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The Grammys

Diane Warren

Charlie Puth

A who’s Jew in the
world of the Grammy
nominees.

Nate Bloom
Special to the Jewish News

details

Watch the live presentation of the
58th annual Grammy Awards, to
be aired on Monday, Feb. 15,
at 8 p.m. on CBS.

78 January 28 • 2016

S

ure, Taylor Swift nabbed seven Grammy
Award nominations, including album of
the year for 1989 and song of the year
for “Blank Space.” But the girl can’t win every-
thing, right?
Here, a tally of the other nominees — with
Jewish connections, of course — for the 58th
annual Grammy Awards, airing on CBS 8 p.m.
Monday, Feb. 15. The Grammys will be hosted
by two-time Grammy winner LL Cool J for the
fifth consecutive year.
There are more than 100 Grammy catego-
ries, but only about 25 awards are presented
at the televised ceremony. We will only cover
those awards we believe will be given at that
ceremony. Whole big categories, like classical
music, are relegated to a non-televised awards
ceremony.
A notable “no TV” nominee is Julia Wolfe,
57, a Pennsylvania native who studied music at
the University of Michigan. She’s the composer
of the Grammy-nominated “Anthracite Fields”
(contemporary classical music composition
category), a piece that has already won the
2015 Pulitzer Prize for music.
The most nominated Hebrew is Drake,
29, aka Aubrey Drake Graham. The son
of a Canadian Jewish mother and African
American father, he was raised in his mother’s
faith. He isn’t shy about flying his Jewish flag
— as in his 2014 SNL hosting gig, where he
played himself as a bar mitzvah boy in a skit
that included a Drake rap song that begun:
“I’m black, I’m Jewish — it’s a mitzvah!” Drake
is nominated for best rap performance (“Back
to Back,” a solo performance, and “Truffle

Drake

Butter” with other artists); best rap/song col-
laboration (“Only,” with other artists); best rap
song (“Energy,” which he wrote and sang); and
best rap album (“If You’re Reading This It’s Too
Late”).
After Drake comes Mark Ronson, 40, an
Anglo American Jew who had a big year, with
three nominations: “Uptown Funk,” a song he
wrote with Bruno Mars (who does the vocals
with Ronson), is nominated for record of
the year and for best pop duo performance.
The album it appeared on, Uptown Special, is
nominated for album of the year. “Funk” has
been a global smash, with staggering stats like
being No. 1 for 14 consecutive weeks on the
U.S. Billboard magazine charts and earning
about $3 million in writing royalties alone for
the duo.
Ronson’s mother and father are British
Jews with familial connections to the top of
the U.K. Jewish community (politicians and
business people). His parents divorced when
he was about 5 and his mother, Ann, married
Foreigner guitarist Mick Jones, who became
father figure to Ronson (and whose biggest
hit, “I Want to Know What Love Is,” was
inspired by Ann). Ronson was engaged (2003)
to actress (and daughter of Quincy) Rashida
Jones, now 39 (who can sing), but they broke
it off; Ronson married French actress, singer
and model Josephine de La Baume in 2011.
Fun note: Bruno Mars’ paternal grandma was
Jewish.
Charlie Puth, 24, is Grammy nominated for
song of the year and best pop duo collabora-
tion for “See You Again” (which he co-wrote

Mark Ronson

and co-sang with singer Wiz Khalifa, who has
a Muslim grandfather). He’s also nominated
for best song written for a visual media (for
Furious 7). On Jan. 29, Puth’s debut studio
album, Nine Track Mind, will be released. The
visual media category includes a nominated
song co-written by Diane Warren, 59, a
12-time Grammy winner, with Lady Gaga (“Til
It Happens to You” from The Hunting Ground).
Warren also just received an Oscar nod for this
song.
Producer of the year is a big Grammy nomi-
nation and this year’s nod is to veteran Larry
Klein, 59. He already won four Grammys
(two for producing two different Joni Mitchell
albums; he was married to Mitchell from 1982
to 1994). This year he produced albums by a
variety of artists in different genres, including
jazz/r&b artist Lizz Wright and country-rock
songwriter J.D. Souther. He’s also played bass
on hundreds of albums featuring marquee per-
formers like Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell.
Dylan, 74, is nominated for best traditional
pop album (Shadows in the Night, in which he
covers songs associated with Frank Sinatra).
He competes in this category with Barry
Manilow, 72, My Dream Duets.
Finally, there’s rock drummer Jay Weinberg,
25, the son of Max Weinberg, 65. Max is most
famous for being Bruce Springsteen’s drum-
mer. Jay filled in for Max when he played with
Springsteen’s band in 2008 and 2009. In 2014,
he joined Slipknot, a heavy metal band. Their
2015 CD, .5: The Gray Chapter, is nominated
for best rock album and best metal perfor-
mance (the song, “Custer”).

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