Let's Lobby the Grammy Foundation for Lifetime Achievement Award for Yes

[Insane Teacher]

I don't know about you, but I personally believe that Yes should receive a lifetime achievement award from the Grammy Foundation. Perhaps we can help. Here's how.

The Grammy Foundation is a national organization based in Santa Monica, California that coordinates with numerous regional offices around the country to promote music, host the awards ceremony, and organize a variety of programs around the country each year. It is too late for Yes this year, but I certainly think they deserve a lifetime achievement award and perhaps we can help make this happen.

The telephone number for the National office is 310-392-3777, and its e-mail address for requesting information is info@grammyfoundation.org. I suggest that Yesfans call and or e-mail the national foundation for information about who to contact to share our feelings about Yes.

Also, the following is a link to the Grammy Foundation's Membership pages, which provides the e-mail addresses for each of the Foundation's regional offices.

http://grammy.aol.com/memberservices/

I recommend that we each e-mail all of the regional offices and share our personal thoughts about Yes and why they deserve a lifetime achievement award. I think, from a strategic standpoint, that it is very important that these e-mails be respectful and not critical of the Academy. I recommend that they be positive about Yes, in keeping with Yes's music.

These are my current thoughts about the Grammy Foundation. Now I am going to do some research about the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Thanks Insane Teacher. Ok troops your assignments have been set.

[Q]

This idea has a lot of merit but i am wondering if political difficulties may arise in acknowledging progressive rock, as an outgrowth of the Jethro Tull flap a while back ...

[Insane Teacher]

What was the Jethro Tull flap.

It is certainly possible that politics could prevent this from happening. But why not try. Sending one e-mail to all the addresses probably would take each of us less than one half hour. The worst that could possibly happen is that the Grammy Foundation ignores us or says no. At least we tried. From my standpoint, I view Yes and its music as a gift. To me, this effort is my thanks.

[Q]

Insane Teacher, you are absolutely right --- an extremely worthy effort and certainly a way of saying "thanks"

The "Tull" flap was a slap in the face of progressive after it received unexpected acknowledgment --- it was a while back, don't remember the year -- Jethro Tull in an upset took the Grammy from a certain bunch of talented but arrogant heavy metal poseurs, who won the award the following year and said, in their acceptance speech, with deep sarcasm, "We'd like to thank Jethro Tull for not doing an album this year ..."

which makes me think that this would give the Grammy people pause about giving a nod to progressive rock again ...

Insane Teacher you are correct. Others should not be dissuaded from helping out our guys. That is our thanks to them.

[Insane Teacher]

Before we start shooting off e-mails, I suggest that we share for the forum our knowledge about Yes's objective lifetime achievements. For example, I believe they won a Grammy in 1984 for best instrumental for Cinema. Although not pop oriented, they hit the charts numerous times. They have at least one number one song, Owner. How many times have they hit the charts and for what songs. How many albums were Gold or platinum albums. How many people have watched them live, can we get statistics. I think they were voted best rock group in the early 1970s. How active are they in good causes. I think Jon is. There must be many other objective facts we could share about Yes and their contribution to music and our society.

Of course our own subjective feelings are important too. i look forward to your thoughts.

Insane Teacher, you're hot today! Good ideas.

Ok everyone, get your thinking caps on.

[Trooper1129]

Insane Teacher,

Some friends of mine have been running a Yes Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Campaign for a few years now. Unfortunately, it seems that the induction committee doesn't include any Yes fans.

Below is a link to the Yes R&RHoF Campaign site. My friends have worked diligently on the campain from 1999, well into 2000 and then got sidetracked due to working up a new Yes Club site.

http://www.minddrive.net/yes/open.html


Of course it's still a worthy cause and more letters of recommendation to the R&RHoF committee can't hurt. It just seems to be an uphill battle.

Trooper

[Insane Teacher]

Thanks for the info. Perhaps your group already has gathered key information. If we can get good reliable information on Yes and its past achievements, it could be very interesting and perhaps persuasive to compare this information to the objective achievements of past Lifetime Achievement Winners and/or Rock Hall Inductees.

If we could get some data on past inductees, I am almost certain we could assemble interesting and persuasive comparison. For starters, I doubt that there are many musical groups that have released albums of new music in 5 consecutive or different decades. That, in and of itself, is amazing.

Here are some things that I suggest we should research about Yes and other past winners and inductees:

1. List of albums/CDs, tapes, & DVDs with release dates and sales data for each

2. Number of gold or platinum albums or singles

3. Number and names of songs or albums that made the music ratings charts in any category, including any number one ratings in any country in any category.

4. The number and dates of concert tours and ticket sales data for each tour

5. Awards, honors Yes has received or any other objective achievements (including past Grammy or other music award nominations and awards).

6. The contribution of Yes and its members to music, the development of modern music, and the promotion of modern music and music education.

7. The participation of Yes or its members in chairitable, civic, or other public causes.

I am sure you all can come up with a lot of additional and better ideas. If anyone has any good reliable sources for such information, I encourage you to post it here.

[Insane Teacher]

Here is a link to the Grammy Foundation's Website that lists past winners of the Lifetime Achievement Award.

http://grammy.aol.com/awards/lifetime.html

Most are given to individuals. The following rock groups have won lifetime achievement awards:

1. The Beatles;

2. The Beach Boys;

3. The Rolling Stones; and

4. The Who

For all you statisticians, here's where to post all the info that Insane Teacher is requesting. It would be nice to have them all in one place so we could have our facts correct and come from a united front when we write our individual proposals.

And thanks Trooper1129. It would be nice if your group could share their data with us.

[nightliner]

I don't mean to put a damper on your idea...I would love to see it happen, but I don't think sending emails to their committee will help. Yes has only ad one hit single, and never had a number one selling lp. That does not give them much of a "leg up". And while their sales have been good, they do not compare to the sales of bands like The Beatles, Stones, The Who, or the Beach Boys. Of course, I have no stats to substantiate those claims, but I believe it to be the case.

As for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, they probably have a better chance there. However, they may have missed their best opportunity. It is my understanding that when the hall first started, Ahmed Ertegan was one of the voters on their election committee. For those who do not recognize that name, he was the president of Atlantic Records when Yes first started and was a big supporter of the band. He is no longer involved with the hall of fame.

I would love to see Yes get all the recognition they deserve, but I think we have to accept the fact that their fan base has never been that big, nor have they been a favorite of music critics.

[groovecake]

Let's get our facts straight about the Jethro Tull Grammy award.

Tull won the award in 1988 in the category of "Heavy Metal." Now...I think we can stipulate that 1988 was a good decade past Tull's prime era and that they don't even qualify as "heavy metal" at all!

The flap and the dig that Metallica tossed out was tossed more at the Grammy voters than at Tull. Awarding Jethro Tull the grammy in 1988 was just further proof that the Grammy awards are out of touch.

(My favorite band "Steely Dan" won best album last year and even I thought that was about 21 years too late.)

[groovecake]

I don't know how many of you are Steely Dan fans...but you may not be aware of how Steely Dan has handled the R&R Hall of Fame (which they were inducted into last year).

From their first year of eligibility, the Dan addressed the issue on their website in an unbelievably hilarious series of essays and e-mails!

To make a long story short, in the two years they were eligible before they were inducted, they made an incredible mockery of the R&RHOF - both the people involved in it and the mere idea of the institution.

THEN...

They got selected and their acceptance speech consisted of the following:

"Thank you. Um...we've pretty much said everything we have to say about this on our website...so...any questions?"



"Ok....we'll ask you one. Who was the original drummer for the Mothers of Invention?"


THEN...

Two days later, they posted a mock-ebay page on their webpage auctioning off Becker's statuette! Part of the text was...

"Ultra-rare commemorative trophy from self-styled "official" music honorary organization, issued to quasi-prominent and appropriately sheepish musician."

and...

"Representing as it does a craven lapse of taste, judgment and self respect on his part, the owner is eager to be rid of this appalling artifact ASAP. Cheaply made and intrinsically worthless in all important ways, this little baby will nevertheless be obscenely expensive to its next owner - making it the ultraperfect collectible icon of its age."

For all the great bits, check out

http://www.steelydan.com/hof.html



Gotta love Becker and Fagen. You want real rebel attitude in your rock stars...not fake rock star posturing? Try Steely Dan!

I gotta hand it to them, groovecake. That was sweet.

[nightliner]

www.infoplease.com/ipea/A0151020.html

The above page has a list of the top 200 selling albums of all time.

[RobAdams]

Thanks for a great link, Nightliner. Sadly, I saw no YES on the list. I'll bet they're in the top 300 though, at least once.

[RobAdams]

Wasn't Jimmy Carl Black the original drummer for The Mothers?

[Yes Oz]

Originally posted by Insane Teacher

Most are given to individuals. The following rock groups have won lifetime achievement awards:

1. The Beatles;

2. The Beach Boys;

3. The Rolling Stones; and

4. The Who [/b]

After seeing this post can't help think that no matter what WE ALL think of Yes, their music, the contibution to the music world etc judging by the past award winners I don't think we could possible argue a case for Yes to be included.

Before you all shoot me and ban me from the site let me first say that Yes (to me) are so far in front of these groups that you'd need a very powerful telescope to see them coming second.....but if your looking at things like Album sales, fan base, community awareness, then these four groups do leave Yes for dead. and that hurts to say this. I will take this to the grave that I can't understand how others can't see what I see in Yes. It is totally unbelieveable. But it is a FACT. and for that alone I could not see them getting a lifetime award. Don't get me wrong I will give anything a go and the more facts we can gather the better and I will certainly play my part. But by the same token I will not hold my breath.

Sorry guys just trying to put a realistic light on this subject.