The Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album has been awarded since 1959. The award has had several minor name changes: In 1959 the award was known as Best Performance, Documentary or Spoken Word From 1960 to 1961 it was awarded as Best Performance – Documentary or Spoken Word (other than comedy) From 1962 to 1963 it was awarded as Best Documentary or Spoken Word Recording (other than comedy) From 1964 to 1965 it was awarded as Best Documentary, Spoken Word or Drama Recording (other than comedy) In 1966 it was awarded as Best Spoken Word or Drama Recording From 1967 to 1968 it was awarded as Best Spoken Word, Documentary or Drama Recording From 1969 to 1979 it was awarded as Best Spoken Word Recording From 1980 to 1983 it returned to the title of Best Spoken Word, Documentary or Drama Recording From 1984 to 1991 it was awarded as Best Spoken Word or Non-Musical Recording From 1992 to 1997 it was awarded as Best Spoken Word or Non-Musical Album From 1998 to 2022 it was awarded as Best Spoken Word Album. In 2020, spoken-word children's albums were moved here from the Best Children's Album category. From 2023 it has been awarded as Best Audio Book, Narration & Storytelling Recording. Poetry reading now has its own Grammy category, Best Spoken Word Poetry Album.
Years reflect the year in which the Grammy Awards were handed out, for a recording released in the previous year.
Recipients
1950s Year Work Performing Artist1959 The Best of the Stan Freberg Shows Stan Freberg Great American Speeches Melvyn Douglas, Vincent Price, Carl Sandburg and Ed Begley "Green Christmas" Stan Freberg Improvisations to Music Elaine May and Mike Nichols
1960s Year Work Performing Artist1960 A Lincoln Portrait Carl Sandburg Ages of Man John Gielgud Basil Rathbone Reads Sherlock Holmes Basil Rathbone Mark Twain Tonight! Hal Holbrook New York Taxi Driver Tony Schwartz1961 FDR Speaks Robert Bialek (producer) Ages of Man, Vol. 2 (One Man in His Time) John Gielgud J.B. Archibald MacLeish Voices of the Twentieth Century Henry Fonda1962 Humor in Music Leonard Bernstein The Coming of Christ Alexander Scourby More of Hal Holbrook in Mark Twain Tonight! Hal Holbrook Wisdom, Vol. 1 Carl Sandburg, Harlow Shapley, Jawaharlal Nehru and Jacques Lipchitz The World of Dorothy Parker Dorothy Parker1963 The Story-Teller ... A Session with Charles Laughton Charles Laughton Carl Sandburg Reading His Poetry Carl Sandburg Enoch Arden Claude Rains and Glenn Gould "Mama Sang a Song" Stan Kenton This Is My Beloved Laurence Harvey1964 Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Melinda Dillon, George Grizzard, Uta Hagen and Arthur Hill The Badmen Goddard Lieberson, Pete Seeger and others Brecht on Brecht Dane Clark, Anne Jackson, Lotte Lenya and Viveca Lindfors John F. Kennedy – The Presidential Years Norman Weiser and David Teig We Shall Overcome (The March on Washington, August 28, 1963) Martin Luther King Jr. with Joan Baez, Marian Anderson, Odetta, Rabbi Joachim Prinz and Bob Dylan1965 BBC Tribute to John F. Kennedy That Was the Week That Was Cast Dialogue Highlights from Becket Richard Burton and Peter O'Toole Dylan Alec Guinness and Kate Reid Hamlet Richard Burton, Hume Cronyn, John Gielgud, Alfred Drake, George Voskovec, Eileen Herlie, William Redfield and George Ross The Kennedy Wit John F. Kennedy, David Brinkley and Adlai Stevenson Othello Laurence Olivier1966 John F. Kennedy: As We Remember Him Goddard Lieberson, producer The Brontes Margaret Webster Much Ado About Nothing National Theatre of Great Britain A Personal Choice Alec Guinness A Time to Keep: '64 Chet Huntley and David Brinkley The Voice of the Uncommon Man Adlai Stevenson1967 A Reporter Remembers, Vol. I – The War Years Edward R. Murrow Day for Decision Johnny Sea Death of a Salesman Lee J. Cobb and Mildred Dunnock History Repeats Itself Buddy Starcher1968 Gallant Men Everett Dirksen The Balcony Patrick Magee and Cyril Cusack The Earth Rod McKuen A Man For All Seasons Paul Scofield, Wendy Hiller and Robert Shaw Mark Twain Tonight!, Vol. 3 Hal Holbrook "An Open Letter to My Teenage Son" Victor Lundberg Poems of James Dickey James Dickey1969 Lonesome Cities Rod McKuen The Canterbury Pilgrims Martin Starkie I Have a Dream Martin Luther King Jr. Murder in the Cathedral Paul Scofield
1970s Year Work Performing Artist1970 We Love You, Call Collect Art Linkletter and Diane Linkletter The Great White Hope James Earl Jones Man on the Moon Walter Cronkite1971 Why I Oppose the War in Vietnam Martin Luther King Jr. Poems and Ballads from 100-Plus American Poets Ambrose, Dryden, Hecht, Molloy, Carawan, La Farge and Seeger Everett Dirksen's America Everett Dirksen Grover Henson Feels Forgotten Bill Cosby In the Beginning Apollo 8, 11 & 12 Astronauts, John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon1972 Desiderata Les Crane Hamlet (A Hallmark Hall of Fame Presentation) Richard Chamberlain I Can Hear It Now/The Sixties Walter Cronkite Long Day's Journey Into Night Stacy Keach, Robert Ryan and Geraldine Fitzgerald Will Rogers' USA James Whitmore1973 Lenny The Original Broadway Cast Angela Davis Speaks Angela Davis Yevtushenko Yevgeny Yevtushenko The Word Rod McKuen1974 Jonathan Livingston Seagull Richard Harris America, Why I Love Her John Wayne Slaughterhouse-Five Kurt Vonnegut Jr. Songs and Conversations Billie Holiday Tales of Witches, Ghosts and Goblins Vincent Price1975 Good Evening Peter Cook and Dudley Moore Autumn Rod McKuen An Ear to the Sounds of Our History Eric Sevareid Senator Sam at Home Sam Ervin1976 Give 'em Hell, Harry! James Whitmore The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman Claudia McNeil The Prophet Richard Harris Immortal Sherlock Holmes (Mercury Theatre on the Air) Orson Welles Talk About America Alistair Cooke To Kill a Mockingbird Maureen Stapleton1977 Great American Documents Henry Fonda, Helen Hayes, James Earl Jones and Orson Welles Fahrenheit 451 Ray Bradbury Foundation: The Psychohistorians William Shatner The Old Man and the Sea Charlton Heston A Tale of Two Cities James Mason1978 The Belle of Amherst Julie Harris Alex Haley Tells the Story of His Search for Roots Alex Haley For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf Original Cast and Ntozake Shange The Silmarillion Christopher Tolkien The Truman Tapes Harry Truman and Ben Gradus1979 Citizen Kane (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) Orson Welles The Grapes of Wrath Henry Fonda The Nixon Interviews with David Frost Richard Nixon and David Frost Roots (Original Television Soundtrack) Various Artists Wuthering Heights Judith Anderson, Claire Bloom, James Mason, George Rose and Gordon Gould
1980s Year Work Performing Artist1980 Ages of Man (Readings from Shakespeare) John Gielgud An American Prayer Jim Morrison Apocalypse Now (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) Various Artists Orson Welles & Helen Hayes at Their Best Orson Welles and Helen Hayes The Ox-Bow Incident Henry Fonda Stare with Your Ears Ken Nordine1981 Gertrude Stein, Gertrude Stein, Gertrude Stein Pat Carroll Adventures of Luke Skywalker: The Empire Strikes Back Original Cast I Sing Because I'm Happy, Vols. 1 and 2 Mahalia Jackson James Thurber: A Curb in the Sky and Other Stories Peter Ustinov Obediently Yours Orson Welles1982 Donovan's Brain Orson Welles Justice Holmes: Decisions E. G. Marshall The McCartney Interview Paul McCartney and Vic Garbarini 'Twas the Night Before Christmas (from Christmas with Friends, featuring Ed McMahon, Doc Severinsen and Tommy Newsom) Ed McMahon Vladimir Nabokov: Lolita James Mason1983 Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Movie on Record Tom Voegeli Charles Dickens' Nicholas Nickleby Roger Rees Foundation's Edge Isaac Asimov No Man's Land John Gielgud and Ralph Richardson 2010: Odyssey Two Arthur C. Clarke1984 Copland: Lincoln Portrait William Warfield Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Home Computers Steve Allen and Jayne Meadows Jane Fonda's Workout Record for Pregnancy, Birth and Recovery Jane Fonda and Femmy De Lyser Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats John Gielgud and Irene Worth1985 The Words of Gandhi Ben Kingsley Heart Play (Unfinished Dialogue) John Lennon and Yoko Ono Our Time Has Come Jesse Jackson The Real Thing (Broadway Cast) Jeremy Irons and Glenn Close1986 Ma Rainey's Black Bottom Mike Berniker (producer) and the Broadway Cast The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Dick Cavett Catch-22 Alan Arkin The Spy Who Came in from the Cold John le Carré Zuckerman Bound Philip Roth1987 Interviews from the Class of '55 Recording Sessions Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Chips Moman, Ricky Nelson, Roy Orbison, Carl Perkins and Sam Phillips Gulliver (composed by Patrick Williams) John Gielgud Hardheaded Boys Bill Cosby Interview with the Vampire F. Murray Abraham The Stories of Ray Bradbury Ray Bradbury1988 Lake Wobegon Days Garrison Keillor Lauren Bacall by Myself Lauren Bacall "Lincoln Portrait" (from Aaron Copland: Lincoln Portrait) Katharine Hepburn Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home Leonard Nimoy and George Takei Whales Alive Leonard Nimoy1989 "Speech by Rev. Jesse Jackson, July 27"(from One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism) Jesse Jackson A Christmas Carol John Gielgud A Prairie Home Companion: The 2nd Annual Farewell Performance Garrison Keillor and Various Artists The Screwtape Letters John Cleese Winters' Tale Jonathan Winters
1990s Year Work Performing Artist1990 It's Always Something Gilda Radner All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten Robert Fulghum I Want to Grow Hair, I Want to Grow Up, I Want to Go to Boise Erma Bombeck Sir John Gielgud Reads Alice in Wonderland John Gielgud The War of the Worlds 50th Anniversary Production Jason Robards, Steve Allen, Douglas Edwards and Cast1991 Gracie: A Love Story George Burns "Diane..." The Twin Peaks Tapes of Agent Cooper Kyle MacLachlan Jimmy Stewart and His Poems Jimmy Stewart A Prairie Home Companion: The 4th Annual Farewell Performance Garrison Keillor Profiles in Courage John F. Kennedy Jr.1992 The Civil War Ken Burns The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Douglas Adams A Life on the Road Charles Kuralt Me: Stories of My Life Katharine Hepburn1993 What You Can Do to Avoid AIDS Magic Johnson and Robert O'Keefe A Christmas Carol Patrick Stewart Devout Catalyst Ken Nordine Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe Fannie Flagg Stories Garrison Keillor This Is Orson Welles Orson Welles and Peter Bogdanovich1994 On the Pulse of Morning Maya Angelou Bound for Glory Arlo Guthrie Howards End Emma Thompson Miles: The Autobiography Levar Burton Mr. and Mrs. Bridge Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward1995 Get in the Van: On the Road with Black Flag Henry Rollins Baseball Ken Burns The Bible (The New Testament) Gregory Peck Hamlet Kenneth Branagh and the Renaissance Theatre Company Schindler's List Ben Kingsley1996 Phenomenal Woman Maya Angelou Guy Noir: Radio Private Eye Garrison Keillor I Am Spock Leonard Nimoy Long Walk to Freedom Danny Glover1997 It Takes a Village Hillary Clinton The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Garrison Keillor Charles Kuralt's America Charles Kuralt Grow Old Along with Me, the Best Is Yet to Be Ed Asner, Ellen Burstyn, CCH Pounder and Alfre Woodard Harry S Truman: A Journey to Independence Lauren Bacall, Martin Landau, Jack Lemmon and Gregory Peck1998 Charles Kuralt's Spring Charles Kuralt Contact Jodie Foster Even the Stars Look Lonesome Maya Angelou Living Faith Jimmy Carter A Reporter's Life Walter Cronkite1999 Still Me Christopher Reeve Beloved Toni Morrison Spiders in the Hairdo: Modern Urban Legends David Holt and Bill Mooney The Virtues of Aging Jimmy Carter Wobegon Boy Garrison Keillor
2000s