So Celine Dion did not tack her new single onto the end of "At Seventeen" and rumors of Prince joining the Time at the Grammy afterparty at Club Nokia did not come true. All in all, Grammy nominations night was a pleasant exercise - a decent show, a good party and a fabulous museum to explore. Story about the nominations is here.
I had seen the museum before the artifacts were in place - vast majority of the displays were up and running - and it is a considerably different experience than what I first saw. A chilling moment occurred while I was reading a letter from Woody Guthrie regarding what he wanted to appear on the front page of his songbook. Behind me I heard a familiar soft-rock tune and I turned and saw a film of a thin bearded man and the inscription said 'Power." I immediately recognized it as John Hall's ode to solar energy and as the camera pulled back it revealed Jackson Browne and Bonne Raitt as his background singers and I immediately knew it was in Battery Park in New York City at the No Nukes concert. Through a series of flukes and my own anti-nuclear power activism I happened to be on the side of the stage that day. And somehow, in that moment, I became a conduit between Hall, Browne and Guthrie, the link that somehow was central, the audience member who respected and admired those performers. It was a striking 45 seconds late Wednesday night while I sat there and felt that connection, an event that would have never occurred had it not been for that museum exhibit.
I like to think that that visceral effect can be felt by many people who came of age prior to MTV's heyday as music connnected us with history. This was just the occasional reminder. Youths don't quite grasp how importnat musicians and their wrds were to us when we were in our teens and 20s and the access that seemed to randomly come around made those artists made tem that much more human. I rememebr that No Nukes concert fondly. I met Pete Seeger, Jackson Browne and Ralph Nader, played bodyguard for Jane Fonda and Bonnie Raitt and actually stood on the stage while Gil Scott-Heron performed. It was a hell of a day and the Grammy Museum reminded me of it. Thew new venue is already working well - and it does not open until Saturday.

The Time was 94th concert I have attended this year and, thanks to five acts at the Grammy show, the 248th act I have seen. The goal remains 100 shows/300 acts.