What You Need To Know About The Grammy Awards

The show is this Sunday night on CBS and should be fun!

The beauty of any of these shows is that it's like going to a bunch of very small concerts.  You get to see live performances of some of your favorite stars and songs.

For country this Sunday the Grammy folks are serving up performances by Taylor Swift, Kacey Musgraves, Keith Urban, Merle Haggard, Kris Kirstofferson, Willie Nelson, Blake Shelton and Hunter Hayes.  Zac Brown and Martina McBride will be presenting awards.

Whatever performance is first should set the tone for the night.  If it sounds like crap, then probably all the performances will have some sort of problem.  If it sounds pretty good then we should be in for a good night.

I've never been to a Grammy telecast, but I can tell you from experience at multiple CMA and ACM telecasts that the artists almost always do a great job.  The live performances in person are pretty spot-on.  Translating live concert sound to television audio is an art form unto itself.  Either they get it right or they don't and that success or failure usually holds true for an entire awards show.

Let's hope for the best for Sunday night.  Another great thing about the Grammy show is the artist mash-ups.  With all that superstar talent in one place they usually come up with some interesting pairings.

Hate to admit it, but I want to see Robin Thicke performing with the band Chicago.  Also, both Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr will be there Sunday to perform... But not together. Why not you ask? That gem of a performance is being saved for a special called "The Night That Changed America: A Grammys Salute To The Beatles."  The show is being taped this coming Monday night and will air on CBS on February 9th which is the 50th anniversary of the Beatles introduction to America on the Ed Sullivan Show.

But there's lots to talk about before Sunday's show.  Want to help out the Grammy Foundation and pick up some really cool stuff?  Right now you can head to a special E Bay auction featuring Grammy swag autographed by various stars during this week's rehearsals.

Items include goodies and guitars signed by Taylor Swift, Keith Urban and Hunter Hayes.  And as they say on TV... But Wait! There's more! There's a whole other set of awards.  Most of the actual awards are given out prior to Sunday night's show and this year those awards will be streamed live.  It will air from 4-6:30 PM our time and will be available on the Grammy site.

We'll be talking about the country winners on Monday morning's show... And any real good Justin Bieber jokes that make it to air Sunday night too!