While Kanye West led the nominations race for this year’s
Grammy awards appearing on no less than ten shortlists, on the night it was the late great Ray Charles who dominated, winning awards for Gospel Performance, Pop Collaboration, Pop Vocal
Album, Album and Record of the year, all relating to his final work, the ‘Genius Loves Company’ duets album. Collecting the gong for Best Album Charles’ longtime manager Joe Adams told the Grammys audience: "I'm going to thank all of you people on behalf of Ray Charles, who is with us. I'll simply say it again: Humbly we accept this wonderful, wonderful award.
And we offer a humongous thanks to you individually and collectively from the bottom of our hearts. Very sincerely. We love you madly.
Passionately. And continuously."
Keeping in with the theme that the night belonged to Charles, **Alicia
Keys and Jamie Foxx**, the latter having picked up the BAFTA for
Best Actor for his portrayal of Charles in the movie ‘Ray’
on Saturday night, took part in a musical tribute to the man performing his signature hit ‘Georgia On My Mind’.
Later in the evening Bonnie Raitt and Billy Preston also performed a musical tribute to Charles.
Alicia
Keys herself had a good evening winning four awards - she got
Best R&B Song for ‘You Don't Know My Name’, Best
R&B Album for ‘The Diary of Alicia Keys’, Best
Female R&B Vocal Performance for ‘If I Ain't Got You’
and Best R&B Vocal Performance By A Duo for her duet with
Usher, ‘My Boo’.
Usher too was a multiple winner - also winning awards for Best Contemporary
R&B Album and Best Rap/Sung Collaboration for his track with Lil Jon & Ludacris - ‘Yeah!’.
Other multiple winners included U2, Norah Jones and Kanye West, all of whom took home three awards each. The latter, however, did not win the prestigious Best New Artist prize, as many expected him too. That award went to Maroon 5.
Elsewhere,
Britney picked up her first ever Grammy for ‘Toxic’, which was named Best Dance Recording. Other established acts getting their first Grammy recognition included Rod Stewart, who picked up Best Traditional Pop Album for ‘Stardust...
The Great American Songbook: Volume III’, and Brian Wilson who got the award for Best Rock Instrumental Performance for
‘SMiLE’ track ‘Mrs. O'Leary's Cow’.
Not a huge night for British music. Aside from Stewart, Brit Grammy winners were Annie Lennox for her track from the Lord Of The
Rings soundtrack, good old Motorhead who got Best Metal Performance and Basement Jaxx, who proved that British dance music is still big on the global stage by taking Best Electronic / Dance Album.
Other UK nominees like Elvis Costello, Joss Stone and **Franz
Ferdinand** all left empty handed.
As you’ll remember, there’s about 3917 categories at the Grammys (including a Spoken Word Award, won by two-time
Grammy winner Bill Clinton for the audio version of his autobiography
‘My Life’). The full list, should you want it, is at http://www.grammys.com/awards/grammy/47winners.aspx