Grammy and Music Awards: Categories and Indian Winners

The correct answer is B, Pandit Ravi Shankar. The sitar maestro won the Grammy in 1968 for Best Chamber Music Performance for the album West Meets East, which he recorded with the violinist Yehudi Menuhin, making him the first Indian to receive the award. He later won further Grammys and was given the Recording Academy's Lifetime Achievement Award in 2013. Option A is wrong because Ustad Zakir Hussain won later, in 1992, with Mickey Hart for Planet Drum. Option C is wrong because A. R. Rahman's two Grammys came in 2010 for Slumdog Millionaire, more than forty years after Ravi Shankar. Option D is wrong because Pandit Bhimsen Joshi, the Kirana gharana vocalist, received the Bharat Ratna and the Sangeet Natak Akademi honours but never a Grammy. Fix the pair Ravi Shankar and 1968 in memory.

The correct answer is C, the Recording Academy. Its formal name is the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, and its voting members are musicians, producers, recording engineers and other professionals of the American recording industry. Option A is wrong because the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences gives the Academy Awards, that is the Oscars, which honour cinema and not recordings. Option B is wrong because the Royal Swedish Academy of Music is associated with the Polar Music Prize of Sweden, a different honour that Ravi Shankar received in 1998. Option D is wrong because the British Academy of Film and Television Arts gives the BAFTA awards in the United Kingdom; the leading British music awards are the BRIT Awards instead. A useful memory hook is that the Grammy belongs to recording, the Oscar to film and the BAFTA to British film and television.

The correct answer is B, Song of the Year. This category honours the composition itself, that is the words and the music, so the trophy goes to the songwriter or composer rather than to the person who sang or produced the track. Option A is wrong because Record of the Year honours a single track as a finished recording and is given to the performing artist along with the producer and the engineer. Option C is wrong because Album of the Year honours a complete album and is shared by the artist and the album production team. Option D is wrong because Best New Artist is given to a performer who broke through during the eligibility year and has nothing to do with writing. The line to memorise is simple: Record rewards the performance of a track, Song rewards the writing of it.

The correct answer is B, Slumdog Millionaire. Rahman took one Grammy for the compilation soundtrack album of the film and a second, shared with the lyricists Gulzar and Tanvi Shah, for the song Jai Ho; through that second award Tanvi Shah became the first Indian woman to win a Grammy. The same film had already brought Rahman two Academy Awards in 2009. Option A is wrong because Roja, his debut film score of 1992, brought him the National Film Award for Best Music Direction but no Grammy. Option C is wrong because Lagaan was nominated for the Academy Award in the foreign language film category but did not win a Grammy for its music. Option D is wrong because the score of Life of Pi was composed by Mychael Danna, not by Rahman.

The correct answer is C, Best World Music Album. Planet Drum, a percussion project led by Mickey Hart with Zakir Hussain among its players, won in 1992 the very first Grammy ever given in that newly created category. Option A is wrong because Best New Age Album is the category in which Ricky Kej won for Winds of Samsara and later for Divine Tides, a different stream of the awards. Option B is wrong because Best Contemporary Instrumental Album is a separate category, one in which Zakir Hussain won much later in his career. Option D is wrong because Best Global Music Performance is a modern renaming of the world music stream and did not exist in 1992. Remember the chain: Planet Drum, 1992, Mickey Hart and Zakir Hussain, the first world music Grammy.

The correct answer is B, 1959. The Recording Academy held its first Grammy ceremony on 4 May 1959 at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Los Angeles, and it honoured the recordings released during 1958. The trophy handed out that evening was the small gilded gramophone that still gives the award its name. Option A is wrong because in 1949 the recording industry was still using the older trade listings and the Academy itself had not yet been formed. Option C is wrong because 1969 is a decade too late; by then Pandit Ravi Shankar had already won his first Grammy, in 1968. Option D is wrong because 1979 falls two decades after the first ceremony. A handy anchor is that the Grammys began in the same era as colour television in the United States, nearly thirty years after the Academy Awards for cinema.

The correct answer is B, the Akademi Fellowship, called Ratna Sadasya. The Sangeet Natak Akademi, the national academy for music, dance and drama set up by a government resolution in 1952 and inaugurated in January 1953, gives its annual awards widely but reserves the Fellowship as its highest distinction, limited to a small fixed number of living artists at any one time. Option A is wrong because the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award, though prestigious, ranks below the Fellowship. Option C is wrong because the Kalidas Samman is a state honour instituted by Madhya Pradesh in 1980 and is not given by the Akademi at all. Option D is wrong for the same reason: the Tansen Samman is a Madhya Pradesh award for Hindustani classical music, presented at the Tansen Samaroh in Gwalior.

The correct answer is B, Madhya Pradesh. The award is named after Tansen, the celebrated musician of Akbar's court who is associated with Gwalior, and it is presented at the Tansen Samaroh, the annual music festival held at Gwalior in that state. The same state government instituted the Kalidas Samman in 1980 and the Lata Mangeshkar Award for light music, so Madhya Pradesh is the correct answer for a whole cluster of music honours. Option A is wrong because Uttar Pradesh gives the Yash Bharati and other state honours but not the Tansen Samman. Option C is wrong because Maharashtra, though central to Hindustani music through the Gwalior and Kirana traditions, does not give this particular award. Option D is wrong because Rajasthan is not connected with the Tansen Samaroh.

The correct answer is A, the Madras Music Academy. The Academy in Chennai confers the Sangeetha Kalanidhi on the musician who presides over its annual December music season, and the title is treated as the highest distinction a Carnatic musician can receive. Option B is wrong because the Sangeet Natak Akademi is the national academy for music, dance and drama and gives its own awards and Fellowship, which cover all Indian traditions rather than Carnatic music alone. Option C is wrong because the Sahitya Akademi is the national academy of letters and honours writers in the recognised Indian languages. Option D is wrong because the Lalit Kala Akademi is the national academy of fine arts and deals with painting, sculpture and graphic art. Keep the three national akademis separate: Sangeet Natak for performing arts, Sahitya for literature, Lalit Kala for fine arts.

The correct answer is B, M. S. Subbulakshmi. The Carnatic vocalist was conferred the Bharat Ratna in 1998, becoming the first musician to receive the country's highest civilian honour; she had earlier been the first Indian musician to win the Ramon Magsaysay Award, in 1974. Option A is wrong because Pandit Ravi Shankar received the Bharat Ratna the following year, in 1999, so he came second among musicians. Option C is wrong because Lata Mangeshkar, the playback singer, was honoured in 2001, three years after Subbulakshmi, and she had earlier received the Dadasaheb Phalke Award in 1989. Option D is wrong because the shehnai maestro Ustad Bismillah Khan also received the honour in 2001. The order worth memorising is Subbulakshmi, then Ravi Shankar, then Lata Mangeshkar and Bismillah Khan together.