$45M city contract awarded to interim solid waste hauler
Awareness day highlights AIDS epidemic among Blacks
Become a leader in the fight against HIV/AIDS in the Black community
Clinton students clean up the beach
Otis gets 60-day sentence for molestation
Council halves the number of some committee meetings
Hub City gets four ‘siblings’ with sister cities program
A pat on the back for helping hands
New Web site offers better access to student records
Teacher turns math into song and dance
Salvation Army Compton Corps installs 2010 board
Apprentice Drive aims to put trades people back to work
Community rallies to support wounded worker
Beyonce makes history with 6 Grammys
Beyoncé performs at the 52nd
annual Grammy Awards on Sunday, Jan. 31 in Los Angeles. She made
history that night after winning six Grammys — the most ever
won by a female vocalist in a single night. —Matt Sayles / AP
By
David Bauder
It's
a tribute to the Grammys' success at becoming more a musical spectacle
than an awards show that on the night she made history, Beyonce was
just another face in the crowd.
Pop's reigning diva earned six Grammys on Sunday, more than any woman
on a single night of the 52-year-old awards show. Her anthem "Single
Ladies (Put a Ring on It)" was song of the year. But she didn't come
onstage to accept that - her collaborators said she was prepping for a
performance — and four of her other awards came during the non-televised
pre-show.
The Grammys' four biggest awards were split four ways: 20-year-old
country chanteuse Taylor Swift won album of the year; family rockers Kings
of Leon won record of the year for "Use Somebody"; and the Zac
Brown Band was named best new artist.
The Grammys in recent years have tried to emphasize the music more
than the awards, particularly by pairing younger performers with veterans.
This year, producers nailed it, with a double album's worth of memorable
performances.
Among the best were the Black Eyed Peas, who sang "I Gotta Feeling" with
a stage filled with what looked like dancing tomatoes and robots. Lady
Gaga was predictably over the top, singing "Poker Face" and getting
tossed into a bucket of fire before emerging singed and combining forces
with an equally dirtied and bemused Elton John.
Green Day turned its "21 Guns" into a soaring beauty by joining
the cast of a new musical based on its "American Idiot" album,
with songs from "21st Century Breakdown." Opera singer Andrea
Bocelli held his own with Mary J. Blige in a powerful, and heart-breaking
rendition of "Bridge Over Troubled Water," done for the benefit
of Haitian earthquake victims.
An acrobatic Pink turned her "Glitter in the Air" into a Cirque
de Soleil-like performance, hanging suspended over the audience as she
sang. "That was amazing," an impressed Keith Urban said after
she was done.
Memorable pairings included the white-haired, white-bearded and white-hatted
Leon Russell joining the Zac Brown Band; Maxwell and Robert Flack singing
a silky-smooth "Where is the Love"; and Stevie Nicks, looking
like a protective mom, joining Swift on her "You Belong With Me" and
Fleetwood Mac's "Rhiannon."
An arresting performance of "Forever" and "Drop the World" with
rappers Lil' Wayne, Drake and Eminem was rendered virtually incomprehensible
by craters of silence inserted by CBS censors. And the 3-D tribute to Michael
Jackson proved overrated, with Celine Dion, Jennifer Hudson, Usher, Smokey
Robinson and Carrie Underwood looking like they'd joined a production number
from "American Idol."
Swift, who won four Grammys, was the night's most visible winner.
She beamed during her duet with Nicks, and seemed thrilled in her two acceptance
speeches — while staying poised enough to thank her record company
for letting her write her own songs, and express pride at bringing the
album of the year prize to Nashville.
"This is for my dad," she said. "Thank you for all the times
you said I could do whatever I wanted to do."
Beyonce was low-key during her one time on stage to accept her sixth
trophy of the night, for best female pop vocal on the ballad "Halo." She
offered thanks to her fans for their support.
Stagecraft was smooth; Lady Antebellum singer Hillary Scott, hit
in the head by a falling curtain, calmly brushed it aside without missing
a note.
Host Stephen Colbert followed the new model of awards show hosts:
coming out in the beginning for a handful of jokes then disappearing — except
to accept a Grammy of his own, for his surrealistic Christmas musical.
He bemoaned the absence of Susan Boyle from Grammy night.
"You may be the coolest people in the world," Colbert said, a
barely amused Jay-Z looking on, "but this year your industry was saved
by a 48-year-old Scottish cat lady in sensible shoes."
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