The host and producer of that first show are no longer with us, but many of the artists who won Grammys that night are.
When the Grammy Awards were postponed last week from Jan. 31 to March 14, the reason was to move the show out of a period where COVID-19 cases are spiking in Los Angeles. The delay puts the show, at least for this year, back to where it was when the Grammys first became a live telecast 50 years ago.
March 14 is just two days before the 50th anniversary of the first live Grammy telecast -- March 16, 1971.
The host (Andy Williams) and producer (Pierre Cossette) of that first show are no longer with us, but many of the artists and others who won Grammys that night are, including Paul Simon & Art Garfunkel, Richard Carpenter of Carpenters, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr of The Beatles, Dionne Warwick, Ray Stevens, The Oak Ridge Boys, Stephen Sondheim and producers Roy Halee, Thomas Z. Shepard and Sesame Street co-creator Joan Cooney.