Latest in 'a cavalcade of errors' sees recording academy drop B.C.
blues guitarist as nominee on eligibility grounds
By GUY DIXON - GLOBE & MAIL
Tuesday, March 2, 2004
British Columbia-based blues guitarist David Gogo is taking his belatedly
announced ineligibility for a Juno Award in stride, even if other record-industry
watchers say he should have received better treatment.
Late Friday, the Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences,
which organizes the Junos, dropped Gogo 's Live at Deer Lake from the
list of five nominees for blues album of the year. Even though the
album had made it through the early selection stages, all the way to
being nominated on Feb. 11, it was suddenly dropped Friday because
it apparently wasn't eligible. The record was replaced with The Rockit
88 Band's Too Much Fun.
"I think I'm the most calm about it," Gogo said, recalling
that when he was first up for a Juno years ago, he wound up being dumped
by his label after the ceremony. Then when he won a West Coast Music
Award, it arrived broken in the mail. And after winning guitarist of
the year at last year's Maple Blues Awards, a woman dropped it on the
floor. So "this is par for the course."
Michael Burke, who runs Gogo's label, Cordova Bay Records in Victoria,
said the confusion stemmed from unclear wording on the Internet application
that record companies use for the Junos.
For a record to qualify in the blues-album category, at least 25
per cent of the material has to be previously unreleased. Live at Deer
Lake contains brand new, live recordings of songs which Gogo has performed
on previous albums, Burke said. The application uses the term "cuts," Burke
said, which he believed meant performances. But another page on the
Juno site refers to them as "songs," or compositions rather
than performances, he noted. A simple error perhaps, which went undetected.
Burke had dinner with Gogo Friday night between gigs and said that
the guitarist was disappointed, but that Gogo would still perform as
part of the three-day music showcase in Edmonton leading up to the
awards on April 4. Gogo, who is working on material for a new album
due out as soon as this summer, is thinking of attending the ceremony
with his son with a T-shirt that says "Disqualified."
This announcement came two weeks after another gaffe in the nominating
process, when Nickelback was belatedly added as a special sixth nominee
for album of the year. Apparently, a data-entry error resulted in Nickelback's
The Long Road exclusion from that category. CARAS has said that inclusion
in that category is based automatically on sales and that the winner
is then selected by CARAS members. However, the nominations are actually
based on the number of records shipped to stores, CARAS confirmed.
Regardless, The Long Road has been in stores long enough to get
high enough numbers in either case and it should have automatically
been included from the start, said Larry Leblanc, Canadian bureau chief
for Billboard.
"I think this is a cavalcade of errors, and it's interesting
that it's all in one year," he said.
Different rules are applied to different categories. The nominations
and eventual winner for blues album of the year is chosen through two
rounds of voting. There are no sales qualifications, says CARAS.
The difference is in the damage control. Nickelback was given a
special berth. No other nominee for album of the year was dropped,
even though it is believed that Nelly Furtado's Folklore, which was
released in late November and nearer the eligibility deadline, would
likely have been the one to go. Gogo's Live at Deer Lake, though, wasn't
allowed to stay among the nominees.
The Juno Awards try to foster Canadian talent and the careers of
Canadian musicians, and it seemed to me that there might have been
other solutions to this than dropping it," Burke said.
Leisa Peacock, manager of awards and events at CARAS, said that
the organization thought about letting Gogo's nomination stand. "But
it wouldn't be right for something to be honoured if it wasn't eligible," she
said.
