Last year, the Grammy Awards decided to start showing the pre-awards ceremony (the one where the vast majority of the awards are handed out, including the awards in the world music categories) on the internet. So, for the second year, I'm going to live-blog them, and try to keep you updated as the awards in the world and ethnic music fields start rolling out. You can watch, too, at Grammy.com... feel free to post comments at any time!

4:07 Finally got in - I didn't realize that I'd have to install some sort of special media player. Lila Downs is performing a bilingual version of Santana's "Black Magic Woman." It's nice to see world music representing for a change!

4:11 Oh, my goodness... Baberaham Lincoln herself is performing! For those of you who haven't seen Wayne's World 700 times, that'd be Tia Carrere, who was first known as a model, then as an actress, but she's also a singer. She's singing He Aloha Mele, and she sounds great.

4:15 Looks like some of this afternoon's awards are going to be presented by Ms. Carrere and Mr. Wayne Brady, best known for his work on "Whose Line is it Anyway." And he can sing, too. Though I disagree with his facial hair decisions at the moment.

4:25 Peter Gabriel just co-snagged an award for the song he wrote for the movie Wall-E, "Down to Earth."

4:26 Cathy Fink and Marcy Marxer just introduced themselves as Earl Scruggs and John Jorgensen. Folkies, take a moment to revel in an inside joke that you know L'il Wayne doesn't get. Cathy and Marcy are now joking about Facebook... L'il Wayne probably gets that one.

4:33 The Art of Field Recording, Vol. I just won for Best Historical Album. Art Rosenbaum is an amazing field recorder, and this collection of his recordings is really worth checking into, if you haven't. Keep the music alive!

4:40 Peter Gabriel and Thomas Newman just got another one for a song from Wall-E. It might be time that I actually see that movie.

4:55 A tie for best regional Mexican album - Mariachi Divas and Mariachi Los Camperos de Nati Cano. Both of those groups seem to be rather large, and there are a LOT of Mariachis on that stage right now.

4:59 Ruben Ramos and the Mexican Revolucion take it for best Tejano album.

5:00 Los Tigres del Norte won for best Norteno album! Yay! I love them!

5:02 Here we go... Best Native American Music Album: Come to Me Great Mystery: Native American Healing Songs. I called it!

5:03 Cajun or Zydeco Album: Beausoleil. Ugh. I missed that one, and I can't say I'm impressed. An uninspired live recording... yawn. Bad call, Grammy voters.

5:05 Best Traditional World Music Album: Ladysmith Black Mambazo. Best Contemporary World Music Album: Mickey Hart! Whoa! That is one that I definitely did not expect. So I'm 2 for 4 at this point.

5:07 Can we just talk about how Mickey Hart's hippie-dippie-ness isn't really as inspiring as he thinks it is?

5:08 Jimmy Sturr won for best polka album. Please try to avoid acting shocked. It's his 18th Grammy, if I'm not mistaken. Also, if I'm not mistaken, that's three times as many as Celine Dion has.

5:26 The Blind Boys of Alabama, one of my favorite groups in the whole world, just won for Best Traditional Gospel Choir, and they're coming up on stage with their hands on each other's shoulders, just like they do in concert... it's very sweet!

5:29 The Blind Boys of Alabama officially win for best acceptance speech. Is there a Grammy for that?

5:37 Classical violinist Hilary Hahn is performing, and I have to say that I find it quite endearing that she wraps her chin rest with an old washcloth just like all the folk fiddlers do, and not some sort of fancy silk something-or-other. It's best to have your skin come in contact with a fiddle as little as possible - they're held together with water-soluble glue, and even a little bit of moisture will force you to take a trip to your local luthier to get it patched back up.

5:42 Heavy D is performing in his new R&B-reggae; style. He sounds great, and I swear, that guy has not changed at all in the last twenty years. Actually, he might be slightly less heavy...

6:08 Blair Underwood is an excellent choice for a presenter. That's all I'm sayin'.

6:15 Pete Seeger just won for best traditional folk album, and he sent someone up on his behalf to remind us all that music can change the world, and non-violence can change the world. And then the Academy felt the need to remind the audience that only the artist may accept the award. Tacky, tacky. Pete Seeger can do whatever he wants, and he's entirely deserving of the chance to say what he wants to say.

6:17 And Tia Carrere gets her first Grammy for Best Hawai'ian Music album! Good for her! And she made a Wayne's World reference! I knew I wasn't the only one!

6:20 The Best Reggae Album Grammy went to Burning Spear for Jah is Real. That's great news - it's nice to see legends acknowledged once in awhile... this category almost always gets won by a contemporary reggae artist. And Burning Spear is just so lovely and charming. I'm glad he was there to win his award. Also, chalk it up as a win for independent artists... Burning Spear released his CD totally independently, with no major label backing him.

6:23 Carrie Underwood is a real class act, I have to say. Though a lot of the big stars don't attend the pre-Grammy ceremony, this is the second year that Ms. Underwood has made a point of coming and graciously accepting her awards in person. Congratulations on her to her award for Best Female Country Vocal.

6:35 "American Boy" just won for best rap/sung collaboration. I first heard that song when I was in Malaysia last spring, and it was playing all the time, everywhere. At the time, I assumed that it was some sort of Southeast Asian pop song (which could make sense, based on the lyrics), and was shocked when I heard it in the States. Random story, but kind of funny.

6:49 Bela Fleck and the Flecktones just won the Best Pop Instrumental Album Award... for Jingle All the Way. That's a... uh... Christmas album. Seriously. Regular readers here need no reminder of my feelings toward Christmas music, but that album was not transcendent enough to top the fact that it's Christmas-themed. Just a weird award, basically.

7:00 If I'm not mistaken, that was pretty well-timed... exactly three hours from start to finish. This year's ceremony was definitely more interesting than last year's, what with the musical entertainment and all. Full winners' lists will be up soon. Enjoy tonight's ceremony!

Appropriately random, the 2009 World Music Grammy Nominees in the Best Traditional World Music Album category span two continents and four unique genres. Only four, though - this is one of those weirdo categories where apparently a tie made for only four nominees. So who are these nominees, anyway?

First up, we've got Debashish Bhattacharya, who made the Western guitar - the standard six-string one - totally his own. Combining the slide guitar method used by bottleneck bluesmen with some technical alterations, classical training, and a whole lotta innovation, Bhattacharya essentially invented, via re-invention, his own subgenre of Indian classical music, and Calcutta Chronicles is a shining example of both his technical brilliance and his sheer creative genius.

Secondly, we've got Mr. Toumani Diabate, another fellow known for fusing the technical and the imaginative, but on a very different instrument: the West African kora. Diabate is a favorite side-man, both for world music artists and Western artists, but on The Mande Variations, he takes the kora back to its solo roots, and in his masterful hands, it shines.

Next up is seminal South African band Ladysmith Black Mambazo, with their latest offering, Ilembe: Honoring Shaka Zulu. It's not a trailblazing album, but it's definitely pure, unadulterated Ladysmith, doing what they do best: tightly woven harmonies, blending ancient African traditions with modern Christian gospel sounds - pure joy.

And finally, the sole lady in the group, Classical Indian (Hindustani, to be more exact) vocalist Lakshmi Shankar, with her wonderful release Dancing in the Light. It's a CD of epic love songs - not always happy love songs, but love songs just the same, and octogenarian Shankar is, after all these years, still such a force and a pleasure to listen to. So who's it gonna be? Vote, and leave comments if you're so inclined!

Hitch up the wagon, folks, it's time to catch up on what some of my favorite bloggers are up to.

Sean Barlow and Banning Eyre from Afropop Worldwide were not just among the bazillion people who were on the Mall for Barack Obama's inauguration, but they also managed to get to a couple of the African-themed Inaugural Balls that were happening that evening. They've got great coverage, including photos and videos, of some of the great stuff that happened that night.

Evangeline Kim, a world music writer and businesswoman extraordinaire, has a really interesting wrap-up of the recent Arts Presenters' conference in New York City, as well as a fantastic review of globalFEST up at Giant Step. She's also got some great pictures up there, so it's definitely worth having a look-see.

My friends over at Calcopyrite Communications passed on a story that they found, which says that Bollywood might become the next new dance craze; the next Riverdance, if you will. Hey, maybe I'll finally have something to do with this stack of saris that I bought in Malaysia!

And over at SoundRoots, I am reminded that there are still genres of world music that I've never heard of. This time, it's Txalapartari, a Basque music that is based around essentially a giant xylophone-like instrument. I've been to Basque country, and I still got stumped like a chump on this one. Honestly, though, as a perpetual musical explorer, I find it encouraging that there are still genres out there for me to learn about... it's nice to know I'm not finished. Unfortunately, the mere mention of the word Basque leaves my mouth watering for pintxos, but the closest thing I've got are frozen English muffin pizzas. Oh, well.

Valentine's Day is coming up. Again. My boyfriend has inconvenienced me for over a half-decade with his insistence that his birthday falls on the same week as Valentine's Day, and no matter how many times I try to convince him that he should really switch it to August (the great holiday void), he seems insistent about having been born in mid-February. How irritating. The problem is that it's hard to make each of those two days seem special and not just lump into one big glob. The financial thing gets in the way as well. My solution thus far has been to celebrate his birthday by giving him presents and making dinner and a cake, and to celebrate Valentine's Day by giving him something that I made myself. I like the whole DIY Valentine's thing anyway, because it removes Hallmark from the equation and actually tosses a little love back into the mix.

One of my very favorite make-it-myself presents is, of course, mix tapes. Okay, they're actually CDs, but as a child of the eighties, I can't call them "mix CDs" - it just doesn't sound right. This year, I'm thinking the Cupid Day gift will be a mix tape of Bob Marley's best love songs. Sure, he's better-known for his songs about social justice and revolution, but Bob Marley wrote some of the most beautiful love songs of all time, both lyrically and melodically. And unlike a lot of the stuff that comes out of pop radio, they're much grittier and less saccharine... sort of like real love.

What's your favorite Bob Marley love song? Leave a comment and let us know! And hey, if you're making a mix tape for Valentine's Day (which you should, just because it's fun), what's gonna be on it?

Image (c) Island Records