Prince and Beyoncé
Prince
The show opened with a smash
hit performance by none other than Prince. The stage was lit up in purple as
he performed his 1984 smash hit "Purple Rain." Prince is one of the
very rare, and talented musical artists who not only writes his own lyrics and
music, he also plays virtually every instrument as well on his recordings. The
song broke out to a duet with Beyoncé
and her 2003 song "Crazy In Love." It quickly went back to yet
another wonderful song by Prince. This was just one of the nineteen truly live
performances to come. Fortunately the Grammy Awards do not allow for canned
music or lip sync'ing.
Beyoncé
The first Award of the evening, Best Contemporary R&B
Album, went to Beyoncé
for Dangerously
In Love. Afterwards, Ellen Degeneres came on stage and mentioned
celebrating forty years of The Beatles.
Sting, Dave Matthews, and Vince Gill
Soon thereafter came a performance by
Sting, Dave Matthews, and Vince Gill playing "I Saw Her Standing
There" with multiple screens showing vintage footage of The Beatles
flashing in the background. After a commercial break, Queen Latifah came
onstage and basically reminded everyone it is "about the music."
Amen sister!
Christine Aguilera
Christine Aguilera soon began performing her hit "Beautiful"
with a symphonic accompaniment. During the chorus she was joined by a
wonderful choir! Big, bold, and truly aspiring... the way music is meant to
move us.
"...You are beautiful no matter what they say
Words won't bring you down
You are beautiful in every single way
Yes, words won't bring you down
Don’t you bring me down today...
(Chorus)
No matter what we do
(no matter what we do)
No matter what they say
(no matter what they say)
When the sun is shining through
Then the clouds won't stay
And everywhere we go..."
White Stripes
The next Grammy Award, Best Pop Performance By A Duo Or Group With Vocal,
was earned by the band No Doubt for Underneath It All Then the White
Stripes took charge of the stage filling the air with their song "Seven
Nation Army."
B.B. King meets Enjoy the Music.com™'s editor Steven
R. Rochlin
Steven Tyler, B.B. King And Joe Perry
After their performance, B.B. King (see our concert report
of B.B. King by clicking here)
came onto the stage and made mention of the Lifetime Achievement Award to The Funk Brothers
while an award for Best Rap Album went to OutKast for Speakerboxxx/The Love
Below was handed out.
Martina McBride
Afterwards, Country music star Martina McBride performed her romantic song
"Concrete Angel" to an enthusiastic audience.
Justin Timberlake
The next Grammy Award, Best Male Pop Vocal Performance, went
to the recently controversial (due to Superbowl/Janet Jackson situation affectionately
called "BreastGate"<sic>) Justin Timberlake for Cry Me A River.
He did apologize to the audience for BreastGate and simply wanted everyone to
move on to much more important issues at hand.
Luther Vandross
Celine Dion
After the commercial break a
tribute to Luther Vandross was performed by
singer/pianist Alicia Keys. Another Vandross tribute, this time the song
"Dance With My Father", was sung by Celine Dion. After the
performance they played a previously taped thank you by Luther.
Sting and Sean Paul
Bassist and solo artist Sting, joined by reggae vocalist Sean
Paul, transformed the stage with the Police song "Roxanne." Afterwards,
the song Beautiful (as performed by Christine Aguilera earlier in the evening), won the Best Female Pop Vocal Performance
Grammy.
High-Performance Audio Reviews
