Sturgill Simpson is 'having trouble even processing' his Grammy surprise
Sturgill Simpson's surprise nomination Tuesday for Album of the Year at the 59th annual Grammy Awards headlined a huge day for Nashville's booming music industry, which racked up dozens of nods across several genres — assuring Music City will be front and center come February's prime-time show.
With the nomination for his A Sailor’s Guide to Earth, the Americana singer-songwriter is pitted against four of the biggest names in pop music: Beyonce, Adele, Justin Bieber and Drake. Each has sold millions of albums, dwarfing his album’s 142,000 in sales.
Simpson told The Tennessean he was “having trouble even processing” his inclusion in the category. He also imagines he’s not alone.
“I'm sure there's probably a lot of 'Who the (expletive) is Sturgill Simpson?' going on right now,” he said with a laugh.
Simpson’s inclusion in the race for album of the year follows his sharp criticism of certain elements of Nashville's music apparatus.
In August, he took to social media to criticize the Academy of Country Music for creating an award in honor of Merle Haggard, suggesting the organization should instead “drop all the formulaic cannon fodder bull---- they've been pumping down rural America's throat for the last 30 years.”
As the post started to make the media rounds, he added, “I fully realize that as I type this, meetings and conversations are taking place on Music Row to ensure I am blackballed from the industry and that's perfectly fine with me.”
Instead, a large portion of the music industry, clearly, is in Simpson’s corner. Or they at least share a similar point of view.
“It certainly points out, if anything, that this is much bigger than just me,” he said Tuesday.
“I think there's obviously a huge, huge thirst and hunger for — I don't want to say 'real music’ — but just music from the heart, as opposed to music that's meant for commerce. I've always believed that, and my career, I think, is a testament to that, because I'm not writing hit singles.”
Simpson is hoping to attend the awards ceremony in Los Angeles on Feb. 12, but there’s something more important that could keep him at home. He and his wife are expecting their second child in early February, and if he’s not born before the show, Simpson isn’t budging.
It’s interesting timing, as the album that’s gotten him to the Grammys was inspired by the birth of his first son. After Simpson was woken up on Tuesday with the nomination news, he said he “laid in bed for about an hour trying to figure out what it really means.”
“Then I went and gave my son a hug, took him downstairs, made pancakes and watched Sesame Street."