Jimmy Carter, Matthew Perry, Barbra Streisand and More Grammy Front-Runners for Best Audio Book
Barbra Streisand is among the top contenders for a Grammy nomination for best audio book, narration, and storytelling recording category for the audiobook of her long-awaited memoir, My Name Is Barbra. That was also the title of her first TV special in 1965, for which she won a Primetime Emmy (outstanding individual achievements in entertainment – actors and performers), and a companion album for which she won a Grammy (best vocal performance, female).
Streisand received a life achievement award at the Screen Actors Guild Awards on Feb. 24, one of many such awards she has won. At the Grammys, she is one of just two women (Aretha Franklin is the other) to have won both a lifetime achievement award and a Grammy legend award.
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This category usually yields one of most eclectic groups of nominees on the Grammy ballot – and so it will likely be again this year. The two most certain nominees would appear to be former president Jimmy Carter’s Last Sundays in Plains: A Centennial Celebration and Matthew Perry’s Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing. On Oct. 1, Carter became the first U.S. president in history to reach the age of 100. Perry died in October 2023 at age 54 after a long struggle with drug dependency – “the big terrible thing” in the title of his memoir.
This would be Carter’s 10th nomination in the category, which would extend his record as the person with the most nods in the history of the category (which dates to the first Grammy ceremony in 1959). Should he win, it would be his fourth win in the category, which would enable him to break out of a tie with poet Maya Angelou as the person with the most wins in the category. Carter previously won for Our Endangered Values (2007), A Full Life: Reflections at 90 (2016) and Faith: A Journey for All (2019).
Perry received five Primetime Emmy nominations – including one for his iconic role as Chandler Bing on Friends.
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has a good chance at a nomination for The Art of Power. She would become the first current or former House Speaker to be nominated in this category. Grammy voters lean Democratic and this would give them a chance to salute the longtime leader, who was the first woman elected as House Speaker. She served from 2007-11 and again from 2019-23.
Questlove is a strong contender with Hip-Hop Is History. The hip-hop icon has been nominated twice in this category, with Creative Quest (2019) and Music Is History (2023). Questlove won both an Oscar and a Grammy for directing the acclaimed documentary, Summer of Soul.
And that’s how fast five slots fill up. There are many other strong contenders on the entry list of 145 entries should any of these presumed front-runners fall short.
Jill Biden‘s Willow the White House Cat could easily make it. Former first ladies Hillary Rodham Clinton (as she was known when she won) and Michelle Obama each won in this category. (Obama won twice.) Many Grammy voters will want to salute the Bidens as Joe Biden’s presidency winds down. But this particular audiobook may seem a little slight. Some voters may prefer to wait for the audiobook of her expected memoir chronicling her life in the public eye.
Dolly Parton’s Behind the Seams: My Life in Rhinestones could also make the grade. The country queen was nominated in at least one category in 36 of the Grammys’ first 66 years, a remarkable show of sustained voter appeal. She has been nominated in each of the last five years. But she has yet to be nominated in this category.
Three past winners in this category are on this year’s entry list. In addition to former president Carter, they are TV hosts Rachel Maddow and Stephen Colbert. Maddow is entered with Prequel: An American Fight Against Fascism; Colbert with Life, a collab with Father John Quigley.
Maddow won in this category in 2021 with Blowout: Corrupted Democracy, Rouge State Russia and the Richest, Most Destructive Industry on Earth. (It didn’t win for Snappiest Title.) Colbert won in 2014 for America Again: Re-becoming the Greatness We Never Weren’t, from the period when he was parodying a right-wing, blowhard commentator on The Colbert Report.
Mariah Carey’s A Portrait of a Portrait could be a contender, though Carey hasn’t been nominated in any category since 2008.
Britney Spears didn’t narrate the audiobook for her best-selling memoir The Woman in Me. Oscar-nominated actress Michelle Williams did, and is entered here. Fun Fact: The Woman in Me topped the New York Times Hardcover Non-Fiction best-seller list, blocking My Name Is Barbra from reaching the top spot.
My Name Is Barbra isn’t the only case where a music star repurposed one of their old titles. Michael McDonald is entered with his audiobook What a Fool Believes, which he titled after The Doobie Brothers’ classic, which won Grammys for record and song of the year in 1979.
Many other titles by musicians are on the list, including George Clinton’s …And Your Ass Will Follow; Willow Smith’s Black Shield Maiden; gospel star Tasha Cobbs Leonard’s Do It Anyway: Don’t Give Up Before It Gets Good; Geddy Lee’s My Effin’ Life; Thurston Moore’s Sonic Life; Debbie Harry, Chris Stein, Romy Ashby & Dennis Bousikaris’s Under a Rock; Tegan and Sara’s Under My Control; Jeff Tweedy’s World Within a Song: Music That Changes My Life and Life That Changed My Music; Jessie Reyez’s Words of a Goat Princess; John McEuen’s The Newsman: A Man of Record; Geri Halliwell-Horner’s Rosie Frost and the Falcon Queen; and Jim Wilson’s Tuned In: Memoirs of a Piano Man – Behind-The-Scenes with Music Legends and Finding the Artist Within.
There are a number of titles by people from the worlds of politics and media on the list, including Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Be Useful: Seven Tools for Life; Brett Kavanaugh accuser Christine Blasey Ford’s One Way Back; Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s True Gretch; Doris Kearns Goodwin & Bryan Cranston’s An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s and Ali Velshi’s Small Acts of Courage.
Three past winners for best comedy album are on the entry list here. In addition to Colbert, they are Tiffany Haddish and Whoopi Goldberg. Haddish is entered with I Curse You With Joy. Goldberg has two entries on the list, Bits and Pieces and Camino Ghosts.
Grammy, Emmy and Tony winner Cynthia Erivo is entered with Children of Anguish and Anarchy. Charlamagne tha God, who was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame in 2020 as a member of The Breakfast Club, is entered with Get Honest or Die Lying. Nicole Avant, a former U.S. ambassador to the Bahamas (and the daughter of Clarence and Jacqueline Avant), is entered with Think You’ll Be Happy.
Works by TV stars on the list include Henry Winkler’s Being Henry; Dan Aykroyd’s Blues Brothers: The Arc of Gratitude; Michael Richards’ Entrances and Exits; Julianne Hough’s Everything We Never Knew; RuPaul’s The House of Hidden Meanings; John Stamos’ If You Would Have Told Me; Mo Rocca’s Roctogenarians; Dr. Phil’s We’ve Got Issues (he’s listed as Phillip C. McGraw, PHD); Bill Maher’s What This Comedian Said Will Shock You; Patrick Stewart’s Making It So: A Memoir; and George Takei’s My Lost Freedom: A Japanese American World War II Story.
Three-time Oscar nominee Laura Linney is entered with Summer, 1976, a collab with Jessica Hecht. Other works by film stars on the list include Billy Dee Williams’ What Have We Here?: Portraits of a Life and Rebel Wilson’s Rebel Rising: A Memoir.
Sports figures on the list include Andia Winslow with Brittney Griner’s Coming Home and Deion Sanders’ Elevate and Dominate: 21 Ways to Win On and Off the Field.
And did we mention that novelist Salman Rushdie is on the list with Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder? We told you the list was eclectic.
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So, which five titles have the best chance to be nominated? Here’s my prediction (alphabetically by title): Nancy Pelosi’s The Art of Power, Matthew Perry’s Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing, Questlove’s Hip-Hop Is History, Jimmy Carter’s Last Sundays in Plains: A Centennial Celebration, Barbra Streisand’s My Name Is Barbra.
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