Since its inception in 1964, the Grammy for best album notes has been awarded to just three women. Davis, who won in 1993 for an Aretha Franklin boxed set, was the first.
By Daphne A. Brooks March 12, 2021
If it’s Grammy season, it’s time for the annual attention paid to what many see as the Recording Academy’s longstanding and well-known diversity challenges, its preponderance for awarding Black artists in “niche” rather than mainstream categories, and its poor track record acknowledging the contributions of women across the board.
Here’s a prime example: best album notes. Since its inception in 1964, this Grammy has been awarded to a total of three women. The first was the polymathic artist and critic Thulani Davis, who broke that glass ceiling in 1993 when she wonfor her luminous and sweeping essay accompanying the Aretha Franklin boxed set “Queen of Soul — The Atlantic Recordings.”
The only other Black woman to win in this category, the Los Angeles music critic and cultural historian Lynell George, sees this gender imbalance as one involving legibility in the arts-writing profession more broadly. (Watch Lynell talk about her new book about Octavia Butler, “A Handful of Earth, A Handful of Sky”.)
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