Bruno Mars & Mark Ronson Win Grammy For ‘Best Pop Duo/Group Performance’

Taylor Swift’s move to pop from country paid off in a big way with Swift taking home the top honor of the evening with her “1989” album winning Album Of The Year.

Best pop duo/group performance: “Uptown Funk”, Mark Ronson featuring Bruno Mars.

Ed Sheeran’s Thinking Out Loud, co-written with Amy Wadge took home both Song of the Year and Best Pop Solo Performance. His album To Pimp A Butterfly won the first award presented on the telecast, Best Rap Album, while his song “Alright” won Best Rap Performance and Best Rap Song.

Other performers include Swift, Lamar, The Weeknd, Adele, Justin Bieber, Ellie Goulding, Alice Cooper, Pitbull, Skrillex, Little Big Town, Meghan Trainor, Rihanna and the cast of the Broadway hit “Hamilton“.

He won best rap album, rap performance, rap song, rap/sung performance and music video.

Several Memphis and Mid-South artists will spend their Monday night in Los Angeles hoping to hear their name called as a victor at the Grammy awards.

Stevie Wonder and Pentatonix honored the late Maurice White of Earth, Wind & Fire with an a cappella version of “That’s the Way of the World”. Yet her album of the year win – the second of her career in that category – was a particularly timely triumph.

The nominations for the 58th annual Grammy Awards, though, were pitched as something of a showdown between pop and hip-hop. Grammy voters are allowed to self-select the categories they vote in. The latter win also means that local engineer Matt Ross-Spang – a Sun Studio alum, now at the Phillips Recording Service – who worked on the Isbell album in Nashville, will earn a trophy. “We didn’t think we’d be getting any awards or recognition like this”. Lead singer Brittany Howard, during a performance of “Don’t Wanna Fight“, conveyed more power and emotion in just her voice than the noisy Hollywood Vampires supergroup of Alice Cooper, Johnny Depp and Joe Perry did with a mess of tattoos, flames, flashing lights and loud guitars. You can read the full list of nominees here.

Collaborative performances were one of the themes of the Grammys: Carrie Underwood sang with Sam Hunt; Ellie Goulding and Andra Day performed; and while Demi Lovato, John Legend, Luke Bryan and Tyrese sang with Lionel Richie to honor the icon.