Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album

The American writer, professor and civil rights activist Maya Angelou has received the Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album three times

The Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album , in German "Grammy award for the best spoken album", is a music prize that has been awarded by the American Recording Academy since 1959 for sound recordings of speeches, documentaries, theater performances and audio books.

History and background

Since 1959, the Grammy Awards are presented annually in numerous categories by the Recording Academy in the United States to recognize artistic achievement, technical competence, and overall outstanding performance regardless of album sales or chart position.

One of these categories is the Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album. The prize has been awarded annually since 1959.

The award category has seen some minor name changes since it was first awarded:

• It was first awarded in 1959 under the name Grammy Award for Best Performance, Documentary or Spoken Word
• From 1960 to 1961 the award was called the Grammy Award for Best Performance - Documentary or Spoken Word (other than comedy)
• From 1962 to 1963 it was presented as a Grammy Award for Best Documentary or Spoken Word Recording (other than comedy)
• From 1964 to 1965 the category was called Grammy Award for Best Documentary, Spoken Word or Drama Recording (other than comedy)
• In 1966 the award was called the Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word or Drama Recording
• From 1967 to 1968 the Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word, Documentary or Drama Recording was given
• From 1969 to 1979 the award was called the Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Recording
• From 1980 to 1983 it was again called the Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word, Documentary or Drama Recording
• From 1984 to 1991 it was called the Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word or Non-Musical Recording
• From 1992 to 1997 the award was Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word or Non-Musical Album called
• Since 1998 the award has been given under the name Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album .

The Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album category was given to three US presidents, among others: Jimmy Carter , who has won the award three times, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama . Audio recordings by US Presidents John F. Kennedy and Franklin D. Roosevelt have also received awards.

Winners and nominees

year	winner	nationality	album	Nominees	Picture of the winner (s)
1959	Stan Freberg	United States	The Best of the Stan Freberg Shows	Marian Anderson for The Lady from Philadelphia Melvyn Douglas , Vincent Price , Carl Sandburg, and Ed Begley for Great American Speeches Stan Freberg for Green Christmas Henry Jacobs for Two Interviews of Our Time
1960	Carl Sandburg	United States	A Lincoln portrait	John Gielgud for Ages of Man Hal Holbrook for Mark Twain Tonight Basil Rathbone for Basil Rathbone Reads Sherlock Holmes Tony Schwartz for New York Taxi Driver
1961	Robert Bialek (producer)	United States	FDR Speaks	Henry Fonda for Voices of the Twentieth Century John Gielgud for Ages of Man, Vol. 2 (One Man in His Time) Archibald MacLeish for JB
1962	Leonard Bernstein	United States	Humor in Music	Hal Holbrook for More of Hal Holbrook in Mark Twain Tonight! Dorothy Parker for The World of Dorothy Parker Sandburg, Shapley, Jawaharlal Nehru and Lipschitz for Wisdom, Vol. 1 Alexander Scourby for The Coming of Christ
1963	Charles Laughton	United States	The Story Teller: A Session with Charles Laughton	Carl Sandburg for Carl Sandburg Reading His Poetry Claude Rains and Glenn Gould for Enoch Arden Laurence Harvey for This Is My Beloved Stan Kenton for Mama Sang a Song
1964	Melinda Dillon , George Grizzard , Uta Hagen and Arthur Hill	United States Germany   Canada	Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?	Dane Clark, Anne Jackson , Lotte Lenya and Viveca Lindfors for Brecht on Brecht Martin Luther King Jr. with Joan Baez , Marian Anderson , Odetta , Rabbi Joachim Prinz and Bob Dylan for We Shall Overcome (The March on Washington, August 28, 1963) Goddard Lieberson and Pete Seeger for The Badmen Norman Weiser and David Teig for John F. Kennedy - The Presidential Years
1965	That Was The Week That Was Ensemble	United Kingdom	BBC Tribute to John F. Kennedy	Richard Burton , Hume Cronyn , John Gielgud , Alfred Drake, George Voskovec , Eileen Herlie , William Redfield and George Ross for Hamlet Richard Burton and Peter O'Toole - Dialogue Highlights from Becket Alec Guinness and Kate Reid for Dylan John F. Kennedy , David Brinkley and Adlai Stevenson for The Kennedy Wit
1966	Goddard Lieberson (producer)	United States	John F. Kennedy: As We Remember Him	Alec Guinness for A Personal Choice Chet Huntley and David Brinkley for A Time to Keep: '64 National Theater of Great Britain for Much Ado About Nothing Adlai Stevenson for The Voice of the Uncommon Man Margaret Webster for The Brontes
1967	Edward R. Murrow	United States	Edward R. Murrow: A Reporter Remembers, Vol. I - The War Years	Lee J. Cobb and Mildred Dunnock for Death of a Salesman Johnny Sea for Day for Decision Buddy Starcher for History Repeats Itself
1968	Everett Dirksen	United States	Gallant Men	James Dickey for Poems of James Dickey Hal Holbrook for Mark Twain Tonight, Vol. 3 Patrick Magee and Cyril Cusack for The Balcony Rod McKuen for The Earth Paul Scofield , Wendy Hiller and Robert Shaw for A Man for All Seasons Victor Lundberg for An Open Letter to My Teenage Son
1969	Rod McKuen	United States	Lonesome Cities	Martin Luther King Jr. for I Have a Dream Paul Scofield for Murder in the Cathedral Martin Starkie for The Canterbury Pilgrims
1970	Art Linkletter and Diane Linkletter	United States Canada	We Love You, Call Collect	Walter Cronkite for Man on the Moon James Earl Jones for The Great White Hope
1971	Martin Luther King, Jr.	United States	Why I Oppose the War in Vietnam	Ambrose, Dryden, Hecht, Molloy and Seeger for Poems and Ballads from 100-Plus American Poets Apollo 8, 11 and 12 astronauts, John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon for In the Beginning Bill Cosby for Grover Henson Feels Forgotten Everett Dirksen for Everett Dirksen's America
1972	Les Crane	United States	Desiderata	Richard Chamberlain for Hamlet Walter Cronkite for I Can Hear It Now / The Sixties Stacy Keach , Robert Ryan and Geraldine Fitzgerald for Long Day's Journey into Night James Whitmore for Will Rogers' USA
1973	Broadway ensemble	United States	Lenny	Angela Davis for Angela Davis Speaks Rod McKuen for The Word Yevgeny Yevtushenko for Yevtushenko
1974	Richard Harris	Ireland	Jonathan Livingston Seagull	Billie Holiday for Songs and Conversations Vincent Price for Witches, Ghosts and Goblins Kurt Vonnegut Jr. for Slaughterhouse Five John Wayne for America, Why I Love Her
1975	Peter Cook and Dudley Moore	United Kingdom	good evening	Sam Ervin for Senator Sam at Home Rod McKuen for Autumn Eric Sevareid for An Ear to the Sounds of Our History
1976	James Whitmore	United States	Give 'Em Hell, Harry!	Alistair Cooke for Talk About America Richard Harris for The Prophet Claudia McNeil for The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman Maureen Stapleton for To Kill a Mockingbird Orson Welles for Immortal Sherlock Holmes (Mercury Theater on the Air)
1977	Henry Fonda , Helen Hayes , James Earl Jones and Orson Welles	United States	Great American Documents	Ray Bradbury for Fahrenheit 451 Charlton Heston for The Old Man and the Sea James Mason for A Tale of Two Cities William Shatner for Foundation: The Psychohistorians
1978	Julie Harris	United States	The Belle of Amherst	Alex Haley for Alex Haley Tells the Story of His Search for Roots Original cast and Ntozake Shange for For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf Christopher Tolkien for The Silmarillion Harry Truman and Ben Gradus for The Truman Tapes
1979	Orson Welles	United States	Citizen Kane (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)	Judith Anderson , Claire Bloom , James Mason , George Rose and Gordon Gould for Wuthering Heights Henry Fonda for The Grapes of Wrath Richard Nixon and David Frost for The Nixon Interviews with David Frost Various Artists for Roots (Original Television Soundtrack)
1980	John Gielgud	United Kingdom	Ages of Man (Readings from Shakespeare)	Henry Fonda for The Ox-Bow Incident Jim Morrison for An American Prayer Ken Nordine for Stare with Your Ears Various Artists for Apocalypse Now (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) Orson Welles and Helen Hayes for Orson Welles & Helen Hayes at Their Best
1981	Pat Carroll	United States	Gertrude Stein, Gertrude Stein, Gertrude Stein	Mahalia Jackson for I Sing Because I'm Happy, Vols. 1 and 2 Original cast for Adventures of Luke Skywalker: The Empire Strikes Back Orson Welles for Obediently Yours Peter Ustinov for A Curb in the Sky
1982	Orson Welles	United States	Donovan's Brain	EG Marshall for Justice Holmes' Decisions James Mason for Vladimir Nabokov: Lolita Paul McCartney and Vic Garbarini for The McCartney Interview Ed McMahon for 'Twas the Night Before Christmas
1983	Tom Voegeli	United States	Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Movie on Record	Roger Rees for Charles Dickens' Nicholas Nickleby Isaac Asimov for Foundation's Edge John Gielgud and Ralph Richardson for No Man's Land Arthur C. Clarke for 2010: Odyssey Two
1984	William Warfield	United States	Copland: Lincoln Portrait	Steve Allen and Jayne Meadows for Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Home Computers Jane Fonda and Femmy De Lyser for Jane Fonda's Workout Record for Pregnancy, Birth and Recovery John Gielgud and Irene Worth for Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats
1985	Ben Kingsley	United Kingdom	The Words of Gandhi	Jeremy Irons and Glenn Close for The Real Thing (Broadway Ensemble) Jesse Jackson for Our Time Has Come John Lennon and Yoko Ono for Heart Play (Unfinished Dialogue)
1986	Mike Berniker (producer) and the Broadway ensemble	United States	Ma Rainey's Black Bottom	Alan Arkin for Catch-22 Dick Cavett for The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn John le Carré for The Spy Who Came in from the Cold Philip Roth for Zuckerman Bound
1987	Johnny Cash , Jerry Lee Lewis , Chips Moman , Ricky Nelson , Roy Orbison , Carl Perkins and Sam Phillips	United States	Interviews from the Class of '55 Recording Sessions	F. Murray Abraham for Interview with the Vampire Ray Bradbury for The Stories of Ray Bradbury Bill Cosby for Hardheaded Boys John Gielgud for Gulliver
1988	Garrison Keillor	United States	Lake Wobegon Days	Lauren Bacall for Lauren Bacall by Myself Katharine Hepburn for "Lincoln Portrait" (from Aaron Copland: Lincoln Portrait and Other Works ) Leonard Nimoy for Whales Alive Leonard Nimoy and George Takei for Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
1989	Jesse Jackson	United States	Speech by Rev. Jesse Jackson, July 27 (from One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism )	John Cleese for The Screwtape Letters John Gielgud for A Christmas Carol Garrison Keillor and various artists for A Prairie Home Companion: The 2nd Annual Farewell Performance Jonathan Winters for Winters' Tale
1990	Gilda Radner	United States	It's always something	Erma Bombeck for I Want to Grow Hair, I Want to Grow Up, I Want to Go to Boise Robert Fulghum for All I Really Know Is What I Learned in Kindergarten John Gielgud for Sir John Gielgud Reads Alice in Wonderland Jason Robards , Steve Allen , Douglas Edwards & cast for The War of the Worlds 50th Anniversary Production
1991	George Burns	United States	Gracie: A Love Story	Garrison Keillor for A Prairie Home Companion: The 4th Annual Farewell Performance John F. Kennedy Jr. for Profiles in Courage Kyle MacLachlan for "Diane ..." The Twin Peaks Tapes of Agent Cooper Jimmy Stewart for Jimmy Stewart and His Poems
1992	Ken Burns	United States	The Civil War	Douglas Adams for The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Katharine Hepburn for Me: Stories of My Life Charles Kuralt for A Life on the Road
1993	Earvin "Magic" Johnson and Robert O'Keefe	United States	What You Can Do to Avoid AIDS	Fannie Flagg for Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe Garrison Keillor for Stories Ken Nordine for Devout Catalyst Patrick Stewart for A Christmas Carol Orson Welles and Peter Bogdanovich for This Is Orson Welles
1994	Maya Angelou	United States	On the pulse of morning	Levar Burton for Miles: The Autobiography Arlo Guthrie for Bound for Glory Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward for Mr. and Mrs. Bridge Emma Thompson for Howards End
1995	Henry Rollins	United States	Get in the Van: On the Road with Black Flag	Kenneth Branagh and the Renaissance Theater Company for Hamlet Ken Burns for baseball Ben Kingsley for Schindler's List Gregory Peck for The Bible (The New Testament)
1996	Maya Angelou	United States	Phenomenal Woman	Danny Glover for Long Walk to Freedom Garrison Keillor for Guy Noir: Radio Private Eye Leonard Nimoy for I Am Spock
1997	Hillary Clinton	United States	It takes a village	Ed Asner , Ellen Burstyn , CCH Pounder, and Alfre Woodard for Grow Old Along with Me, the Best Is Yet to Be Lauren Bacall , Martin Landau , Jack Lemmon and Gregory Peck for Harry S Truman: A Journey to Independence Garrison Keillor for The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Charles Kuralt for Charles Kuralt's America
1998	Charles Kuralt	United States	Charles Kuralt's Spring	Maya Angelou for Even the Stars Look Lonesome Jimmy Carter for Living Faith Walter Cronkite for A Reporter's Life Jodie Foster for Contact
1999	Christopher Reeve	United States	Still Me	Jimmy Carter for The Virtues of Aging David Holt and Bill Mooney for Spiders in the Hairdo: Modern Urban Legends Garrison Keillor for Wobegon Boy Toni Morrison for Beloved
2000	LeVar Burton	United States	The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr.	Nanci Griffith for The Chieftains: The Unauthorized Biography Merle Haggard for Merle Haggard's My House of Memories Frank McCourt for 'Tis Mandy Patinkin and Betty Buckley with Walter Cronkite for The Diaries of Adam & Eve: Translated by Mark Twain
2001	Sidney Poitier	United States	The Measure of a Man	Matt Dillon for On the Road Steve Martin for Shopgirl Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara for Married to Laughter: A Love Story Various artists including Kathleen Turner , Patrick Stewart and Al Pacino for The Complete Shakespeare Sonnets
2002	Quincy Jones	United States	Q: The Autobiography of Quincy Jones	Jimmy Carter for An Hour Before Sunlight Garrison Keillor for Lake Wobegon Summer 1956 Carl Reiner for Letters from the Earth: Uncensored Writings by Mark Twain Various artists including Rob Lowe , Noah Wyle , Joan Allen and Tom Brokaw and narrator Harry Smith for War Letters: Extraordinary Correspondence from American Wars
2003	Maya Angelou	United States	A Song Flung Up to Heaven	Tim Robbins for The Great Gatsby Robert Evans for The Kid Stays in the Picture Michael J. Fox for Lucky Man Christopher Reeve for Nothing Is Impossible
2004	Al Franks	United States	Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them	Don Cheadle for Fear Itself Hillary Clinton for Living History Nikki Giovanni for The Nikki Giovanni Poetry Collection Bill Maher for When You Ride Alone You Ride with Bin Laden
2005	Bill Clinton	United States	My life	Tyne Daly , John Lithgow , Joanne Rogers, Lily Tomlin and Andre Watts for The World According to Mr. Rogers David Holt and Zeb Holt for Live & Kickin 'at the National Storytelling Festival Steve Martin for The Pleasure of My Company David Sedaris for Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim
2006	Barack Obama	United States	Dreams from My Father	George Carlin for When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops? Al Franken for The Al Franken Show Party Album Garrison Keillor for The Adventures of Guy Noir Sean Penn for Chronicles: Volume One
2007	Jimmy Carter	United States	Our Endangered Values	Al Franken for The Truth (with Jokes) Bill Maher for New Rules: Polite Musings from a Timid Observer Bob Newhart for I Shouldn't Even Be Doing This!
	Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee	United States	Ossie and Ruby
2008	Barack Obama	United States	The Audacity of Hope	Maya Angelou for celebrations Bill Clinton for Giving Jimmy Carter for Sunday Mornings in Plains Alan Alda for Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself
2009	Beau Bridges , Cynthia Nixon and Blair Underwood	United States	To Inconvenient Truth	Steve Martin for Born Standing Up Stephen Colbert and cast of The Colbert Report for I Am America (and So Can You!) Sidney Poitier for Life Beyond Measure David Sedaris for When You Are Engulfed in Flames
2010	Michael J. Fox	United States	Always looking up	Jimmy Carter for We Can Have Peace in the Holy Land Richard Dreyfuss and David Strathairn for The Lincoln – Douglas Debates Carrie Fisher for Wishful Drinking Yuri Rasovsky and Josh Stanton for Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon Jonathan Winters for A Very Special Time
2011	Jon Stewart and the Daily Show staff	United States	Earth (The Audiobook)	Woody Allen for The Woody Allen Collection Carol Burnett for This Time Together Craig Ferguson for American on Purpose Michael J. Fox for A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Future Sarah Silverman for The Bedwetter
2012	Betty White	United States	If You Ask Me (and of Course You Won't)	Nathan Burbank, Bryan Cumming, Dennis Scott and David Toledo for Fab Fan Memories: The Beatles Bond Dan Donohue for Hamlet Tina Fey for Bossypants Val Kilmer and cast for The Mark of Zorro
2013	Janis Ian	United States	Society's Child	Scott Creswell and Dan Zitt for American Grown Bill Clinton for Back to Work Ellen DeGeneres for Seriously… I'm Kidding Rachel Maddow for Drift
2014	Stephen Colbert	United States	America Again: Re-becoming The Greatness We Never Weren't	Carol Burnett for Carrie and Me Billy Crystal for Still Foolin 'Em David Sedaris for Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls Pete Seeger for The Storm King
2015	Joan Rivers	United States	Diary of a Mad Diva	Jimmy Carter for A Call to Action: Women, Religion, Violence, and Power James Franco for Actors Anonymous Gloria Gaynor for We Will Survive: True Stories of Encouragement, Inspiration and the Power of Song Elizabeth Warren for A Fighting Chance John Waters for Carsick: John Waters Hitchhikes Across America
2016	Jimmy Carter	United States	A Full Life: Reflections at 90	Dick Cavett for Brief Encounters: Conversations, Magic Moments, and Assorted Hijinks Janis Ian and Jean Smart for Patience and Sarah Amy Poehler for Yes Please Patti Smith for Blood on Snow
2017	Carol Burnett	United States	In Such Good Company: Eleven Years of Laughter, Mayhem, and Fun in the Sandbox	Elvis Costello for Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink Amy Schumer for The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo Patti Smith for M Train Various artists for Under the Big Black Sun: A Personal History of LA Punk
2018	Carrie Fisher	United States	The Princess Diarist	Shelly Peiken for Confessions of a Serial Songwriter Bernie Sanders and Mark Ruffalo for Our Revolution: A Future to Believe In Bruce Springsteen for Born to Run Neil deGrasse Tyson for Astrophysics for People in a Hurry
2019	Jimmy Carter	United States	Faith: A Journey for All	Tiffany Haddish for The Last Black Unicorn Questlove for Creative Quest David Sedaris for Calypso Courtney B. Vance for Accessory to War
2020 January 26th, 2020	Michelle Obama	United States	Becoming	Various interpreters (producers: Michael Diamond , Adam Horovitz , Scott Sherratt, Dan Zitt) for Beastie Boys Book Eric Alexandrakis for IV Catatonia: 20 Years as a Two-Time Cancer Survivor John Waters for Mr. Know-It-All Sekou Andrews & the String Theory for Sekou Andrews & the String Theory

Web links

• Official website of the Grammy Awards - Recording Academy, Los Angeles (English)
• Winner of the Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album at grammy.com (English)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Grammy Awards. Retrieved April 8, 2019 . 
2. ^ The Official Site of the Grammy Awards - Overview. Retrieved April 8, 2019 . 
3. ^ Winner Best Spoken Word Or Non-musical Album. Retrieved April 8, 2019 .