Obama nominated for Grammy
Thursday, December 8, 2005
Printable FormatBy Jeff Zeleny
Chicago Tribune
WASHINGTON -- Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) was nominated Thursday for a Grammy Award, joining the ranks of Mariah Carey, Kanye West, Bruce Springsteen and a host of artists recognized for their musical genius.
But when the Grammys are handed out early next year, Obama will not be competing against musicians or songwriters. His nomination comes under a different category: Best Spoken Word Album.
The senator turned his autobiography, "Dreams From My Father," into an audio book that was released earlier this year. His narration of his own life story earned him one of five spots in a somewhat obscure field known as Grammy Category 77.
The other nominees in the Spoken Word category include Garrison Keillor for "The Adventures of Guy Noir;" Al Franken for "The Al Franken Show Party Album;" Sean Pean for "Bob Dylan Chronicles - Volume One;" George Carlin for "When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?"
The Grammy nominations will be announced Feb. 8 in Los Angeles.
While many of the singers received multiple nominations -- including eight for Carey -- Obama was the only senator on the long list of nominees released Thursday in New York.
His autobiography, originally published in 1995, was re-released last year after he delivered the keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention. The book is now in its 18th printing with 554,484 copies in circulation.
His audio version of the book is contained on six CDs. He recorded the book during marathon sessions this spring, spending more than 15 hours in a sound booth. As he read the book aloud, he confessed to performing a bit of selective editing, shaving off nearly 50 pages from the original manuscript.
Now, Obama is working on completing his second book. He has conceded that he was behind schedule. In an interview this week, when pressed on how it was going, he said: "Don't ask."