The Grammy Awards at 60: What a long, strange trip it's been

Since the very first ceremony on May 4, 1959, the Grammy Awards have been unflaggingly in tune with innovations in popular music, consistently singling out the most visionary artists, groundbreaking recordings and influential cultural trends.

With apologies to Stephen Colbert: Just kidding.

Looking back at the recipients of the initial awards handed out during the presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower, you'd never know the big bang called rock 'n' roll had just exploded.

The first album-of-the-year Grammy went to film composer Henry Mancini, for "The Music From Peter Gunn."

Despite the recent arrivals of Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard, Buddy Holly and other groundbreaking rock artists, the first record- and song-of-the-year honors went to the suave Italian singer-actor-guitarist Domenico Modugno's hit recording of the lounge-music standard "Nel Blu Dipinto di Blu (Volare)."

Swing era icons Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, Count Basie and Duke Ellington also took home Grammys that year. Had Twitter existed then, the Recording Academy would have been battling a #GrammysSoDad campaign.

That's long made the academy a favorite