The following report is courtesy of Malcolm Venable from The Virginian-Pilot:

While only the truly obsessed will watch every minute of the annual Grammy music awards Sunday night, one group in Hampton Roads will be glued to the television.

Six artists with local roots are nominated for awards, and their relatives who can't go to the ceremony in Los Angeles are making plans to watch it from here. Tickets to the show cost anywhere from $700 to $2,500.

Raymond and Marianne Morton's son Mark Morton is a guitarist in the Richmond-based heavy-metal group LAMB OF GOD, which is one of five nominees for Best Metal Performance.

The Mortons live in Williamsburg but may watch the broadcast Sunday from Mark's home in Henrico County, where they sometimes housesit and take care of his dog and cat.

And even though their son's category isn't on the schedule for the Grammy broadcast, they're thrilled.

"Just to look at him from where he started a few years ago, practicing at our house and doing the Battle

of the Bands in Hampton Roads, he has come a long way," Raymond Morton said. "I don't even know if we realized how big they are. Maybe because we've watched him eat and sleep with his guitar since he was 6 or 7, and now to see him in all the magazines and realize he's one of the top guitarists in the heavy-metal field, it's quite an accomplishment.

"It's not particularly our type of music" - Raymond favors country and music from the '60s and '70s - "but we're extremely proud."

Read more here.

(Photo: Mark Morton, middle, is the guitarist in the Richmond-based heavy metal group Lamb of God, nominees for best metal performance. His parents, Marianne and Mark Morton won’t be able to go. Tickets to the show cost from $700 to $2,500.)