The road to the Grammys: CeCe Winans, Brandy Clark and more reflect on their nominations

The 64th Annual Grammy Awards on Sunday roll into Las Vegas for the first time ever — and well ahead of the celebrated music awards show, a number of Nashville talents are feeling lucky. 

These Music City neighbors created a collection of choruses in gospel, bluegrass, folk, pop, country, even reggae.

While all eyes will be on awards for Album, Song and Record of Year, as well Best New Artist, there's brilliant work to be celebrated across 86 (yes, 86) categories, including a list of local Grammy nominees. As genre giants new and old recently gathered in Nashville to revel in their honors, we uncovered the stories to watch for on "Music's Biggest Night."

CeCe Winans

Winans wants her music legacy to be more than entertaining ears. She wants to touch "the God space" in everyone, a feeling that infiltrates the heart and uplifts the soul. 

Her album, "Believe For It," is nominated alongside her singles, "Never Lost" and the title track from the album. The tandem of tracks are nominated for Best Gospel Performance/Song and Best Contemporary Christian Music Performance/Song, respectively."I feel like my 2022 nominations showcase the power and timelessness of gospel music," said Winans, a 12-time Grammy winner and gospel legend who is celebrating four decades of decorated artistry.

"I'll have concerts where multiple generations of fans — parents, children and their grandchildren — have come to appreciate my work over (the span of) my career."

Since 2012, Winans has served as co-pastor at Nashville Life Church alongside her husband, Alvin.

Said Winans: "From people's hearts to their homes, I don't take (my success) for granted." 

MusicCares Person of the Year:Joni Mitchell to be honored by Brandi Carlile, Graham Nash, Mickey Guyton

Grammy snubs 2022:Grammy snubs 2022: Miley Cyrus shutout; Drake, BTS miss out on major nominations

Winans is a 12-time Grammy winner. But, even if not successful on April 3, when asked about her inspirational legacy for fans and artists alike, she graciously says, "when I sing gospel music, it's created not just to entertain the ears, but touch the 'God space' in us all that touches the heart and uplifts the soul. "

Sarah Jarosz

Growing up in Texas, Jarosz and her family regularly embarked on  trips to the Gulf Coast town of Port Aransas. She and her mother would start their day with a morning walk along the beach, admiring the great blue herons wading in the shore.

That memory is at the core of “Blue Heron Suite,” nominated this year for Best Folk Album.

Already a four-time Grammy winner at age 30, Jarosz finds herself back in the race with a distinctly personal, unconventional and inspired effort.  

The 31-minute “song cycle” is meant to be heard in its entirety, and was written and first performed in 2017 as a commission for the FreshGrass Festival in Massachusetts. At the time, Jarosz’s mother was diagnosed with breast cancer, and Port Aransas damaged by Hurricane Harvey.

“I was focusing in on the Blue Heron as a symbol of hope and peace for our family,” Jarosz said. “And it's kind of been crazy how many people have reached out to me since I released this, (who say) they also have the Blue Heron as a symbol of that for them.”

She recorded the album in 2018, but it wasn’t released until 2021 – just a few weeks after her “World On The Ground” won for Best Americana Album.

“Even though I wanted it to come out sooner, in a way, it was really beautiful that it came out at this tough time, because it was written during such a hard time, personally,” she said. “But then I feel like it's taken on this whole new meaning after the last couple years. And listeners are in a place where they're willing to just take a step away from the world for a second, and dive into a longer piece of music.”

Gramps Morgan

In 2021, Morgan won an International Reggae and World Music Award for Best Gospel Song for his single, "People Like You." On Sunday, he intends to continue his winning ways for his country-meets-reggae album project, "Positive Vibration."

Famously, country music's global popularity in the 1970s expanded to the Caribbean. So, long before the 2016 Grammy winner for Best Reggae Album recorded his nominated release in Nashville, the genre was an early favorite of the artist.

"When I was younger, country music would play on short-wave radio stations on the island," said Morgan, a Jamaican gospel artist. He's also the son of legendary 1980s reggae star Denroy Morgan. 

"The sound was so popular there that Kenny Rogers eventually visited Jamaica (in 2004 at the Air Jamaica Jazz Festival). It's not just me though. Bob Marley and Toots and The Maytals, were among many that were influenced."

While recording his latest album, Morgan said he was inspired by Kenny Rogers, Randy Travis and Charley Pride, the latest chapter in his lifelong love of the iconic trio — collectively, they hold 13 Grammys. 

In Jamaica, Morgan explained, country songs are bigger than the artists who sing them.

"I was amazed when I realized that Charley Pride sang (his 1975 hit) 'Crystal Chandeliers,'" he said.

"Having people hear a Black artist singing these songs feels like I'm bridging the gap of history from artist to fan."

Rhonda Vincent

A decade and a half after her first nomination, Vincent, a bluegrass favorite, returns Sunday to the Grammy Awards with a chance to take home the golden gramophone for Best Bluegrass Album. 

Unlike the six times she previously competed in this category, the album that punched Vincent's latest ticket to music's marquee night wasn't cut at a rapid-fire pace familiar to bluegrass sessions. Instead, Vincent said she spent two years working on her 12-song collection, "Music Is What I See." 

"Before you would've rushed in like, 'Man (we) want to get this done," Vincent told the Tennessean in March.

"This time we got to take a step back and really perfect things." 

She tracked the album between sessions in Las Vegas and Music Row's Ocean Way studio before wrapping post-production at her home near Missouri's Lake of the Ozarks region. 

The best part about working from home?

"It's more comforting," Vincent said. "You can sing in your pajamas." 

Brandy Clark

Ever since her first nomination in 2014 — for co-writing Miranda Lambert's "Mama's Broken Heart" — Clark has been a familiar sight on the Grammy ballot. The solo artist and songwriter has earned 10 nominations over the years, including a nod for Best New Artist and three for Best Country Album. 

So when Grammy nominations were announced last year, and Clark's friends kept texting her congratulations, she thought they were talking about "Same Devil," nominated for Best American Roots Performance.

Sadness in more than a song:Female country singers connect with deep albums about grief

"I was in a writing appointment," Clark said. "So I couldn't see (the list). But I keep getting these texts about Song of the Year. And I'm thinking, 'People are confused.'"

They weren't.

Clark is a first-time nominee for Song of The Year — thanks to "A Beautiful Noise." Written by eight women, including its performers, Brandi Carlile and Alicia Keys, the song was first conceived to celebrate the 100th anniversary of women's suffrage. In the tumult of 2020, it took on new layers of emotion and urgency.

"The song became way more than what what we started with, and what we thought it would be," Clark said. "And then to get nominated for a Grammy...that was just mind-blowing."