Italian rocker Zucchero is up for a Grammy Award this year for giving backup vocal support to Sam Moore in his duet with the late Billy Preston in their performance of Preston's song 'You are So Beautiful'.
The Grammy Awards ceremony will be staged in Los Angeles Sunday night, Monday morning in Italy.
The song, from Moore's 2006 album Overnight Sensational, has been nominated in the category of Best Traditional R&B Vocal Performance.
Moore was the Sam of the 1960s singing duo Sam & Dave.
Aside from Zucchero, the song includes Eric Clapton performing a guitar solo and Roberto Randolph playing pedal guitar.
'You Are so Beautiful' was originally a hit for Joe Cocker.
Moore will be competing against Anita Baker's 'Christmas Time Is Here'; 'God Bless The Child' by George Benson and Al Jarreau, featuring Jill Scott; 'I Found My Everything' by Mary J.Blige, featuring Raphael Saadiq; and the Temptations' version of 'How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)'.
Zucchero (Sugar), whose real name is Adelmo Fornaciari, is one of Italy's best-known pop-rock performers outside Italy along with Laura Pausini and Eros Ramazzotti.
He rose to fame in the mid-1980s after he broke with the melodies of traditional Italian pop music and adopted a rhythm & blues style.
His popularity spread to Germany, Britain and South America and he has performed with Ray Charles, Miles Davis, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Sting, Eric Clapton, Elton John, Luciano Pavarotti and Andrea Bocelli, among others.
In fact, it was Zucchero who gave Bocelli his big break when in 1992 he picked him to sing on the demo of Miserere - a song written by U2 lead Bono.
Armed with the demo, Zucchero convinced Pavarotti to sing the final version, although it was Bocelli who went on to tour with Zucchero to perform the song.
Aside from taking part in several of the Luciano Pavarotti and Friends charity concert, Zucchero performed in the 2006 Live 8 concert in both Rome and Paris on the same day.
Zucchero's Grammy nomination is unusual for an Italian performer.
Bocelli was nominated last year for a Latin Grammy but failed to win the prize for Best Male Pop Album, an award Pausini won in the female category the previous year.
