Bono would later join in an all-star jam on the Beatles' "Across the Universe." Stevie Wonder, Norah Jones, Keys, and the hairy dudes from Velvet Revolver, among many others, also took part in for the clunky but well-meaning singalong, which will be sold on the iTunes digital download site. Proceeds will go to a tsunami relief fund.
Not so poignant was a comically cheeseball duet between newlyweds Jennifer Lopez and Marc Antony, who performed "Escapemonos" while lounging -- and brushing her hair? -- on a bedroom set that looked borrowed from a Spanish TV soap opera.
Jamie Foxx and Alicia Keys, who won four Grammys, in a duet of Ray Charles's "Georgia on My Mind."
(Kevork Djansezian -- AP)
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Despite that bit of unintended hilarity, however, the Grammy Awards had a bit of edge.
"Rock-and-roll can be dangerous and fun at the same time," Green Day lead singer Billie Joe Armstrong said when the Berkeley, Calif., punk-rock trio won best hard rock performance for the concept album "American Idiot," about disgruntled suburban youth. Later, the group would play the title track -- an edited one, but no less fierce in its attack on the political powers-that-be.
With the Academy Awards just two weeks away, L.A. is already in wiggy Oscar mode. Streetlamps are draped with flowing banners hyping the Feb. 27 Hollywood back-pat-athon, and local news stations are plugging the event with shiny, happy segments. Buzzwise, the Grammy Awards have been little more than a diversion until it's time to see if Foxx can keep the Ray Charles winning streak going. Still, the mood here was celebratory. The music industry is celebrating a substantial comeback year for album sales, which had been down the previous four years. And the growing success of such legal Internet download services as iTunes has artists and label heads alike pumped up for a profitable future.
Last year's Grammy telecast was all about singing skinsation Janet Jackson, who had flashed the globe at the Super Bowl just a week before. Lame "wardrobe malfunction" jokes were the theme of that show, and it's now hard to remember who won what. This year's story lines were generated mainly by the assembled stars, especially West, the breakout sensation whose "College Dropout" had been considered the betting man's pick. West really is a college dropout -- he attended Columbia College in Chicago for a short time before being discovered by super-producer Jermaine Dupri -- but that didn't stop him from all-world fame and grabbing 10 Grammy nominations his first time out. West's heaping total was just two off the all-time record: Michael Jackson (1984) and Kenneth "Babyface" Edmonds (1997) scored 12 nominations apiece. Had he swept, West would have had the all-time record for a single Grammy ceremony; Jackson and Santana (2000) are tied with eight. (Ray Charles does not join them in the all-time winner's circle because his "Genius Loves Company" won one of its awards for engineering.) At the pre-telecast ceremony held in the adjoining Los Angeles Convention Center, all but a dozen or so of the 107 total awards were given out. (And to think there were only 28 categories in the 1959 inaugural Grammy to-do.) "Genius Loves Company" would have had an even bigger bounty, but that purple rapscallion Prince scored an upset win for best traditional R&B vocal performance for the title track off his return-to-form album "Musicology." In another surprise, Jay-Z's "99 Problems" trumped West's "Through the Wire" for best rap solo performance. It was a nice going-away present for Jay-Z, who has "retired" (yeah, we'll see . . .) from performing and is now the president and CEO of Def Jam Recordings.
So hot was West that almost every journalist penned up in a media room refused to leave after the show was over, in hopes that he'd finally show up. And he did, looking absolutely GQ in an all-white suit and white silk tie. He fielded questions about losing to Maroon 5: "We're all winners. Maroon 5 -- they're just too good. . . . It's a tough year."
And when asked about losing to Jay-Z's "99 Problems" for best rap solo performance and beating Jay- Z's "99 Problems" for best rap song, you very much got the feeling that his answer referred to the night's big winner: "It's hard to beat someone's last [performance]. It's not like it's their best. It's their last."
Country newcomer Gretchen Wilson's double-wide anthem "Redneck Woman," just about the most fun to be had on a radio last year, won for best female country vocal performance.
Providing some much-needed swagger, Steve Earle, whose album "The Revolution Starts . . . Now" is a scathing indictment of the Bush administration, won for best contemporary folk album. He was relatively somber onstage, but he loosened up a bit later. "If I'm not [angering] the New York Post and Fox News, I'm not doing my job," Earle said, adding that he hoped his victory was a sign that another left-leaning diatribe would prove victorious:
"If Green Day doesn't win," he barked, "something's wrong."
As far as local pride is concerned, Marcy Marxer and Cathy Fink's "cELLAbration! A Tribute to Ella Jenkins" won for best musical album for children; in a poignant twist, the duo, nominated for the 10th time, beat out the woman they were honoring: Children's-music pioneer Ella Jenkins, now 80 years old, and her "Sharing Cultures With Ella Jenkins."
"We figure that either way she's a winner," Fink said about being torn over trumping their hero.
D.C. legend Richard Smallwood's "The Praise & Worship Songs" lost out to Ben Harper & the Blind Boys of Alabama's "There Will be Light" for best traditional soul gospel album. In a sweet moment, all of the Blind Boys, looking splendid in bright red suits, were helped onstage to accept their award.
