‘Eight Days a Week: The Touring Years’ wins Grammy for Beatles, Ron Howard
By: Steve Marinucci | AXS Contributor | Feb 13, 2017
The Beatles: Eight Days a Week: The Touring Years, the Ron Howard-directed film about The Beatles and their tours mainly during the years of Beatlemania, won the Grammy Award for Best Music Film Feb. 12 at the 59th Annual Grammy Awards in Los Angeles. The honor was announced in the afternoon before the televised ceremony. The Beatles’ film, which was co-produced by Brian Grazer, Ron Howard, Scott Pascucci and Nigel Sinclair, beat out three other contenders in the category: “I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead,” “Lemonade” and “The Music of Strangers.” The win gave Howard his first Grammy Award.
The Beatles’ Ringo Starr put out a Twitter post shortly after the award was announced. “Wow well done Ron Howard and all the production team and of course the fabs we actually got a Grammy for eight days a week peace and love.” He followed that up with a second post filled with emoticons.” George Harrison’s official Twitter account posted, “Congrats to @RealRonHoward for winning the best music film @Grammys for ‘The Beatles: Eight Days a Week — the Touring Years’. @thebeatles.”
The Beatles’ official Twitter account later noted the win, saying, “Fantastic news-The Beatles:Eight Days A Week wins Best Music Film Grammy. Congrats @RealRonHoward & everyone who worked so hard on the film.”
Co-producer Sinclair told AXS.com Sunday night, “On behalf of all the producers, we are so incredibly honored to be recognized by The Recording Academy and so blessed to have Ron Howard’s leadership guiding us through this journey. This award will mean so much to the huge number of people that worked on the film. Thank you to Jeff Jones and the team at Apple Corps for all their support and of course The Beatles for trusting us with their amazing story.”
Barry Hood, who contributed some of the vintage footage of the Beatles performing at Candlestick Park in 1966 in the film, told AXS.com, “This is truly a historic occasion. Well deserved award. So many lovingly worked their butts off on this. I’m happy to have had a minor role in it. BEATLES-4-EVER !!!!!,” he said. He later added, “Matt (co-producer Matthew White) was the driving force here. For him a ten-year dream come true.”
It was the only statue among the all Beatles-related nominations at this year’s Grammy Awards. Paul McCartney’s deluxe Tug of War reissue, nominated for Best Boxed Or Special Limited Edition Package, lost to Edith Piaf 1915-2015. A Timo Maas and James Teej remix of Paul McCartney’s “Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Five” lost to a remix of Bob Moses “Tearing Me Up.”
John Daversa’s Kaleidoscope Eyes: The Music of the Beatles, up for three awards, also came up empty. The album itself, nominated for Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album, lost to Ted Nash’s Big Band’s Presidential Suite: Eight Variations On Freedom. Two songs were also nominated. Jacob Collier’s “You and I” beat out “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds” in the Best Arrangement, Instrumental or A Cappella category. Daversa’s version of the early Beatles song “Do You Want to Know a Secret,” up for Best Arrangement, Instruments and Vocals, lost to another Collier track, “Flintstones.”
The Beatles: Eight Days A Week: The Touring Years was released in 2016. It premiered in the U.S. in mainly independent theaters, then became available on the Hulu streaming service. It did well enough to stay in independent theaters for several weeks. It was later released on home video.
