GRAMMY Museum Expands to Newark

Steve Adubato goes one-on-one with Bob Santelli, Founding Executive Director of the GRAMMY Museum, to discuss the recent expansion of the Museum to Newark’s Prudential Center and the mission of the GRAMMY Museums to inspire and educate music lovers of all ages.

1/22/18 #2105

 

 

 

 

Excerpt:

"We're pleased to be joined by Mr. Bob Santelli, Founding Executive Director of the GRAMMY Museum based in? Newark, New Jersey. Because? Because Newark has a great legacy in music. It's one of the great jazz towns in all of America, it's close to New York City, and Newark's in my home state of New Jersey. It's perfect. Let's be more clear. By the way, as a proud son of Brick City, Newark, New Jersey, I also know you happen to be at a particular location in Newark which matters. Talk about it. Sure. Prudential Center, which is home of the New Jersey Devils but also one of the great up-and-coming concert centers in America. So there's a lot of great music that happens there, a lot of great Grammy artists perform there, it stands to reason we should have a GRAMMY Museum experience there. Talk a little bit, Bob, about why the Grammys matter, and by the way, 16th anniversary, right? 60th. 60. Yeah. Why does it matter? Yeah. You know look, when you think of music, not just here in America, but all across the world, the Grammy brand is world-renowned, it stands for artistic excellence, it stands for music education, it's all about making sure that music remains to be America's greatest cultural resource, and so by having a museum here in Newark, we have one in Los Angeles, which is the mothership, with one in the Mississippi Delta, with one in Nashville, the idea is to create a necklace of these small museums that also act as educational centers to basically make sure that American music is... remains number one. Talk about some of the exhibits. I mean, I think about some of the extraordinary musicians, the artists, that come out of New Jersey. Springsteen is the most obvious one, but there are so many others? Oh yeah, well it starts with Sinatra, right? It starts with Sinatra? Yeah. I apologize to the... yeah you gotta start with... ...Chairman of The Board. ...the Chairman of The Board. And actually the GRAMMY Museum, a couple years ago for the Sinatra Centennial, we had an exhibit that toured America, it was a great exhibit and it was actually here in New York City, but you have Springsteen, you have Jon Bon Jovi, you have Whitney Houston, you have Wyclef Jean, you have great hip hop artists, great jazz artists, going all the way back to the time that Count Basie was born in Red Bank, Jersey City has Kool & The Gang, and you know, The Fugees in East Orange, so many artists have come out from there. I'll tell you what, just the..."