100-year-old Jimmy Carter receives 10th Grammy Award nomination for spoken-word album ‘Last Sundays in Plains’

By Amanda Musa, CNN

(CNN) — About a month after turning 100 years old, former President Jimmy Carter received his 10th Grammy Award nomination for his latest spoken-word album, “Last Sundays in Plains: A Centennial Celebration.”

The 10-track album features renditions of classic songs such as “America the Beautiful” and “Amazing Grace” sung by Darius Rucker and LeAnn Rimes and includes recordings from Carter’s Sunday school lessons at Maranatha Baptist Church in his hometown of Plains, Georgia.

The album, released by Virgin Music in August, touches on the importance of love, kindness, forgiveness, and reconciliation, according to a news release.

“Let’s celebrate and honor President Carter’s remarkable wisdom through the jubilant power of music,” said Kabir Sehgal, a longtime Carter family friend who orchestrated the music, in a statement about the album’s release.

“His teachings have inspired us all. Music is a perfect medium to express the joy and gratitude we feel for him,” Sehgal added.

The nominees for the 2025 Grammy Awards were announced on Friday morning.

The album would secure Carter his fourth Grammy win and make him the oldest-ever Grammy winner – a record currently held by blues pianist Pinetop Perkins, who won at 97 years old, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Carter’s most recent win came in 2019 at the 61st annual awards for his album “Faith — A Journey for All.” Carter won in the same category in 2016 for “A Full Life: Reflections at Ninety” and in 2007 for “Our Endangered Values: America’s Moral Crisis.

The 39th president of the United States faces tough competition this year. Barbra Streisand and Dolly Parton are also nominated in the Best Audio Book, Narration, and Storytelling Recording category, as well as American singer George Clinton and producer Guy Oldfield.

A humanitarian and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Carter is in hospice care and “coming to the end” of his days, according to his family.

Carter became the oldest living president in history after George H.W. Bush died in 2018 at the age of 94. He has survived metastatic brain cancer, liver cancer and a number of health scares, including brain surgery after a fall in 2019. He entered hospice care in February 2023 after a series of hospital stays and made a rare public appearance to attend his wife’s memorial service last year.

In recent years, Carter has continued to speak out about the risks to democracy around the world.

“I would like our presidential candidates to keep our country at peace, and to be champions of human rights, of environmental quality, and of equality,” Carter said in the album.

“Aren’t those things you would like to have? It puts the responsibility on us as Americans to make our country better by helping to give somebody else a better life,” Carter said.

Carter’s Grammy nomination comes days after former President Donald Trump was reelected this week. Carter’s grandson, Jason Carter, recently told CNN that his grandfather cast an absentee vote for Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 election.

Before going into politics, Carter was a peanut farmer and US Navy lieutenant. The Democrat eventually served one term as governor of Georgia and as president of the United States from 1977 to 1981.

In his post-presidency years, Carter founded The Carter Center with his wife, Rosalynn, in hopes of advancing world peace and health. The center has worked over the years to advance democracy by monitoring foreign elections and reducing diseases in developing countries.

He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 for his efforts to push for peace across the globe.

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