Party Girl's Night In
Even From Afar, Winehouse Dominates With Five Awards; Kanye West Wins Four

By J. Freedom du Lac
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, February 11, 2008

LOS ANGELES, Feb. 10

Go ahead and say it: Amy Winehouse cleaned up.

The results are in, and the Recording Academy's official take on Winehouse is this: Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

The exceptional if exceptionally troubled British soulstress with the whiskey-soaked oeuvre dominated Sunday's Grammy Awards, winning record of the year, song of the year (a writing award) and best female pop vocal performance for her defiant, autobiographical single, "Rehab." Winehouse also won best new artist, and "Back to Black" was named best pop vocal album.

She was denied a clean sweep when jazz pianist Herbie Hancock was the surprise winner of the industry's highest honor -- album of the year -- for his Joni Mitchell tribute, "River: The Joni Letters."

Winehouse seemed to be stunned by the recognition, looking very much like a mascara-wearing deer in the headlights -- one with an eight-point bouffant -- when "Rehab" was announced as record of the year. She fell into the embrace of her band and put her arm around her mother as she summoned a few words of gratitude -- along with a shout-out to her jailed husband, Blake Fielder-Civil.

But Winehouse -- whose alcohol and drug problems have gone from source material to potential career-killers -- wasn't at the Staples Center soiree for any of this. On the eve of the golden-anniversary Grammyfest, the 24-year-old singer's trip was derailed by visa problems, so instead she was beamed in via satellite from London, where she entered a drug rehabilitation center in January after a video of her allegedly smoking crack appeared online.

Winehouse appeared lucid, engaged and animated, if a little bit jittery during what is certain to be the most dissected and psychoanalyzed awards show performance until Britney Spears attempts a comeback. Winehouse was in pretty fine voice, too. "You know I'm no good," she sang. And then: "They tried to make me go to rehab/I said, No, no, no."

Once again, the Recording Academy said no to rapper Kanye West, who had received his third album-of-the-year nomination in four years, this time for "Graduation." West is now 0 for 3. Fits are sure to follow, even if the famously petulant artist did win four other awards on Sunday.

"There are no losers in this category -- Kanye ," R&B singer Usher said before co-presenter Quincy Jones announced Hancock's name. (Immediate reaction by the news media in the interview room: a collective gasp, followed by some derisive howls. And then: furious typing about how the Recording Academy is horribly out of step with popular music, that the Grammys are more irrelevant than ever, etc.)

The relevancy question was posed to academy chief Neil Portnow, who predictably defended the album-of-the-year pick: "I don't think Herbie Hancock is irrelevant," he said. "It's all about excellence in music, and our members felt that Herbie's album was one that deserved recognition. . . . Herbie Hancock is a renaissance artist and very deserving."

"It's immeasurable how surprised I am," Hancock himself said.

Somebody asked about morning-after analysts who might opine that "River" marked a conservative pick by the academy.

"That's the first time I've been thought of as a conservative choice," said the 67-year-old Hancock. "What's conservative about me?"

It was only the second time in 50 years that a jazz recording had been named album of the year, the other win coming in 1965, when Stan Getz and Joao Gilberto's "Getz/Gilberto" took the trophy. (Norah Jones also won album of the year for the kinda jazzy "Come Away With Me" in 2003, but the consensus for that one from Hancock on down the line was: It's pop.)

West, who led this year's field with eight nominations, won best rap album, best rap solo performance (for "Stronger"), best rap song (for "Good Life") and best rap performance by a duo or group ("Stronger," with Common). In accepting the rap album trophy, he endorsed Winehouse as a worthy competitor, saying: "You deserve it just as much as me."

Though he added, to considerable laughter: "I deserve it, too."

Chaka Khan, the venerated diva who won two Grammys on Sunday, said backstage that Winehouse deserved album of the year -- along with a wide berth. "We all have a walk in life, and we hit hard and difficult times," Khan said. "Going through that chaos often leads to clarity. But we have to be given the room and the space, that privacy, that time, to be able to make mistakes and come out of it and survive."

Pop vocalist Josh Groban also sang Winehouse's praises, saying: "I think it's a great, great song and it's a brilliantly produced album. She's an amazing talent, and we all hope she gets better."

West's performance paid tribute both to the old sci-fi flick "Tron" and to the rapper's mother, Donda, who died in November of heart disease and complications related to plastic surgery. The first half of the two-fer was a hard-stomping version of West's futuristic funk-rap hit "Stronger," which was all cyborg beats, "live" Daft Punk samples and neon-trimmed costumes, which glowed on the darkened stage like something out of the Master Control Program. Then came "Hey Mama," an older album track that took on a new poignancy in the wake of Donda West's death. It was touching, if more than a touch off-key; afterward, the mother of R&B singer Ne-Yo appeared to be crying in the audience.

Later, while accepting the award for best rap album, West was being nudged offstage by the show's director, who had cued the your-speech-has-gone-on-too-long song. But West began to talk about his mother and declared: "It would be in good taste to stop the music." The music stopped. West, who had shaved "MAMA" onto the back of his head, proceeded, saying: "Mama, all I'm gonna do is keep making you proud."

"I just got an award given to me by a Beatle," Vince Gill said upon receiving the best country album award (for "These Days") from Ringo Starr. "Have you had that happen yet, Kanye?" Cameras flashed to West, who was laughing.

Gill was one of West's competitors in the general album-of-the-year category. Backstage, the celebrated country singer-songwriter-guitar slinger praised the academy's pick. "I think Herbie Hancock is, hands down, a better musician than all of who were nominated tonight put together," Gill said.

This being the backward-looking 50th-anniversary Grammyfest, the telecast was something like the night of the living dead. So many corpses to exhume, so little time: The show opened with Frank Sinatra speaking from the great beyond and then "performing" a duet with the young soulstress Alicia Keys. There was Keys at the piano in living color (a green dress that didn't exactly cover her shame), working up "Learnin' the Blues" -- and exhorting the black-and-white Sinatra to come charging out of the archives.

"Sing it, Frank!" she said. And sing Sinatra did. Neat trick.

"Frank Sinatra looked good for 150, didn't he?" joked the comedian known as Prince, who then presented Keys with the award for best female R&B vocal for her screechy anthem "No One."

The Beatles were back, too: Their music returned to the stage via Cirque du Soleil's interpretive aerobatics set to "A Day in the Life," plus a great gospelly version of "Let It Be" by the cast of the movie "Across the Universe." (The Beatles-based Cirque du Soleil soundtrack, "Love," won for best surround-sound album and best compilation soundtrack.)

The telecast went back in time, too, to retrieve the Time, the fabulous '80s funk band whose original members hadn't performed together in 15 years. The group reconvened to perform its classic "Jungle Love" before backing Rihanna, who looked every bit like a modern hip-hop songbird in a dress that might well have been fashioned out of plumes. She performed her ubiquitous "Umbrella," plus the Michael Jackson-quoting "Don't Stop the Music," but was completely overshadowed by the Time's frontman, Morris Day, who wore a gold lam¿ suit, sang about bearskin rugs, and, per tradition, had his lackey, Jerome Benton, bring a mirror onto the stage for a quick vanity check.

More blasts from the past: Andy Williams, the original Grammy host, was brought out of his hermetically sealed vault to present Burt Bacharach with a lifetime achievement award. Cyndi Lauper -- 23 years removed from her best new artist win -- emerged from the wings with Miley Cyrus (a.k.a. Hannah Montana), presumably so that the teen sensation would have parental supervision. Cher joked that she "first started singing when Lincoln was president."

Tina Turner, 68, came back to teach Beyonc¿, 26, just how it's done -- it being the art of stuffing yourself into a bodysuit made of an aluminum-foil-like material. (Their medley was somewhat out of sync, though "Proud Mary" had its moments.) Keely Smith -- who in 1959 won one of the first-ever Grammys, for best performance by a vocal group or chorus -- emerged from who-knows-where to reprise the winning song, "That Old Black Magic," with Kid Rock inexplicably in the role of Louis Prima. Dave Koz joined in, too. End result: Very strange.

Later, Tony Bennett botched his lines. And Jerry Lee Lewis botched "Great Balls of Fire." But at least Little Richard and John Fogerty represented the elder set exceptionally well during an icons-of-rock performance.

There were multiple posthumous awards, beginning with the very first trophy handed out in at the non-televised ceremony: best short-form music video, for Johnny Cash's "God's Gonna Cut You Down." Gerald LeVert, who died of an accidental prescription drug overdose in 2006, won an award for best traditional R&B vocal performance, the first Grammy of his career. "So sad that he's not here to receive it," said LeVert's widow, Martha. Tony Nichols, LeVert's songwriting and production partner for nearly two decades, said the singer badly wanted to win one of the awards. "We spoke about it often," Nichols said. "I think it always feels good to be acknowledged by the industry."

Meanwhile, in the latest Clinton-Obama showdown, the winner was Barack Obama, whose reading of his book "The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream" won for best spoken word album. Obama bested a field that included Bill Clinton and another ex-prez, Jimmy Carter, in winning the award for the second time. (His first win came two years ago, for the audio edition of "Dreams From My Father.") Don't bother searching on YouTube for the Illinois senator's victory speech, though; he wasn't around to accept the trophy. Something about a busy campaign schedule.

"We're going to have to accept his award, and he's going to have to personally meet us to get it," Cathy Fink said as her co-presenter (and musical partner) Marcy Marxer nodded. Perhaps they can all get together during Tuesday's Democratic primary in Maryland: Fink and Marxer (Grammy winners themselves) are based in Kensington.

The Republican National Committee celebrated Obama's Grammy win by issuing a statement saying that "glowing Hollywood endorsements and awards won't translate into votes this fall."