Bruno Mars Thrilled By Seven Grammy Nominations - MTV.com

Each year, the Grammy Awards not only serve to recognize the best achievements in music over the past year but also help to elevate certain artists from unknowns to stars and from successes into household names. The latter will probably be true of Bruno Mars once the awards are handed out in February, as the singer and producer was nominated for a total of seven awards during Wednesday night's "Grammy Nominations Concert Live!" show.

Mars scored a handful of nominations as a performer for his vocal stylings on the chart-topping B.o.B track "Nothin' on You" and also picked up several nominations as a member of the Smeezingtons, the writing and production trio that consists of Mars, Philip Lawrence and Ari Levine. The three are responsible for hits like Cee Lo's "F--- You" (which picked up four nominations), and the crew also picked up a nod for Producer of the Year.

The Smeezingtons were rightfully thrilled at the prospect of taking home a load of hardware in February. "We don't know how it feels yet, because we just got the word. We're a little awkward in these situations," Mars admitted to MTV News following the show (in which he also performed live). "But the fact is that we worked so hard this year. In a studio not too far from here, in a little shack, we'd have B.o.B in there writing 'Nothin' on You' with us, or Cee Lo writing 'F--- You' with us. The fact that it's being acknowledged by the Grammys is incredible. It's really making us feel like we did something. We're being acknowledged by the biggest."

As far as which award the group is gunning for, they're open to anything. "I'd like to win Best Dressed," Mars joked. "Maybe Most Humorous. Or Best Kisser!" They also want the world to know that just because their status will become elevated doesn't mean that they're inaccessible.

"The funnest part of our job is that we don't know who we're working with next," Mars told MTV News. "We're fans and students of music, and we just love to work with whoever wants to work, whoever wants to write a song. Rock, hip-hop, R&B — we just want to do music. And we're happy just doing that."

Mars and the Smeezingtons will compete against other heavy hitters like Eminem (10 nominations), Jay-Z (six), Lady Gaga (six) and B.o.B (five) when the Grammys are handed out on Sunday, February 13, 2011.

How many Grammys do you think Bruno Mars will win? Let us know in the comments!

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Gospel singer was Grammy Award winner - Washington Post

Albertina Walker, a Grammy Award-winning singer who was crowned the queen of gospel during a career that spanned more than 60 albums and six decades, died Oct. 8 of respiratory failure at a hospital in her native Chicago. She was 81.

As a child, Ms. Walker had been a standout singer at West Point Baptist Church in Chicago. There, she was inspired by entertainers such as Professor Thomas A. Dorsey and Mahalia Jackson, who became Ms. Walker's friend and mentor.

"I wanted to stand up before audiences and deliver the message, win souls for Christ," Ms. Walker told The Washington Post in 2008. "I wanted to touch dying men and slipping women."

In her early 20s, Ms. Walker started an ensemble group, the Caravans, which became one of the country's most popular gospel acts during the 1950s and '60s. The group's early hits included "Mary Don't You Weep," "No Coward Soldier," "Tell the Angels" and "Sweeping Through the City."

The Caravans toured by Cadillac, eventually graduating from performances in churches and schools to theaters and auditoriums. Traveling to venues including Carnegie Hall, the Apollo Theater and Washington's Constitution Hall, they endured low pay, segregated restaurants and discrimination at hotels and restaurants.

In a Chicago Tribune interview decades later, she recalled confronting a truck driver who yelled a racial epithet at her.

"I told him, 'I'll pull my razor out of my pocket and cut your throat,' " she said. "He was so scared of me, and all I had in my pocket was a pencil. I tell you one thing, he apologized and then called me a young lady."

At first, Ms. Walker led the group with her earthy contralto, but she soon stepped aside and allowed others to shine. The Caravans became known as a collection of talented soloists that launched the careers of notable singers including James Cleveland, Dorothy Norwood and Shirley Caesar.

The group broke up in the late 1960s as its members peeled off to launch solo careers. Ms. Walker made her solo debut with the 1975 album "Put a Little Love in Your Heart." She went on to collaborate with Cleveland on "Please Be Patient With Me" (1979), for which she received her first Grammy nomination.

In a 1973 performance with Cleveland of the song "I Sure Do Love the Lord," Ms. Walker sang "slowly and majestically, sometimes moaning and sometimes soaring joyfully," wrote Post music critic Hollie West. "People shouted and swayed to her exacting beat. Walker's performance was a wonderful display of gospel singing as an art."

Ms. Walker was nominated for at least 10 more Grammy Awards, winning the best traditional gospel album award in 1995 for her record "Songs of the Church - Live in Memphis."

Other well-received albums included "Spirit" (1987) and "I'm Still Here" (1997). In 2006, Ms. Walker reunited with members of the Caravans, including Norwood and Inez Andrews, to produce the album "Paved the Way."

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