Alison Krauss
Krauss has won a record twenty-seven Grammy Awards over the course of her career as a solo artist, as a group with Union Station, as a duet with Robert Plant, and as a record producer. She is currently tied with Quincy Jones as the winner of the second highest number of Grammy Awards. Only the late classical conductor Sir Georg Solti has more overall Grammys (31). She overtook Aretha Franklin for the most female wins at the 46th Grammy Awards, where Krauss won three, bringing her total at the time to seventeen (Franklin won her sixteenth that night). The Recording Academy (which presents the Grammy Awards) presented her with a special musical achievement honor in 2005. She has also won 14 International Bluegrass Music Association Awards, 9 Country Music Association Awards, 2 Gospel Music Association Awards, 2 CMT Music Awards, 2 Academy of Country Music Awards, and 1 Canadian Country Music Award. Country Music Television ranked Krauss 12th on their "40 Greatest Women of Country Music" list in 2002.
Racism in Grammy Awards
Others have argued that non-white artists mostly win in smaller "racialized" categories. Beyonce has 18 of her 22 within categories, such as rap and R&B, and only one of win in a major category. Anne Powers writing for the NPR accused the 2017 Grammys of systematic racism because Chance the Rapper and Beyonce were the only black artists who won televised awards. According to her there is a general notion that music made with “real” instrumentation is superior to synth or sampled music, or that “stand-still” performances are superior to performances that incorporate dance.
The voting process for the Grammy Awards is a particular process that has endured lots of criticism over the years. The voting committees are made up of 10,000 musicians, producers, engineers, songwriters, and essentially any professional in the music industry who qualifies based on the requirements. There is a yearly fee, but after that any voting member is qualified to make nominations and vote on several different categories. Controversy has been raised over the fact that members vote for works in categories outside of their expertise, and this occurs because they are required to vote on a certain number of categories to maintain membership. Rob Kenner, a Grammy screener, described an “unwritten rule” while conversing with committee members in which you must be cautious nominating an album by an already well-known artist if you do not want that album to eventually win an award because other voting members will mindlessly select a famous artist's album because they recognize the name, even if they have never heard any of that music before.