MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Do you remember who won the Grammy Award for best country album this year?
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "TEXAS HOLD 'EM")
BEYONCE: (Singing) This ain't Texas - woo. Ain't no hold 'em - hey. So lay your cards down, down, down, down.
KELLY: Yeah, there's your clue. It was Beyonce, "Cowboy Carter." Next year, though, there won't be a best country album winner. That is because the Grammys are splitting the category in two - best contemporary and best traditional country album. Jewly Hight of Nashville Public Radio says the change is a result of a years-long effort to support artists who have been overshadowed by their chart-topping peers.
JEWLY HIGHT, BYLINE: In certain country music circles, the announcement about the new Grammy categories was big news.
SUNNY SWEENEY: I got about 7,000 text messages within 10 minutes. I'm not joking. Like, I thought someone was dead.
HIGHT: That's Sunny Sweeney, a modern honky-tonk artist. She's worked the bar circuit for more than two decades, delivering rowdy, emotionally incisive drinking and divorce songs in a vinegary twang.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "YOU DON'T KNOW YOUR HUSBAND")
SWEENEY: (Singing) You don't know your husband like you think you do. Girl, I could tell you something about the man you're married to. You don't know...
HIGHT: Sweeney's fans and fellow artists blew up her phone because they thought the Grammy changes could mean she'd finally get some industry recognition. To her, that hadn't seemed possible since her brief stint on a Music Row label ended over a decade ago.
SWEENEY: I did put out a record that I was very proud of, but then I got dropped because I was too country for country.
HIGHT: Sweeney hasn't been alone in sensing mainstream indifference towards sensibilities like hers.
KYLE CORONEOS: For years, a lot of the traditional country community felt disenfranchised, and not just from the Grammys but really from all of sort of commercial country.
HIGHT: That's Kyle Coroneos, creator of the website Saving Country Music. There's a precedent for the Grammys dividing genres whose competing impulses don't fit neatly into one category. That's happened with jazz, blues and R&B, points out Harvey Mason Jr. He's the CEO of The Recording Academy, which runs the Grammys, and he says they don't make changes lightly.
HARVEY MASON JR: So I don't sit there and decide, I think we should do this or I think we should call it that. We hear from the community of people that make those genres of music. They give us their recommendations, they draft proposals, and those proposals go into the trustee room for a vote.
HIGHT: Coroneos has been campaigning online for a traditional category since 2019. He teamed up with Grammy staffers to research how many albums could go in a traditional category if one existed. And once the Grammys made the change, Coroneos worked to ensure submissions came in.
CORONEOS: I'll tell you this, it has been beyond rewarding to reach out to independent country artists that don't have managers and labels and to say, hey, I think that your album is good enough to submit to the Grammys. Do you want some help with that?
HIGHT: Not all tradition-leaning artists needed that sort of advocacy.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SOUTH OF SANITY")
ZACH TOP: (Singing) But I'm somewhere outside of Missoula. They just called my name from the stage.
HIGHT: That easeful, elastic singer is a 28-year-old mainstream hit maker. His name - Zach Top. He's winning Nashville over with his classic sensibilities. Katie Dean, who runs Top's label, couldn't be more pleased that his sound now has a devoted Grammy lane.
KATIE DEAN: Zach's name was the first one that came to mind. I mean, just sort of across the board, we heard it. There's not a whole lot of current country artists who are taking fiddle and steel out on the road. I think it's really gratifying to see that the kind of music he's making is resonating in such a mainstream way.
HIGHT: In Top's case, Dean says her team had the luxury of choosing between traditional and contemporary categories. But Charley Crockett considers even the Grammys' expanded options an uncomfortable fit. He built his audience through tireless touring and self-funded recordings of cowboy ballads and working-class blues, and he distrusts the industry and its awards.
CHARLEY CROCKETT: I don't like playing those games because how are you going to classify it? If you're going to call me country, why would it automatically be traditional country? Am I not as contemporary country as anybody in the field?
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ALL AROUND COWBOY")
CROCKETT: (Singing) He remembers the thrill of being a winner in the days of his first rodeo.
HIGHT: Crockett was up for a Grammy in 2024 for best Americana album. That's where plenty of artists with rootsy reference points landed in years past. But Crockett finds it disorienting to be viewed as any sort of genre figurehead. When we spoke, he was wrestling with whether to submit either of his eligible albums to the Grammys. The first five traditional country album nominees will be announced tomorrow, and Sunny Sweeney says that, in itself, is a win even if her album, "Rhinestone Requiem," isn't among them.
SWEENEY: I have been fighting for 20 years, musically, to feel recognized. And I mean, people like myself, not just, aww, I want to be recognized. I just want my type of country music to be recognized.
HIGHT: For NPR News, I'm Jewly Hight in Nashville.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "AS LONG AS THERE'S A HONKY TONK")
SWEENEY: (Singing) I rode my old Gibson Dove right... Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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