Grammy Award For Best Spoken Word Album

Grammy Award For Best Spoken Word Album

The Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album has been awarded since 1959. The award had several minor name changes:

  • In 1959 the award was known as Best Performance, Documentary or Spoken Word
  • From 1960 to 1961 it was awarded as Best Performance - Documentary or Spoken Word (other than comedy)
  • From 1962 to 1963 it was awarded as Best Documentary or Spoken Word Recording (other than comedy)
  • From 1964 to 1965 it was awarded as Best Documentary, Spoken Word or Drama Recording (other than comedy)
  • In 1966 it was awarded as Best Spoken Word or Drama Recording
  • From 1967 to 1968 it was awarded as Best Spoken Word, Documentary or Drama Recording
  • From 1969 to 1979 it was awarded as Best Spoken Word Recording
  • From 1980 to 1983 it returned to the title of Best Spoken Word, Documentary or Drama Recording
  • From 1984 to 1991 it was awarded as Best Spoken Word or Non-Musical Recording
  • From 1992 to 1997 it was awarded as Best Spoken Word or Non-Musical Album
  • Since 1998 it has been awarded as Best Spoken Word Album

The category now also includes audio books, poetry readings and story telling.

Three US Presidents have won the awards: Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, along with spoken recordings of John F. Kennedy and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Four U.S. Senators have won: Barack Obama (also President of the United States), Everett Dirksen, Al Franken, and Hillary Clinton (also U.S. Secretary of State and First Lady of the United States).

Years reflect the year in which the Grammy Awards were handed out, for a recording released in the previous year. Winners are indicated in boldface.

Read more about Grammy Award For Best Spoken Word Album:  2010s, 2000s, 1990s, 1980s, 1970s, 1960s, 1950s

Famous quotes containing the words award, spoken, word and/or album:

    The award of a pure gold medal for poetry would flatter the recipient unduly: no poem ever attains such carat purity.
    Robert Graves (1895–1985)

    I have never yet spoken from a public platform about women in industry that someone has not said, “But things are far better than they used to be.” I confess to impatience with persons who are satisfied with a dangerously slow tempo of progress for half of society in an age which requires a much faster tempo than in the days that “used to be.” Let us use what might be instead of what has been as our yardstick!
    Mary Barnett Gilson (1877–?)

    ... ideals, standards, aspirations,—those are chameleon words, and take color from their speakers,—often false tints. A scholarly man of my acquaintance once told me that he traveled a thousand miles into the desert to get away from the word uplift, and it was the first word he heard after he reached his destination.
    Carolyn Wells (1862–1942)

    What a long strange trip it’s been.
    Robert Hunter, U.S. rock lyricist. “Truckin’,” on the Grateful Dead album American Beauty (1971)