Grammys 2010

The awards really don't matter that much (quick...without Googling...what was the Album of the Year at the 2009 show? Yeah, I don't remember either), with the Grammy show, it's the music that matters.

The unavoidable Lady Gaga and the legendary Sir Elton John opened the show in bombastic (but admittedly fun) fashion and Green Day and the cast of the upcoming musical "American Idiot" made a good case for the blending of Punk and Broadway.

Beyonce got a jump on the Michael Jackson tribute with backup dancers dressed like stormtroopers and by grabbing her crotch during a searing medley of "If I Were a Boy" and Alanis Morrissette's "You Ought to Know" and Pink is apparently trying out for Cirque du Soleil (it's a bit odd but kind of cool too.)

The unavoidable Black Eyed Peas cranked up the spectacle to 11 (though after making a big deal about the fan videos of "I Gotta Feeling" they were barely seen in the far background.)

Second hour means the country folk can come out to play. Lady Antebellum leads off with a sweet and smooth performance. Best New Artists, The Zac Brown Band did themselves proud playing a spirited medley with the venerable Leon Russell. And Taylor Swift got to share a stage with one of her heroines, Stevie Nicks.

Jamie Foxx and his Auto-Tune continued the martial costume theme (T-Pain and his white tuxedo must not have gotten the memo and Slash is just too cool for that stuff.)

The Michael Jackson tribute...with Celine Dion, Usher, Carrie Underwood, Jennifer Hudson, and Smokey Robinson singing along with MJ's recording of "Earth Song"...was stirring (and Jackson's children were dignified and gracious afterwards.)

Bon Jovi...with Sugarland's Jennifer Nettles sitting in...was solid in their 3-song mini-set.

Okay, I will admit to misting up during the soaring performance of "Bridge Over Troubled Water" by Andrea Bocelli and Mary J. Blige (and yes I will be ponying up for the Haiti-benefiting download available at itunes.com/target.)

And the jubilant performance by the Dave Matthews Band (and a WHOLE LOT of friends) was a joyous tribute to their fallen brother and bandmate, LeRoi Moore.

Maxwell and Roberta Flack were fine (though Roberta seemed a bit unsteady at times) and Jeff Beck's tribute to Les Paul was very tasty.

The performances were fair to great, the speeches were kept to a minimum, and the show kept moving...all in all the Grammys were fine this year and I was cool with that.

Random Notes: The 2009 Grammy Awards

Okay, the awards don’t really matter much…who remembers them two days later?...with the Grammys the show’s the thing. I only watch two awards shows a year…the Grammys and the Oscars…and so I’m always hopeful they’ll be worth the 3+ hour investment of time they usually require of me.

Thumbs up: U2 (you usually can’t go wrong with Bono and the boys kicking off your show), Al Green and Justin Timberlake (a last minute sub for Chris Brown who was having legal problems to do with domestic assault) with Boyz 2 Men and Keith Urban, Jennifer Hudson (the performance was stirring), Stevie Wonder and the Jonas Brothers (the kids were a bit hyperactive…but hey they’re kids…and the combination was a bit weird but, strangely enough, it worked), Radiohead and the USC Marching Band (very cool), Robert Plant and Alison Krauss (the big winners in a year when the Grammy show was jam packed with hip hop), Kanye West and Estelle, Sugarland and Adele (the Best New Artist winner), Timberlake and T.I. (my favorite hip hop performance of the night), Paul McCartney with Dave Grohl (a wonderful time was had by all…though of all of the Beatles songs he could have picked, it was a bit strange that Sir Paul decided to use the one that starts with the line “…well she was just 17 if you know what I mean…” :-), Carrie Underwood, Kid Rock, and Kenny Chesney (who knew he was pals with Morgan Freeman?)

The tribute to the Four Tops…with Smokey Robinson, Jamie Foxx, Ne-Yo, and the last surviving Top Duke Fakir…was very sweet (though Foxx seemed to flummox the director by going one way while the other three guys went the other way.)

The tribute to New Orleans was fine but it could have been better if Lil’ Wayne could have shut up (after finishing his part with Robin Thicke) while Allen Toussaint and Terence Blanchard were playing.

The Bo Diddley tribute…with B.B. King, John Mayer, Buddy Guy, and Keith Urban…was also fine (though you might have hoped that a tribute to Bo would have been a bit more animated…)

There was something oddly cool about both Green Day and Blink-182 coming out to present awards.

Special props to M.I.A. for enthusiastically singing the hooks for the “Rap Pack”…Kanye West, Jay-Z, T.I., and Lil’ Wayne…even while it looked like her water could break at any moment. The song itself…”Swagga Like Us”…was lively enough but, as these rap collaborations too often tend to go, it ended up with the four rappers seemingly trying to out-shout each other.

The appeal of Coldplay continues to elude me (please spare me your barbs, Coldplay fans…which are, of course, legion…your mileage may vary…so just let it go), Taylor Swift and Miley Cyrus have had better nights (ibid.), Whitney Houston seemed a bit…spaced out (but hopefully she is still on an upward trajectory), and Neil Diamond was…well…Neil Diamond (and I guess somebody has to be so there’s that…and hey Jay-Z really liked it…)

And I’m completely over “I Kissed a Girl” and Katy Perry should be too if she doesn’t want to end up a one-hit wonder/novelty act.

All in all, not a bad show…too long, of course (they cut off Stevie Wonder’s closing song) but most of the winners kept their acceptance remarks short (well until the end when Robert Plant seemed like he was going to go on for a while) and things kept moving a fairly good clip most of the night. Like I said, it was not a bad show.

The 50th Annual Grammy Awards

The National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences realized that when it comes to the Grammy awards…especially the 50^th anniversary awards…it’s the music that counts. There are only so many laundry lists of record executives and shout outs to God that the audience wants to sit through so, again, they kept the number of awards they handed out on the prime time broadcast to a minimum and concentrated on presenting an eclectic array of performances. For the most part it worked to make for an entertaining show.

As far as the awards went the Academy went against the prevailing wisdom that Amy Winehouse’s train wreck of a personal life would preclude them from honoring her by giving her 5 Grammys…including plum prizes for Best New Artist, Song of the Year, and Record of the Year (the latter two for the ironic but undeniably funky “Rehab”.) Winehouse (above with her Mom), originally denied a visa to come to the ceremonies, performed in a small venue in London before an enthusiastic audience. Her performances of “You Know I’m No Good” and “Rehab” were a bit ragged but potent nevertheless. She seems genuinely shocked by her Record of the Year win, which announced just after her performance.

Winehouse lost the coveted Album of the Year to a surprise winner: Herbie Hancock’s (below) lovely River: The Joni Letters (only the second jazz album to win the prize following the 1965 award to Getz/Gilberto by Stan Getz and Joao Gilberto.) Kanye West lost out on this one for the third time (both Vince Gill and Usher took playful jabs at West’s petulant behavior during previous awards shows.)

The show itself was a celebration of Grammy’s 50 years with lots of Grammy favorites among those presenting awards or introducing performances. Among the very familiar faces were Quincy Jones (27 Grammy wins), Stevie Wonder (25), Cher, Tony Bennett, Natalie Cole, and Ringo Starr.

Alicia Keys opened the show with a duet with the youthful ghost of Frank Sinatra on “Learning the Blues” (Keys would return later for a rousing version of “No One” with some help from John Mayer) followed by Carrie Underwood romping through “Before He Cheats” backed up by a phalanx of percussionists.

Some of the performances that followed were rousing: Herbie Hancock and Lang Lang’s soaring take of Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue”, Beyonce and the immortal Tina Turner shimmying through “Proud Mary”, Aretha Franklin and BeBe Winans leading a gospel medley, young Timothy Mitchum and Carol Woods (from the movie Across the Universe) with an amazing gospel version of the Beatles’ “Let it Be”, Kanye West’s heartfelt “Hey Mama”, Andrea Bocelli and Josh Groban’s majestic “The Prayer”.

Others were fun…the reunited Time teaming up with Rhianna, Foo Fighters blazing through “The Pretender” with an orchestra conducted by Led Zeppelin’s John Paul Jones and a violin solo by this year’s “My Grammy Moment” winner, West and Daft Punk’s otherworldly performance of “Stronger”, John Fogerty teaming up with rock and roll fathers Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis, Feist’s understated version of “1234”.

(A couple were….um…a bit more problematic: will.i.am’s rap was lame and the duet on “That Old Black Magic” between veteran Keely Smith…still in fine voice…and Kid Rock…not exactly Louis Prima… was a bit awkward. And there was a bit too much Cirque du Soleil for my taste.)

All in all, Grammy didn’t embarrass itself during its golden anniversary show and that was all good.

2007 Grammy Nominations

Maybe this time Kanye West will be able to win the big prize at the 50th annual Grammy Awards (goodness knows that we’ll all hear about it if he doesn’t) as he leads the nomination pack with 8 nods. Amy Winehouse, who’s had an interesting year to say the least, picked up 6 nominations.

West’s Graduation and Winehouse’s Back to Black are competing for Album of the Year honors alongside of the Foo Fighters’ Echoes, Silence, Patience, and Grace, Herbie Hancock’s River: The Joni Letters, and Vince Gill’s eclectic 4-disc collection, These Days.

Winehouse’s defiant (and undeniably funky) “Rehab” (see below) is competing for Record of the Year with Beyonce’s “Irreplaceable”, the Foo Fighters’ “The Pretender”, Rhianna’s “Umbrella”, and Justin Timberlake’s “What Goes Around…Comes Around”.

Winehouse is also up for Best New Artist (even though Back to Black is not her first album) along with Feist (who also has been around for a little bit), Ledisi, Paramore, and Taylor Swift.

The Grammy Awards will be handed out on February 10, 2008.

Pop Culture Auction

I guess this is where I’m supposed to write something pithy like “up, up, and away!” :-) A Superman costume worn by Christopher Reeve in 1978’s Superman: The Movie was sold at auction for a heroic $115,000.

Profiles in History, a memorbilia dealer, racked up more than $2,000,000 at its auction of more than 700 pop culture items this week which also featured a latex Alien costume designed by H.R. Giger for the original 1979 movie Alien ($126,500), a Winkie guard costume from The Wizard of Oz ($115,000), a gown worn by Marilyn Monroe in There’s No Business Like Show Business ($92,000), Val Kilmer’s Batman costume from Batman Forever ($63,250), Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine claws from X2: X-Men United ($40,250), and Stevie Wonder’s Grammy for Innervisions ($37,350).

Man, that’s a lotta greenbacks for a bunch of old stuff :-)

Pop Culture News and Notes

This year's Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue cover model is, as you can see, Beyonce. She's wearing a bikini designed by the House of Dereon, the fashion label created by the Dreamgirl and her mom. SI says that Ms. Knowles is the first Swimsuit Issue covergirl who is neither a professional model nor an athlete.

The annual Swimsuit Issue also doubles as the Music Issue and it features models posing with Aerosmith, Kenny Chesney, Gnarls Barkley, Panic! at the Disco, and Kanye West.

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Man, that Robyn Troup (above performing at the Grammy Awards with Justin Timberlake and T.I.) is...well...a trooper. The 19-year-old Texan got bounced from the American Idol competition (as seen during February 13th's Hollywood round broadcast) but she picked herself up and went out and won the "Grammy Moment" competition to perform before millions during the show.

(Not good enough for Randy, Paula [who has been quoted as saying she's "never been drunk"] , and Simon but good enough for Justin? I'm not sure what that means...but hey, it worked out for everybody so it's all good.)

More MKW blogstuff: Bread and Roses

Random Notes (Grammys '07 Edition)

Nobody remembers who wins the Grammy awards. Okay, that’s an exaggeration…but not by much. I am lifelong fan of popular music and the Grammy Awards are one of only two televised awards show that I watch most years and the winners do not linger long in my active memory after the show ends.

With the Grammys, it is indeed the show…and not the awards (the Grammy voters are woefully out of touch most years) nor the winners’ insipid acceptance speeches…that is the thing (see recap of the 2005 show here and recap of the 2006 show here…jeez this is Neverending Rainbow’s third annual Grammy piece…we’re getting old :-)

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The last time I saw Sting on television he was playing the lute on Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip…he was a little more interesting opening the show with the reunited Police on a potent version of “Roxanne”…

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Apparently, the Dixie Chicks are still not ready to make nice…hey, that’s cool (hey, nice dress, Natalie.)

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That Prince…ever the soul of brevity: “One word: Beyonce”…that’s cool, too. Then the Dreamgirl belted out “Listen” like the soulful pro she is.

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Damn it, they played Mary J. off before she could thank me (my name MUST have been somewhere on that seemingly endless list of “thank yous”...)

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Justin Timberlake's hand-held nostril-cam…yeah, that was good idea…

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Corinne Bailey Rae, John Legend, and John Meyer sounded good together...they should form a band or something...

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Gnarls Barkley looked resplendent in their airline pilot uniforms and “Crazy” sounded cool even slowed down.

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What the hell?? Ludacris didn’t give me a shout out either? He name checked everybody including Oprah and Bill O’Reilly but not me…what’s up with that? :-)

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Okay, Mary J. (whose awards were apparently thanks to God) is forgiven for dissing me after the powerhouse medley of “Be Without You” and “Stay with Me”.

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Huh? Oh sorry…I must have dozed off…have Carrie Underwood and Rascal Flatts finished their Eagles tribute yet? (To be fair, Ms. Underwood acquitted herself well on the Bob Wills’ classic “San Antonio Rose”.)

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Somewhere in Smokey Robinson’s attic there has to be painting of himself as a very old man (hah, an Oscar Wilde joke!…I kill myself sometimes :-) And dude, who knew Nicole Richie’s dad could sing??

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Christina Aguilera doing James Brown’s “It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World”? It’s a bit over the top (of course) but it works (I think Mr. Brown would have given a thumbs up…especially when Xtina went down on her knees in her snappy white suit.) Diva of the night award by a hair over Mary J.

Nice touch draping the “Godfather of Soul” cape over the mike stand at the end of the memoriam clips.

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Ah yes, this year’s hip hop spectacle: Ludacris with Mary J. Blige, Earth Wind & Fire, and a bunch of girls carrying candles. Um, okay…

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Oh good, James Blunt got to sing the horribly under-exposed “You’re Beautiful”…maybe now it’ll get some more airplay.

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Contest winner Robyn Troup made the most of her “American Idol...I mean, Grammy Moment” with Justin Timberlake; she looked a bit lost every now and again but mostly she held her own.

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Chris Rock sez the Red Hot Chili Peppers are the “best band in the world” so I guess it must be true. (Chris also drew the only bleep I heard when he said the name of Timberlake’s infamous Saturday Night Live bit.)

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Coolest presenting team of the night? Queen Latifah and Al Gore, of course (that Gore guy is everywhere…you’d think he was running for President or something…)

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Ah, those lefty Grammy voters poured the accolades on the Dixie Chicks…Album of the Year, Record of the Year, Song of the Year, Country Album of the Year (it really wasn’t a country record but whatever works…)

The Chicks seemed a bit embarrassed by the end of the show…they shouldn’t have been, Taking the Long Way is an excellent record…and more than a bit tongue-tied every they came to the podium to pick up another award.

Interesting enough show…it kept moving fairly well (these things always screech to a mind-numbing halt during the acceptance speeches but I’ve made my peace with that…it’s a good time to go to bathroom or to go grab a handful of grapes…)

More MKW blogstuff: Bread and Roses

Random Notes (Grammys '06 Edition)

Okay…the broadcast of the 48th Grammy Awards was a mess. Bad camera angles, numerous audio malfunctions, awkward pauses, glimpses of people working backstage, bad transitions, a zillion commercials, padded out to 3 ½ hours…it was a mess. They chose to go without a host this year…and that was probably a bad idea too.

Some of the performances were pretty good, though:

Gorillaz and De La Soul opened the show with “Feel Good Inc.” (the rappers being a bit more animated than the too-cool-for-the-room cartoon characters :-) followed by Madonna (who, judging by the stylish leotard she was wearing, apparently came directly to show from a workout) and bunch of dancers gyrating through “Hung Up”.

Stevie Wonder and Alicia Keys dedicated a couple of a cappella bars of “Higher Ground” to Coretta Scott King before giving out an award to Kelly Clarkson.

(Ooo look, Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban are sitting together in the audience…ain’t love grand?)

Coldplay (Chris Martin really likes that “prancing in the audience thing”, don’t he?), John Legend, and Sugarland (missing a member and plagued by mike problems) kept the show moving.

U2 kicked things up a level with “Vertigo” (though they got lost in the smoke there for a while) and then Mary J. Blige joined them to raise the roof with “One” (see above).

Kelly Clarkson (who had bawled through her acceptance of the aforementioned award) was in fine voice on “Because of You”

Sir Paul McCartney performed “Fine Line” and then got frisky with a rockin’ rendition of “Helter Skelter”

(Wait…are the Black Eyed Peas finished announcing the Best R&B Vocal Performance by a Male yet? They do babble on, don't they?)

Comeback girl Mariah Carey opened with “We Belong Together” and then went gospel with a choir on a soaring “Carry Me Home”

(Why is Teri Hatcher wearing a negligee?)

Keith Urban (thanks for dressing up for the occasion, guy) sang “You’ll Think of Me” on top of plastic box and then joined Faith Hill for a sprightly “The Lucky One”

The “tribute” to Sly and the Family Stone was…okay, let’s be charitable again and say “ ragged.” John Legend, Joss Stone, Van Hunt, Maroon 5, Fantasia, Steven Tyler, Joe Perry, Robert Randolph, and others (what the hell is Randy Jackson doing playing bass with the band? Shouldn’t he be at home practicing his “hip” banter for the next edition of American Idol?) stumbled through tepid versions of Sly hits with the man himself (resplendent with a blond Mohawk) came out to lead the ensemble in comparatively lively version of “I Want to Take You Higher”.

Jay-Z and Linkin Park brought things back up a bit with “Numb/Encore” and then they slipped into a lovely version of The Beatles’ “Yesterday” where they were joined by Sir Paul himself.

Bruce Springsteen got off the most political statement of the night with a simple cry of “bring ‘em home!” at the end of his Iraq War inspired “Devils and Dust”

And then there was the Kanye Show. Mr. West and Jamie Foxx put on an extravaganza with marching bands, dancers, and costume changes as they ripped through “Gold Digger” and “Touch the Sky”. It was gloriously over-the-top and fun.

Christina Aguilera looked sultry in her glittering gown and platinum blonde hair as she joined Herbie Hancock for “A Song for You”. (That she oversang the song goes almost without saying, doesn’t it?)

(That Recording Academy President guy is a long-winded son of a gun, ain’t he? We get it, you guys are wonderful and you’re rebuilding New Orleans all by yourselves…now shaddap already!)

After U2 picked up the Album of the Year (0 for 2 in that category, Kanye), a tribute to New Orleans featured Allen Toussaint, Dr. John, Elvis Costello, Bonnie Raitt, Irma Thomas, and The Edge on a loping version of Toussaint’s “Yes We Can Can” (featuring more bad audio on the vocals.)

Bruce Springsteen and Sam Moore joined the group for “In the Midnight Hour” a soulful tribute to late Wilson Pickett.

The broadcast is just over as I write this and I’ve already forgotten who won what (I know U2 and Miss Clarkson and Mr. Legend were up there a couple of times each for stuff.)

Hopefully the broadcast of the 49th Annual Grammy Awards will be less snakebit next year.

2005 Grammy Nominations

The Grammy nominations were announced (in a whopping 107 categories) this morning (instead of the calendar year, the eligibility period for these awards includes discs released from October 1, 2004 to September 30, 2005) and George W. Bush’s favorite rapper, Kanye West, is one of three leading the decidedly mainstream (no surprise there) pack with 8 nominations. West’s protégée John Legend and comeback queen Mariah Carey also picked up 8 nods each.

West’s Late Registration and Carey’s The Emancipation of Mimi are in the running for Album of the Year along with Gwen Stefani’s bubbly solo debut Love, Music, Angel, Baby, Paul McCartney’s much-lauded Chaos and Creation in the Backyard (the token non-platinum seller in this category as well as the token veteran comeback that could have also gone to the Rolling Stones, Stevie Wonder, or Neil Young), and perennial nominees U2’s How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb.

The Record of the Year competition features Carey (“We Belong Together”), West (“Gold Digger” featuring Jamie Foxx), and Stefani (“Hollaback Girl”) along with Green Day (“Boulevard of Broken Dreams”) and Gorillaz (“Feel Good Inc.” featuring De La Soul.)

Ciara, Fall Out Boy, Keane, and Sugarland will be runners-up to probable winner John Legend (with 8 nominations, they’re gonna give the guy something…the Grammys are like that more often than not) in the Best New Artist race.

Other folks with four or more nominations include Stevie Wonder (always a Grammy favorite), Bruce Springsteen, Alicia Keys, 50 Cent, Destiny’s Child, Gretchen Wilson, Common, Foo Fighters, Gorillaz, Brad Paisley, and The Black Eyed Peas.

There’s not really any point in decrying the Grammy voters giving the nods in major categories to (mostly) mainstream, (mostly) multi-platinum sellers…that’s what they do (and they’re apparently okay with that.)

Sprinkled in amongst the many, many categories are nominations for less-mainstream artists such as The White Stripes, Beck, Solomon Burke, Maria Muldaur, Daft Punk, Ry Cooder, Meshell Ndegeocello, and Emmylou Harris.

And perhaps the most eclectic group of nominees is in the Spoken Word Album category which features Air America host Al Franken, Prairie Home Companion creator Garrison Keeler, legendary cranky comedian George Carlin, prickly Oscar winner Sean Penn (reading Bob Dylan’s Chronicles), and US Senator Barrack Obama.

Cry Baby/Piece of my Heart

One of the highlights of this year's Grammy show was the searing tribute to Janis Joplin by Melissa Etheridge and Joss Stone.

Stone was soulful and fine (her voice is more smoky, resonant, and powerful than her tender years would lead you to expect) but Etheridge, bald as a result of chemotherapy, was downright incendiary. It was a thrilling rock and roll performance.

iTunes has the live track available for download...with the proceeds going to cancer research at the City of Hope and the Dr. Susan Love Research Foundation...and, even though I only download music only every now and again, I went for it right away. It was too cool to pass up...and supporting a good cause was all good as well.

The Grammys

The Grammys opted for sentiment, of course. Given the opportunity, the Recording Academy will opt for sentiment almost every time. And thus, the fact that the late, undeniably great Ray Charles' last album, Genius Loves Company, won 8 Grammys (including Best Album and Best Record) is not even remotely a surprise.

Genius is a brave, heartbreaking, occasionally enormously moving record...it has the feel of both a celebration of a man unwilling to surrender his soul even as his body was failing and a reverent wake as friends, fans, and musical disciples came to pay homage to Brother Ray one last time...but, putting sentiment aside, it was not the Best Album to come out last year.

But that's not really the point...the Grammys very rarely get that right...and one would have to be unnecessarily churlish to waste a lot of time and energy decrying the awards it got.

The show itself was better than most of them. The opening performance...with Black Eyed Peas, Gwen Stefani, Eve, Los Lonely Boys, Maroon 5, and Franz Ferdinand...was disjointed and chaotic but still kinda cool at times even though.

New Grammy darling Alicia Keys too often goes for the over-wrought performance these days but her duet with Jamie Foxx on "Georgia on my Mind" (a tribute to Ray Charles, naturally) was electrifying. Bonnie Raitt, the consummate soulful pro, later paid tribute to Charles and the other music industry figures who passed away in the last year with an lovely reading of "Do I Ever Cross Your Mind" with Billy Preston's organ backing up Raitt's sweet slide playing.

Green Day turned the amps up to 11 with a rousing "American Idiot" while U2 dialed it down with a delicate version of "Sometimes You Can't Make it on Your Own" (with Bono offering a brief tribute to his late father, for whom the song was written.)

Newlyweds Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony were surprisingly chemistry-free in their over-staged duet (but perhaps that was a case of nerves as this was their first public performance together since their much gossiped about marriage.)

Joss Stone and Melissa Etheridge (bald as a result of chemotherapy) raised the roof with their tribute to Janis Joplin (though I had to wonder why Stone kept slinking off to the other stage while Etheridge was blazing through "Piece of my Heart"...even the director seemed perplexed.)

Host Queen Latifah exercised her credible jazz chops on "Lush Life" and "Baby Get Lost" while Usher and the aging but still game James Brown traded some funky dance steps (after Usher powered through an athletic number that owed much to both Brown and the pre-wacko Michael Jackson.)

The tribute to Southern rock...with Gretchen Wilson, Keith Urban, Tim McGraw (who later sang his inspirational "Live Like You Were Dying"), erstwhile Allman Brother Dickie Betts, and Elvin Bishop joining the current incarnation of Lynyrd Skynyrd on a medley of four 30+ year old classic rock staples...was appropriately ragged, rambling, and heartfelt. While the gospel medley...with Mavis Staples, John Legend, The Blind Boys of Alabama, Ben Harper, and, especially, Kanye West was over-the-top and melodramatic...but rousing just the same.

(West, who tore through the anthemic "Jesus Walks" with a passion, needs to chill out about these awards though...he was still whining about not having won at the American Music Awards and he seemed visibly disappointed when Maroon 5 took the Best New Artist Grammy. Dude, get over it...nobody remembers who wins these things as soon as a few days after the show is over.)

The all-star tsunami aid version of the Beatles' "Across the Universe" was, again, a bit ragged but heartfelt. With Velvet Revolver and Alison Krauss providing the music, Bono, Stevie Wonder, Norah Jones, Brian Wilson, Alicia Keys, Green Day's Billie Joe Armstrong, Tim McGraw (that guy was everywhere!), Revolver frontman Scott Weiland, and Aerosmith's Steven Tyler traded verses on the song (which is available as a fundraising download at iTunes.)

As these award shows go, this one was okay...one still wishes there was less forced "banter" from the presenters and fewer laundry lists of "thank yous" from the winners but some things are never going to change so it's pointless to lose sleep over them.