Brandi Carlile, Maple Valley’s multiple-Grammy Award-winning roots rocker, has received her first Oscar nomination. The nominated song, “Never Too Late,” written by Carlile, Elton John, Bernie Taupin and Andrew Watt for the documentary “Elton John: Never Too Late,” was named Thursday in the original song category.
Other nominees in the category include two songs from “Emilia Pérez” and songs from “The Six Triple Eight” and “Sing Sing.”
“I’m having a hard time fathoming, let alone explaining to anybody what it feels like to be Oscar nominated alongside my greatest heroes of all time for something so meaningful,” Carlile said in an Instagram post Thursday morning. “I honestly can’t imagine a higher honor.”
Carlile has won 11 Grammy Awards, most recently for best folk album (“Joni Mitchell at Newport”) and best Americana performance (“Dear Insecurity”) in 2024. She has a career total of 26 Grammy nominations. John has four previous Oscar nominations and two wins, both in the original song category: “Can You Feel the Love Tonight” from “The Lion King” (1994) and “(I’m Gonna) Love Me Again” from “Rocketman” (2019), the latter win shared with Taupin, his longtime collaborator. He has won five Grammy Awards, with 35 nominations.
John and Carlile recorded the song as a duet, playing over the close of the film. It is the first writing collaboration for the duo, who are longtime friends and mutual admirers (they previously sang together on “Simple Things,” a song from John’s album “The Lockdown Sessions”). Carlile, who wrote the lyrics after viewing an early cut of the documentary two years ago, said on Facebook in November that the collaboration was “a distinct honor,” and that John was an enormous influence on her career: “I would never have played a piano chord or written a word without my heroes Elton John and Bernie Taupin.”
John, on Instagram, said that he was “constantly astonished by her craft, she can channel my voice in a way only Bernie has managed to do before … The standard of her musicianship, her songwriting, her passion for what she does are sensational. She truly is one of the greatest there is.”
“Elton John: Never Too Late” is streaming on Disney+.
The Academy Awards ceremony will take place March 2, broadcast on ABC and Hulu beginning at 4 p.m. PST.