Paul McCartney wins Best Historical Album over Elvis Presley

Paul McCartney was one among the first winners at the 2012 Grammy Awards Sunday in Los Angeles, snagging the Best Historical Album honor during the pre-Grammy telecast. McCartney won as a compilation producer for the deluxe Paul McCartney Archive Collection edition of his former band Wings’ classic 1973 album, ‘Band On The Run.’ McCartney shared the honor with mastering engineers Sam Okell and Steve Rooke.

The deluxe edition of ‘Band On The Run,’ which dropped in November 2010 in multiple formats, beat out four worthy contenders for the award: ‘Young Man With The Big Beat: The Complete ’56 Elvis Presley Masters,’ ‘Hear Me Howling!: Blues, Ballads & Beyond As Recorded By The San Francisco Bay By Chris Strachwitz In The 1960s,’ ‘Syl Johnson: Complete Mythology’ and ‘The Bristol Sessions, 1927-1928: The Big Bang Of Country Music.’ Don’t those all just sound extremely rich in a historical context?

McCartney wasn’t on hand to accept the award, so either Okell or Rooke — to be honest these things happen so quickly during the pre-telecast we didn’t catch which one — accepted in Paul’s place. Either way, both Okell and Rooke won the Grammy in the same category last year, snagging the award for their work as mastering engineers on ‘The Beatles: The Original Studio Recordings,’ a box set compilation featuring all of the remastered stereo recordings by the Beatles.

Bruce Springsteen box set wins Grammy

Art directors Dave Bett and Michelle Holme just picked up a Grammy for Best Boxed Or Special Limited Edition Package for their work on Bruce Springsteen‘s six-disc ‘The Promise: The Darkness On The Edge of Town Story’ set.

The set includes a digitally-remastered version of ‘Darkness on the Edge of Town,’ as well as six hours of film and more than two hours of audio across 3 CDs and 3 DVDs.

It also comes with an 80-page book containing images from the notebooks Springsteen kept during recording sessions for the landmark album, a documentary, four hours of live concert film from the Thrill Hill Vault, and lots of other goodness.

The Boss himself tweeted out congrats to Bett and Holme just a short time ago.

Along with Springsteen’s set, the other Grammy nominees for Best Boxed Or Special Limited Edition Package were:

‘The King Of Limbs’
Donald Twain & Zachariah Wildwood, art directors (Radiohead)
[ATO Records]

’25th Anniversary Music Box’
Matt Taylor & Ellen Wakayama, art directors (Danny Elfman & Tim Burton)
[WB]

’25 Years’
James Spindler, art director (Sting)
[A&M Records/Cherrytree Records/UMe]

‘Wingless Angels – Deluxe Edition’
David Gorman, art director (Wingless Angels)
[Mindless Records, LLC]