Gladys Knight was recently nominated for another Grammy Award. And this nomination marks her second as a gospel singer.
Last year, Knight took home the best-gospel performance Grammy for her duet with the late Ray Charles on his song "Heaven Help Us" (from the album "Genius Loves Company").
This year, Knight — who has won six Grammy awards in her career — has led her Saints Unified Voices choir with the album "One Voice" into competition with Donald Lawrence & Company's "I Speak Life," the VIP Mass Choir's "Live at the Fellowship," the Love Fellowship Choir's "20/85 the Experience," and the Choir of Life (Japan and USA) and the Kurt Carr Singers' "One Church."
The Saints Unified Voices is composed of members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And Knight assembled the choir to "build faith in the gospel and break down cultural barriers."
"One Voice" was released last year and debuted at the No. 9 spot on Billboard's Top 200 Albums chart. That same week, the CD was No. 1 on the Gospel charts and hit No. 2 on iTunes' Inspirational Album listings.
This year's Grammy awards will be broadcast from Los Angeles' Staples Center at 7 p.m. next Wednesday on CBS-Ch. 2.
Nominees for Record of the Year are Mariah Carey's "We Belong Together," the Gorillaz' "Feel Good Inc.," Green Day's "Boulevard of Broken Dreams," Gwen Stefani's "Hollaback Girl" and Kanye West's "Gold Digger."
The Album of the Year category features Carey's comeback album "Emancipation of Mimi," Paul McCartney's "Chaos and Creation in My Backyard," Stefani's "Love. Angel. Music. Baby," U2's "How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb" and Kanye West's breakthrough album "Late Registration."
The Song of the Year is a songwriter's award. The nominees are Rascal Flatts' "Bless the Broken Road" by Bobby Boyd, Jeff Hanna and Marcus Hummon; Bruce Springsteen's "Devils & Dust" by Springsteen; John Legend's "Ordinary People" by W. Adams and J. Stephens; U2's "Sometimes You Can't Make It on Your Own" by U2 and Carey's "We Belong Together" by J. Austin, M. Carey, J. Dupri and M. Seal.
As for me, I will be keeping an eye on all of the above, but of the 108 categories, my favorites include Heavy Metal Performance, Rap Song, Rap Album, New Age Album, Contemporary Folk Album, Reggae Album, Score Soundtrack Album, Music Video (Short) and Music Video (Long).
And here is my wish list of winners:
Metal Performance: I don't care. I like all the bands — Ministry, Mudvayne, Rammstein, Shadows Fall and Slipknot.
Best Rap Song: 50 Cent's "Hate It or Love It," written by Curtis Jackson, A. Lyon, Jayceon Taylor and M. Valenzano
Best Rap Album: I hope for a tie between Eminem's "Encore" and 50 Cent's "The Massacre."
Best New Age Album: I want a tie in this category — Kitaro's "Sacred Journey of Ku-Kai, Vol. 2" and George Winston's "Montana — a Love Story."
Best Contemporary Folk Album: John Prine's "Fair & Square"
Best Reggae Album: Burning Spear's "Our Music"
Best Score Soundtrack Album: John Williams' "Star Wars: Episode III, Revenge of the Sith"
Best Music Video (Short): The Gorillaz' "Feel Good Inc."
Best Music Video (Long): Bob Dylan "No Direction Home"
Producer of the Year (Non Classical): Steve Lillywhite for U2's "How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb"
E-mail: scott@desnews.com