GRAMMYS 2012
Joy for Adele, prayers for Whitney
Jennifer Hudson's moving tribute to Whitney Houston.
The 54th Grammy Awards will be remembered as a story of two women with towering, timeless voices -- Adele and Whitney Houston -- one representing youthful triumph and boundless possibility, the other a reminder of fresh tragedy and a life unravelled.
Adele, the 23-year-old British singer-songwriter, took home six awards including album, record and song of the year, a trophy bounty that puts a gold-plating on a commercial and critical success story that has dramatically defied the grim gravities of today's economically-challenged recording industry.
Adele's other victory came when she stepped to the microphone and sang a robust version of her hit “Rolling in the Deep”, which suggests that she is past the career scare of throat surgery that came just after Halloween and kept her mute through New Year's Day. It was her first public performance since the operation.
Adele's honours for her sophomore album, “21”, were juxtaposed against the dazed grief and still-raw reactions to the death of Houston on Saturday.
But while her death lent a sombre overtone to the evening's show, it did not overwhelm it, perhaps best proved by the show's closing number, a rollicking jam session featuring Paul McCartney, Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty, and Dave Grohl among others.
The night's other big winners were Grohl's Foo Fighters, who won five Grammys. They noted that they made their album “Wasting Light” in a garage.
“To me this award means a lot because it shows that the human element of making music is what's most important. Singing into a microphone, learning to play an instrument and learning to do your craft, that's the most important thing for people to do,” Grohl said as the band accepted their best rock performance trophy for “Walk”.
Among the evening's performances was a dance-heavy number by Chris Brown, and performances by McCartney and Springsteen, who kicked off the show by performing his new song “We Take Care of Our Own”.But the evening's most moving moment came as Jennifer Hudson -- who has called Houston an inspiration and one of her biggest idols -- emerged to sing one of Houston's signature songs, I Will Always Love You.
Dressed in black, with only the accompaniment of a piano, Hudson appeared to fight back tears as she sang the song, ending with the line, “Whitney, we will always love you”.