We’re officially coming up on Grammy season — but right before that, in this week between Christmas and New Year’s, it’s Grammy commemoration season, thanks to a couple of two-hour throwback specials premiering on CBS. First, on Friday night, comes “Grammy Greats: The Stories Behind the Songs,” dedicated to the winners in the Song of the Year category. Following that on Sunday is “Grammy Greats: The Most Memorable Moments,” a show largely comprised of some of the unusual or remarkable duet pairings that have been put together for the annual awards telecast over the years, along with singular moments.
Both specials are the handiwork of producer Ken Ehrlich, who bring serious enyclopedic and institutional knowledge to these “clip shows” — he was behind every Grammys telecast (bar one) from 1980 through 2020. Besides finding the right excerpts and stories to tell, Ehrlich interviewed many of the artists that are featured on the two specials, including Billie Eilish and Finneas, Joni Mitchell, Dua Lipa, Sting, Elton John, John Mayer, Annie Lennox, St. Vincent, Bonnie Raitt, LL Cool J, Luke Combs, Kenny Loggins and Brandi Carlile.
The weekend’s twin Grammy specials complete a trifecta in which Ehrlich produced three shows that are airing on CBS in the course of one week; the first was an Andrea Bocelli Christmas special that premiered on Christmas Eve. It’s not quite a first for him, to be responsible for that much concentrated starpower in one relative fell swoop, but it’s the first time he’s had quite that much content on the air at once in 25 years, as he explains.
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Ehrlich sat down to talk with Variety about “Grammy Greats: The Stories Behind the Songs,” which bows Friday at 9 p.m. ET/PT, and the “Memorable Moments” show, which premieres Sunday in the same time slot. (Gayle King cohosts both specials; country star Mickey Guyton shares duties on the former, while Jimmy Jam is the cohost of the latter.)
CBS is not going to bill this as Ken Ehrlich Week, but with your three specials on the network in less than seven days, maybe we are free to unofficially call it that.
I’d stay away from that. That sounds so bad! But I will tell you that that there is a precedent. In Thanksgiving 1999, we did three big specials on one weekend — Ricky Martin, Shania and Celine. We did multiple specials with all of them, but the one with Ricky was his first, and I remember (the period) because we opened the show in Liberty State Park across from the Twin Towers, which were still up. So that was three one-hour shows in one weekend.
The Andrea Bocelli special you did that ran Christmas Eve was done in something of a hurry, as we understand it. But you must have had quite a while to do the two Grammy commemorative specials, there are so many stars you got to sit down to do interviews for those.
The Grammy shows we did over the summer. We had done Elton (John’s Gershwin Prize special for PBS in April or May, and then in July we started doing these Grammy clip shows. They weren’t hard to do, but they were labor-intensive, because for the two shows I probably did 15 or 16 interviews, maybe more, and most of them were in person. Sting was in person, John Mayer was in person, Billie Eilish and Finneas… and Annie Lennox, Kenny Loggins, Michael McDonald, St. Vincent, Mark Ronson, all in person. There were a few who we interviewed virtually — Dua Lipa, Lady A, Keith Urban. It filled the summer, and we delivered the two shows in early September. They were fun to do.
The Bocelli show didn’t exist until about five weeks ago. We just pitched it as… I don’t want to say as a whim. But I was talking to Branden Chapmen, my primary contact with the Academy now, and I said, “Hey, do you think they’d be interested in Bocelli?” And we set up a call with the network and they bought it right away. And then I had to go to Bocelli, who I’ve worked with before and really enjoy, and get them to say yes to doing a show literally in a period of three and a half weeks, we put it together. Fortunately, they had these two sold-out concerts booked, one in Vegas and one here in L.A., and we basically moved in on both shows. So I couldn’t get some of the camera angles and other stuff we would normally want because we basically built that one-hour special on top of what his concert was. We also added in a number of Christmas songs that were not gonna be in his regular repertoire for those two concerts.
At one point I thought there was some talk about having one of the Grammy shows air somewhere around the nominations and the other one closer to or even after the Grammys. But someone woke up and said, “Hey, let’s put ’em together” (on the weekend between Christmas and New Year’s). So I just basically said, “Hey, whatever you want.”
The two Grammy shows both involve a lot of memories of segments you did for the Grammy live telecasts over the years. But I know the one you did for Song of the Year is close to your heart. What was special about having Song of the Year category be the peg for a special, as opposed to Record of the Year, New Artist or any of the other awards you could have commemorated?
Honestly, I’ve always felt that songs were my favorite. I don’t want to say they were my favorite category, but that’s my orientation. From the time I first started listening to music, it was all about the songs. I have the fortunate advantage of having had my first musical experiences be prior to the singer-songwriter era, growing up listening to Elvis and the doo-wop stuff. But when I was in college in the ‘60s ad then loving music as I got married and having kids in the ‘70s, it was that stuff that I really loved. My son was visiting over Thanksgiving and he asked me, “Dad, did you used to sing ‘Sweet Baby James’ to me when I was a baby?” I said, “Absolutely.” And I loved those songs because of the lyrics maybe most of all.
So there’s that background of mine, and combining that with the fact that all these stories behing the songs are so personal, and I had such an involvement with both the writers and the performers, it would only be natural. And the songs that we picked for this show were pretty much handpicked, to be honest with you. There were a few people that just didn’t want to sit down for interviews, but I was actually pleasantly surprised at all of the ones that did.
I love reading about songs. I love talking to artists about songs. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve sat with Elton, and then this year Bernie (Taupin) because of the Gershwin show — it just gave me a whole new reason to get chills down my spine, hearing them talk about these songs, and Bernie in particular talking about the lyrics of these songs. It’s just things I never knew. I mean, we read all those books, but there’s something different about just actually hearing them talk about ’em.
I love the Luther Vandross/Richard Marx segment (about “Dance With My Father”); there was just such love and sincerity there. I continue to quote the last line of that segment, which is “He was more than just a great artist. He was my friend,” and he cries… I loved talking to Billie and Finneas about “What Was I Made For?” There’s just such a throughline there. It started with “What a Fool Believes,” which was my first Grammy show, in 1980. And then we have Mayer talking about “Daughters,” and Alicia (Keys’) “Fallin’”… I can’t imagine there are many people that are going to tune the show in that aren’t gonna know every song that I did a piece about. These songs are ubiquitous. They’re truly part of our DNA.
Actually, Bonnie Raitt’s song, “Just Like That,” which won in 2023, not everyone will know; it wasn’t performed on the telecast that year.
People still sometimes wonder what the difference is between Record of the Year and Song of the Year at the Grammys. But since the latter is really supposed to be focused on the songwriting and not the production, it does allow for some nominees occasionally that were not big hits — like Bonnie’s song, which was a real surprise as a winner. A dramatic ballad about an organ transplant is probably never going to win Record, but somehow it prevailed in Song.
That was a joy for me, to build that segment and string out of the story of that song, which was so emotional and lived on so many planes. I mean, even the payoff of having Dr. (Jill) Biden present her with the award, and then as Bonnie says in the story, three months later — I don’t know whether it was coincidental or not — (President Joe) Biden passed a transplant law. It just again continues to prove to me the power of music, that it’s not just a bunch of words and music. By the way, nothing wrong with that (more ephemeral pop) either, but when it goes beyond…
I did a “Sound Stage” with Bonnie Raitt in 1975. I’ve been in love with her in every way since that time. I didn’t do the show but I actually was very happy with what they did for her on the Kennedy Center Honors show that just ran.
You have Brandi Carlile on the show, talking about some of the historic winners, even though she has not yet won Song of the Year herself.
Brandi Carlile has at least two or three songs that in my mind are as good or better as any song that did win. I mean, “The Story” is one of my favorite songs of all time, and “The Joke” is an amazing song. I included her in the show because I wanted to hear her perspective about songs. It wasn’t just that she’s a great writer, but she not only is self-analytical, but is analytical in terms of being able to talk about other music in an intelligent but emotional way.
I love her so much. Every generation, I picked two or three (favorites), and she’s definitely this one. I don’t know anybody like her. And I don’t want to say I discovered her. Elton and I found her about the same time, with “The Story,” because I remember sitting in New Orleans with him and we would talk about new people. That’s all he cared about. So all of a sudden, Brandi Carlile — we almost said it at the same time, and we both said, we love this woman. And then he told me about how the label really fucked that up and didn’t promote it, they didn’t think she was anything, and they dropped her. I think she talks about it on the show, the journey from “The Story” to “The Joke” and then beyond that to “Right on Time.”
The story of “Dance With My Father” won’t be familiar to everyone. Richard Marx wrote it at the behest of Luther Vandross, who had the title and wanted something to commemorate his father, and Marx had his own grief issues… and then within days of the mixing, Vandross had a stroke. So Celine ended up singing it on the show, after losing her own dad.
I’ve known Richard Marx over the years — never closely, but I thought he was a pretty good writer. It was a compelling way that he told that story. We went to Night Bird Studios, in the basement of whatever that hotel is, and I interviewed him there in a dark room with a piano. And I think it probably was the vibe of that room — that studio combined with the history I have with Luther and just how emotionally involved Richard got in telling the story. It doesn’t always translate on tape, or whatever we use now digitally, but that particular half-hour that I spent with him while he talked about that story and the irony of losing his father and then writing that song and Luther telling his story about his father… I mean, it was just like, God, again, does life imitate art or does art imitate life? And having Celine sing it in a way that was meaningful for her too is kind of the cherry on top of the whole story. Luther had the stroke and couldn’t perform, and I’m pretty sure it was me that said, “Let me see if I can get Celine.” And her father had passed away, so she agreed to do it.
There were times when I was taping these interviews with them where they kept wanting to say “you,” and I kept saying, “No, don’t say ‘you,’ just say ‘producers.’” I didn’t want us to seem too self-aggrandizing.
Having talked about the Song of the Year show, let’s talk about the Grammy Moments special. Did you have anything in that one that felt most special for you to spotlight?
We did a segment about In Memoriam. I know it’s probably morbid to take credit for In Memoriam, but the truth of the matter is, we invented the idea of putting music in the In Memoriam. And it goes back to the Clash tribute that we did (in 2003, after Joe Strummer’s death). Before that, the truth is, there wasn’t time, or we didn’t think there was interest on behalf of a broad, general audience. I never wanted to do an In Memoriam segment. Especially in those days— I think when I first started doing the show, it was two hours. And then shortly after, I think the 25th anniversary, which was 1984, I think that was the first three-hour show. And then it stayed at three, and then it went to three-and-a-half. A lot of people think it’s too long, and there were years that I thought it was too long myself. But I always felt that doing a memorial segment was going to take up valuable time that I could be devoting to something else.
So the only reason I agreed to do it that first time, in 2003, for the Clash, was because I could musicalize it, and it gave me a really good excuse to put Bruce Springsteen, Elvis Costello, Dave Grohl and Little Steven together on a stage. It was spectacular, and then I liked it and said, “OK, we gotta keep doing it.” I remember the ones that a lot of people don’t remember, like when we did Warren Zevon with “Keep Me in Your Heart” and I put together a bunch of singer-songwriters. Then one year I had Bonnie and Billy Preston saluting Ray Charles, and there was another year I had Bonnie and Alicia doing Etta James. So it was fertile, and I loved doing that segment (for the new special).
It’s fun that you have both Dua Lipa and St. Vincent talking about their smoldering medley of “Masseduction”/”One Kiss”, which was on the show right before Dua became really huge.
I love Annie Clark, and her team had been after me to try and do something with St. Vincent, and I wanted to put her on the show but I didn’t have any reason. And then, probably a week or 10 days before the show, all of a sudden Dua Lipa came on my radar. It was like, why don’t I put these two people together? It really could be interesting. Nobody had a clue about what it was gonna be, which was great because there wasn’t time to think about it. I don’t think they started rehearsing until Monday of Grammy week. And out of it came this lovely little kind of… How do I say this and not get myself in trouble? I think “homoerotic” is the wrong word. When I was a kid and I used to read illicit literature, it was “sapphic.” And there was nothing wrong with that, you know? I mean, God knows when I did that in 2019, forget about whether the world was ready for it; it was overdue. I’ll take the hit for the Grammy show for not always being the most advanced or forward-thinking, but I tried, you know; there were times.
Hip-hop wasn’t always a big part of the Grammys in the genres early years, but there is a segment on the Moments show devoted to how it’s become a bigger piece of the pie.
(In earlier years) I don’t want to say I was resistant to hip-hop and rap, but the Grammys for a long time never nominated the right artists anyway, so I was stuck doing Digable Planets. But ultimately I began to embrace it. When Harvey (Mason Jr.) came in, in particular, it became a lot easier to do, and then we did do some of the great things, and Jesse Collins had a lot to do with it too and had some really good ideas. That year that we did the T.I. and MIA and Jay and Kanye, in 2009, it was great fun…. And this show with that epic 15-minute segment that they did on the showlast year, which was really well done. It was a mishmosh, it was a melange, but it was good.
Prince and Beyonce performing together is one of the ultimate Grammy moments, so it was a natural to include that.
I’m glad we did a Prince piece, because he has a very limited but very impactful Grammy history. He had presented a few times where I had him on, but if you think about it, not much before “Baby I’m a Star” with him and Beyonce. Every year I would call the guy and the first thing out of his mouth was, “Do you have $3 million?” I’d say, “No.” “Well, call me next year.” But for the Beyonce segment, he actually called me, and said, “Hey, I wanna be with Beyonce. Can you do anything? I have this great idea.” And that was when I went to Matthew Knowles, and then wound up with Tina at this studio while Beyonce did a photo shoot, and convincing first her mother that she should do this, because she didn’t want to do it. She was up for “Dangerously in Love” that year and said, “Why do I need to perform with Prince?” (instead of getting a solo slot, though she ultimaely got both). But Prince for me was always… it was a quest. He was incredibly enigmatic. I really was fond of him. He would try and be funny with you, you know? Sly is a better word — that’s what he was. So I tried to give that segment a little bit of who he was.
Do you feel like you still care about music as much as you ever did?
It’s not for me to say that I’m relevant, but the reality is that I have as good a time talking to 23-year-old kids or 19-year-old kids as I do 50-year-old people. It’s because, for me, the common language is music. I have the son of a cousin who is 21 and came to the sweetening session for the Bocelli show, and after we finished the session, I said, you wanna go to lunch? And we go to lunch, and this 21-year-old kid and I had the best conversation that I’ve had with anybody in the last month. He’s in a band and he loves to gig and he plays around town. We shouldn’t have that much in common, but we fucking do. I was that way when I was 21 years old, and I still do that now that I’m 80. I don’t think I could talk politics necessarily with a 21-year-old kid — although I probably could. But, you know, I just find people who are interested interesting.
You are still in touch with the spirit of the age when you fell in love with music.
I’ve always been drawn to African American artists. I just have been right from the beginning. That goes back to the doo-wop groups and it goes back to Chuck Berry and Little Richard and the Motown years, the music that I really grew up on. I may have told you the story… When I was a kid, I worked for my dad who owned a textile plant in Cleveland, Ohio. He had all African American employees and I worked with them in the shipping department, in some brutal summers in the ‘50s when there was no air conditioning. I worked there from the time I was about 12 or 13 till I went to college, anyway. And there were these two radio stations in Cleveland we listened to in the shipping department with my two friends, Cliff and Richard — not to be confused with Cliff Richard. Cliff had a toothpick, and Richard had a gold tooth, and they had doo-rags and they were my bosses at the shipping department. And that’s where I first heard blues, and that was the music I grew up on. I also grew up hearing the white versions of everything by the Pat Boones and all of those people. But I loved Black music.
You wrote a personal history of your Grammy experiences as a book in 2007 (“At the Grammys!: Behind the Scenes at Music’s Biggest Night”). Did doing these specials give you a similar sensation, looking back?
To be honest, of course it did, but I don’t want to admit that, because every once in a while I’m in a room with people that are talking about ancient history and I feel sorry for them. We did four shows this year, including Elton and these three Grammy-branded shows, which is not bad for an old guy.
There are four general categories at the Grammys, with Song of the Year obviously being just one. Do you think you and the Academy might hit the other three?
I think there’s a thought, both at the Academy and the network, at least for the next couple years when the Grammys change networks, that if people do watch these couple of shows, we’ll do a few more. And I wouldn’t mind that at all. I enjoy doing them and they’re a lot easier to do than a three-and-a-half-hour live show.
The only thing I thought about… and I didn’t look it up… There’s a lot of duplication between Record and Album of the Year, so frankly I’d have to do a little bit of a studyto see how much the same names are gonna pop up in both those categories.
Actually when we were thinking about these shows, I looked a little bit at country and I looked a little bit at R&B and I thought, hey, there’s some really great performances that were just classic, that I would love to revisit, that didn’t win the album or record or song of the year, but were still great. When people watch ’em, are they as accessible as this show was, or a Record or Album show would be? Maybe, maybe not, but I think they could be fascinating shows. I would love to dig into those catalogs, because there’s so much stuff that we did on that show that nobody ever sees, and no one probably ever will, unless they figure out a way to somehow market them. But many of Grammy’s greatest performances are just undiscovered at this point. I think of a performance we did with Bonnie and Bruce and Allen Toussaint and Dr. John doing “Yes, we Can Can,” the year after Katrina — God, it was unbelievable. So there’s all of that stuff that’s just sitting there. Maybe it’s not as good as I think it was, but they’re truly memorable performances. I’d love to think that as broad as the landscape is now with all these streaming services, there’s got to be a place for these shows.