The instantly recognizable gramophone trophy considered by many to be one of the music industry’s most coveted prizes did not spring from Zeus’s head fully-formed. In fact, it was created for the Recording Academy (then known as the Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences, in the long-winded days before Twitter) by a Colorado artisan who’s a doppelgänger for the Dude in The Big Lewbowski and has become something of a media darling.

Each year around the time of the show, the Recording Academy trots out John Billings of Billings Artworks, aka “the Grammy Man,” around for a round of stories. And well-deserved! Mr. Billings is conscientious about his work, as came to our attention reading the Recording Academy’s own account. 

I will say, however, the above story did omit one pertinent fact for which I went searching: who designed the distinctive statuette? Which harkens to a time when there was actually an art to state of the. (Imagine, if the trophy were invented today, its conjurors would have, what? Like, an iPod, a flash drive, a laptop to draw on? None of those lovely gramophone curves.

Anyway, while The New York Times did present this excellent 2017 piece, with insights including that the trophy is made of custom alloy called “grammium” (we hear  in James Cameron’s new Avatar they mine for it), and after the three individual components are cast and polished “the gramophone cabinet and tone arm are plated in 24-karat gold,” failed also to provide the desired information. 

At least it did not state it outright. But it can be inferred, from The New York Times article, by Tamara Best, that it was a fellow Coloradan, a man named Bob Graves, Mr. Billings’ predecessor, the first-generation Grammy trophy-maker who crafted the awards in his garage, who came  up with the design. Quoth Ms. Best in The Times: “Mr. Billings’s relationship with the award began when he was 12, upon seeing his friend’s father, Bob Graves, make the first one in his garage.”

Of course for all we know that could mean it was “designed” by Salvadore
Dalí, who sent him a sketch. But that seems unlikely. What more probably happened is that someone working at the Academy at the time either found Mr. Graves through referral or bid the job out, and said “We’re kind of thinking a gramophone…” and the rest is history.

We will put out an inquiry and update here should there be another byroad to this tale. Annual awards are as much about tradition as state of the new, so it’s nice to recognize a variety of contributions. Awards take a village. 

From The Recording Academy’s website: