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In the beginning, there was heaven and earth and the 1st Annual GRAMMY Awards—more or less in that order.

On May 4, 1959, many of music’s elite—including <a href="/grammys/artists/frank-sinatra">Frank Sinatra</a>, Sammy Davis Jr., Dean Martin, Gene Autry, Johnny Mercer, <a href="/grammys/artists/henry-mancini">Henry Mancini</a> and <a href="/grammys/artists/andre-previn">André Previn</a>—gathered for a black-tie dinner and awards presentation inside the Grand Ballroom of the Beverly Hilton. At the same time, other new Academy members were gathering at a function held simultaneously in New York City. “The GRAMMY Awards were a formal event from the beginning and very much in keeping with the times,” says Christine Farnon, who was instrumental in organizing the first show and would go on to become The Academy’s Executive Vice President. “As I recall, no one objected to dressing black-tie back then, though like so much else, that would change eventually.”

But this GRAMMY night, and several to follow, was held in hotel ballrooms on both coasts. The Los Angeles event was emceed by popular political comedian Mort Sahl and featured a musical sketch titled “How South Was My Pacific.” The night was by numerous accounts a significant success. Billboard—then actually still called The Billboard—ran its account of the first night of Music’s Biggest Night with a headline declaring that “Academy Smoothly Moves Into Orbit: First Awards Well-Organized Affair As Top Stars Go On Parade.” The trade magazine even favorably compared the GRAMMY’s debut to the far more established Oscars and Emmys: “It sharply contrasted similar affairs staged by the two older entertainment academies in its precision-like pace in handling the presentations.”

As well organized as the night may have been, from the very start at the GRAMMYs, there would be surprises on GRAMMY night. While Sinatra led all nominees with a grand total of six nominations, he would not turn out to be the night’s biggest winner. Rather the very first Record of the Year and Song of the Year awards both went to “Nel Blu Dipinto Di Blu (Volare)” by Domenico Modugno, while Album of the Year went to The Music from Peter Gunn by Henry Mancini.

As for Sinatra, he fortunately didn’t go home empty-handed. He won his first GRAMMY not for singing, but rather as art director for his Only the Lonely album that won Best Album Cover. And though only 28 categories were presented on this first GRAMMY night—the least ever—the first winners suggested the diversity that would come to mark the GRAMMY Awards, with winners that ranged from <a href="/grammys/artists/ella-fitzgerald">Ella Fitzgerald</a> (Best Vocal Performance, Female, and Best Jazz Performance, Individual) to David Seville and the Chipmunks (Best Comedy Performance and Best Recording For Children, while Best Engineered Record—Non Classical went to Ted Keep for “The Chipmunk Song”), from the Kingston Trio’s “Tom Dooley” (Best County &amp; Western Performance) to the Champ’s “Tequila” (Best Rhythm &amp; Blues Performance).

Much more—in every conceivable way, and some ways still inconceivable—was still to come.

Catch A Falling Star

Witchcraft (Single)

The Chipmunk Song

Nel Blu Dipinto Di Blu (Volare)

Fever (Single)

Record Of The Year

Tchaikovsky: Concerto No. 1, In B-Flat Minor, Op.23 (Album)

Only The Lonely (Album)

Ella Fitzgerald Sings The Irving Berlin Song Book (Album)

Come Fly With Me (Album)

The Music From Peter Gunn

Album Of The Year

Gigi (Single)

Fever

Song Of The Year

I Wish You Love (Single)

Eydie In Love (Single)

Everybody Loves A Lover (Single)

Ella Fitzgerald Sings The Irving Berlin Song Book

Best Vocal Performance, Female

Nel Blu Dipinto Di Blu (Volare) (Single)

Hawaiian Wedding Song (Single)

Best Vocal Performance, Male

Young Man's Lament

Peter Gunn (Album)

Other Worlds, Other Sounds (Album)

Kane Is Able

I Want To Live

Cross Country Suite

Burnished Brass (Album)

Billy May's Big Fat Brass

Best Performance By An Orchestra

Tea For Two Cha Cha

Peter Gunn

Patricia (Album)

Baubles, Bangles And Beads

Basie

Best Performance By A Dance Band

Tom Dooley (Single)

That Old Black Magic

Sing A Song Of Basie

Imagination (Single)

Best Performance By A Vocal Group Or Chorus

Jumpin' With Jonah

Ella Fitzgerald Sings The Duke Ellington Song Book

Dixieland Story

Baubles, Bangles And Beads (Album)

Best Jazz Performance, Individual

Four Freshmen In Person (Album)

Best Jazz Performance, Group

The Future Lies Ahead (Album)

Improvisations To Music (Album)

Green Christmas (Album)

Best Of The Stan Freberg Shows (Album)

Best Comedy Performance

Tom Dooley

Oh, Oh, I'm Falling In Love Again (Single)

Oh Lonesome Me (Single)

Bird Dog (Single)

All I Have To Do Is Dream (Single)

Best Country & Western Performance

The End

Tequila

Patricia

Looking Back

Belafonte Sings The Blues

Best Rhythm & Blues Performance

Come Fly With Me (Single)

Best Arrangement

Stravinsky - Rite Of Spring

Song Of The Nightingale

Gaiete Parisienne (Album)

Duets With A Spanish Guitar

Best Engineered Record (Classical)

Witchcraft

Other Worlds, Other Sounds

Best Engineered Record - Non-Classical

Only The Lonely

Julie (Album)

Ira Ironstrings Plays Music For People With $3.98

For Whom The Bells Toll (Album)

Best Album Cover

Victory At Sea Vol II (Album)

Vanessa

Mahagonny

Best Musical Composition First Recorded And Released In 1958 (Over 5 Minutes Duration)

Victory At Sea Vol II (From NBC Production) (Album)

The Music Man

Flower Drum Song (Album)

Best Original Cast Album (Broadway Or TV)

Gigi

Auntie Mame Sound Track (Album)

The Bridge On The River Kwai (Album)

South Pacific (Original Soundtrack)

I Want To Live (Album)

Best Sound Track Album, Dramatic Picture Score Or Original Cast

The Lady From Philadelphia (Album)

The Best Of The Stan Freberg Shows

Improvisations To Music

Great American Speeches (Album)

2 Interviews Of Our Times (Album)

Best Performance, Documentary Or Spoken Word

Tubby The Tuba

The Witch Doctor

Mommy, Give Me A Drinka Water (Album)

Fun In Shariland (Album)

Childrens' Marching Song (Album)

Best Recording For Children

Stravinsky: Le Sacre Du Printemps (Album)

Rimsky-Korsakoff: Scheherezade (Album)

Prokofiev: Symphony No. 5 In B-Flat Major (Album)

Mahler: Symphony No. 2 In C Minor (Album)

Gaiete Parisienne

Beethoven: Symphony No. 6 In F Major (Album)

Barber: Meditation And Dance Of Vengeance

Best Classical Performance - Orchestra

Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto No. 1 In B Flat Minor, Op. 23

Segovia Golden Jubilee (Last Record In Set)

Saint-Saens: Piano Concerto # 2 (Album)

Rachmaninoff: Rhapsody On A Theme Of Paganini (Album)

Brahms: Piano Concerto # 2 (Album)

Bartók: Concerto For Violin

Best Classical Performance - Instrumentalist (With Concerto Scale Accompaniment)

Segovia Golden Jubilee

Music For The Harp (Album)

Horowitz Plays Chopin (Album)

Beethoven: Sonata No. 9 And Sonata No. 8

Art Of The Harpsichord (Album)

Best Classical Performance - Instrumentalist (Other Than Concerto-Scale Accompaniment)

Ravel: Quartet In F/Debussy: Quartet In G Minor (Album)

Beethoven: Trio In G, Op. 9, No. 1; Beethoven Trio In C Minor, Op. 9, No. 3 (Album)

Beethoven: Trio In E Flat, Op. 3 (Album)

Beethoven: Trio In E Flat And Trio In D Major (Album)

Beethoven: Quartet 130

Best Classical Performance - Chamber Music (Including Chamber Orchestra)

Wagner: Prelude And Liebestod - Tristan And Isolde, Brunnhilde's Immolation, Die Gotterdamerung (Album)

Operatic Recital

Eileen Farrell As Medea (Album)

Duets For Spanish Guitar (Album)

Cherubini: Medea (Album)

Best Classical Performance - Vocal Soloist (With Or Without Orchestra)

Virtuoso

Victoria: Requiem Mass (Album)

Puccini: Madam Butterfly (Album)

Donizetti: Lucia De Lammermoor (Album)

Barber: Vanessa (Album)

Barber Of Seville (Album)

Best Classical Performance - Operatic Or Choral

1st Annual GRAMMY Awards

66th Annual GRAMMY Awards

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