On The Charts: Grammy Victories Not Enough To Dethrone Jack Johnson

The Big News: Grammy wins helped propel Amy Winehouse and Herbie Hancock into the top five, but it wasn't enough to unseat last week's champ and Rolling Stone cover star Jack Johnson. Johnson's new album Sleep Through the Static sold 179,545 in its second week, while Winehouse's Back to Black sold 115,309 to jump from number twenty-four to number two. But the biggest mover was Herbie Hancock's Album of the Year-winning River: The Joni Letters which witnessed a sales jump of 967% from the previous week to catapult from 159 to five. Other albums getting Grammy boosts: Foo Fighters' Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace, Taylor Swift's self-titled debut and Eagles' Long Road Out of Eden.

Debuts: Besides WOW Gospel 2008, there were only two noteworthy debuts: Simple Plan's self-titled third album at fourteen, and Widespread Panic's Free Somehow at seventy-eight.

Last Week's Heroes: Last week's top ten got all sorts of mixed up by the Grammy resurrection set, with only Johnson, Alicia Keys' As I Am (three) and Juno (six) holding their ground. Sheryl Crow's Detours and Lenny Kravitz's It Is Time For a Love Revolution dropped in the week following their debuts. In platinum news, Keys' As I Am went triple platinum, while Kanye West's Graduation crossed into double platinum territory.

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Song Stories

“Is It True”

Brenda Lee | 1964

As the British Invasion reached its peak in 1964, Brenda Lee went from Nashville to London to record one of her hardest-rocking hits, her perky vocal backed by a stuttering, squalling guitar. That guitar was played by session musician Jimmy Page, yet to skyrocket to fame with first the Yardbirds and then Led Zeppelin. "She said to me, 'I've come here to make a record with the British sound,'" remembered producer Mickie Most. "She felt she wouldn't get the same sound in Nashville because they're only just catching up on the British beat group sound of about six months ago."

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