Grammy Award-winning troubadour Jason Mraz is one of the top nominees for the 2019 edition of the San Diego Music Awards, which will be held March 11 at downtown’s House of Blues. Tickets go on sale Monday.
Mraz, who will perform at the all-ages awards fete, is nominated for Artist of the Year, Album of the Year (for “Know”) and Song of the Year (for “Have It All”).
The veteran San Diego bands P.O.D., The Frights and Hot Snakes are nominated in the same three categories as Mraz, while The Redwoods Revue is nominated for Artist of the Year and in two other categories. Hot Snakes, co-led by Rocket From The Crypt mainstay John Reis, last year released its first new album in 14 years.
Among the artists who earned two nominations apiece are Slightly Stoopid, blues vocal dynamo Whitney Shay, Earthless (whose drummer, Mario Rubalcaba, is a Rocket From The Crypt alum), Schizophonics, Peter Sprague, The Havnauts, boogie-woogie pianist and band leader Sue Palmer, and Trouble in the Wind, which topped the 2018 San Diego Music Awards with three wins.
In addition to Mraz, P.O.D., Hot Snakes and Slightly Stoopid, the other Artist of the Year nominees include Shay, The Frights and The Redwoods Revue. A complete list of nominees in all 23 categories appears below.
The recipient of the Country Dick Montana Lifetime Achievement Award has not yet been announced.
The winners of the 2019 San Diego Music Awards — the event’s 28th edition — will be announced at the March 11 House of Blues ceremony. Confirmed performers include The Redwoods Revue, Vokab Kompany, Veronica May, Ariel Levine, the Casey Hensley Band and Shane Hall, all of whom will perform at the Awards show for the first time.
Also set to perform is the newly formed Java Joe’s All Stars, featuring Mraz, Gregory Page, Jeff Berkley and Billy Galewood, who until 2016 performed under the name Bushwalla and is a longtime friend of Mraz’s.
“I called Jason to see if he’d like to present an award, and he replied: ‘How about if we play’?” said San Diego Music Awards founder Kevin Hellman. “I said: ‘Sure!’ ”
The San Diego Music Awards are sponsored by Taylor Guitars and — for the first time — Ballast Point Brewing Company.
Online voting for this year’s edition will run from Jan. 28 through Feb. 17 at sandiegomusicawards.com. The public can vote in every category except the nine best album categories. Those are voted on by members of the nonprofit San Diego Music Academy, which includes area concert promoters, talent buyers, radio station veterans and other industry professionals.
The awards show is presented is presented under the auspices of the academy, which was launched in 1991. It has thus far raised $615,317 for the foundation’s Guitars for Schools program, according to Hellman. Over the past three decades, the program has provided free instruments and lessons for 57,200 students in 71 San Diego County schools.
Tickets for the 2019 San Diego Music Awards are priced at $36 (standing room) $40 (reserves balcony seats) and $75 (reserved table seats in front of stage), plus service charges. They go on sale Monday at sandiegomusicawards.com/buy-tickets and, starting Tuesday, at the House of Blues box office.