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Terry Lickona talks about Grammy tribute to Whitney Houston
(Jennifer Hudson performs a tribute to Whitney Houston at the Grammy Awards. ASSOCIATED PRESS)Early Saturday, a member of the Recording Academy staff approached “Austin City Limits” producer Terry Lickona, who was in Los Angeles to co-produce Sunday night’s Grammy awards, with some sad news. Whitney Houston had died.
The announcement hadn’t been made public yet, and it shocked the Grammy staff and musicians working on the annual award show. “There was a few minutes of shock, with the news coming at a time when everybody was just riding high,” Lickona said. “We had rehearsed Paul McCartney’s finale just moments before. Adele had just rehearsed as well.”
As Coldplay, Rihanna and the Foo Fighters continued to rehearse during what was already a tight schedule, the staff went to work planning a tribute to Houston. With a number of artists wanting to take part, Lickona’s co-producer Ken Ehlirch put a call out to Jennifer Hudson. Rickey Minor, who works as the musical director for both the Grammys and “The Tonight Show,” worked with Hudson late into the night Saturday on a rendition of “I Will Always Love You.” Because of the other rehearsals, they weren’t able to work through it on stage until just before the ceremony Sunday.
“Jennifer struggled to get through that rehearsal,” Lickona said. “It was so emotional she had to do a couple different takes.”
The addition of Hudson’s tribute wasn’t the only change made on short notice. An entirely new opening script was written for LL Cool J, who hosted the ceremony. The rapper and actor wrote the prayer dedicated to Houston he recited at the opening of the show, Lickona said. As for the different mentions of Houston by performers and presenters throughout the night, Lickona said that everyone involved was allowed to say what they felt was appropriate. “We knew that almost everybody would make some reference. We left it up to them to say what they needed to say. Some people had more to say than others, and each spoke in their own way,” Lickona said.
Bonniebear? Aside from the tribute to Houston, one of the other more talked about parts of the Grammy show Sunday was Bon Iver’s win in the best new artist category. Bon Iver frontman Justin Vernon had previously made news by turning down an invite from the Grammys to perform a duet because he wouldn’t be able to play his own music. His acceptance speech Sunday was a mix of gratitude, commentary and a bit of humor as he referred to the win as a “sweet hook-up.”
“What you saw was Justin,” said Phil Waldorf, who lives in Austin and is a partner in the Dead Oceans record label with the people who run Jagjaguar, the label that released Bon Iver’s album. “He’s an incredibly honest guy, I think he’s genuinely humbled and surprised by all of the attention. It’s the rare case of the nice guy wins.”
With the Arcade Fire’s best album win last year, Bon Iver’s Grammy marks the second year in a row an independent artist caught some by surprise. “I have to think it’s more of a result of social media, with people being able to communicate about this stuff in high speed,” Waldorf said.
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