the band — were on hand to accept their award.
Perhaps the biggest winners of the evening were Lady Antebellum, who captured five awards, including Best Country Album, Record of the Year, Song of the Year, Best Country Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal and Best Country Song. While the band is based in Nashville, founding member Charles Kelley moved the Nashville from Winston-Salem in 2005.
And on the performance end of the spectrum, Concord-based The Avett Brothers rocked the stage alongside Mumford & Sons and the legendary Bob Dylan. The band — whose cellist is a resident of Durham — performed their song “Head Full of Doubt, Road Full of Promise” before taking the role of Dylan’s backing band on his classic song “Maggie’s Farm.”
Dylan was sounding rough Sunday night, but let’s not forget that other famous band who used to back the singer-songwriter in the mid-60s.
The Avett Brothers are currently working on the follow-up to 2009′s I and Love and You in Asheville with Rick Rubin. Meanwhile, the Carolina Chocolate Drops will perform in Greensboro March 12 and at the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh on Aug. 27.
Justin Robinson & the Mary Annettes is scheduled to play the Strange Beauty Film Festival after-party Feb. 19 at Motorco in Durham. He will be joined by Felix Obelix and Schooner.
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