Grammy winners shine on stage

Grammy winners shine on stage
By CATHY LOGAN World Scene Editor
2/12/2007

The Grammy awards have always been more about the performances than about presentations or acceptance speeches.

The people who put the show together recognize that, and play on it: "Performances you can't see any place else." That was the promise, the teaser leading up to Sunday's ceremony.

The show delivered all that was promised and a little more.

And nobody delivered more than Checotah native and "American Idol" champ Carrie Underwood, who commanded more performance time than any other singer.

Underwood, who picked up three Grammy awards, began her performance as part of a double salute to Bob Wills, the king of Western swing and Eagles' founder Don Henley, "two Texas boys" who revolutionized the music world, according to another Oklahoma country music superstar, Reba McEntire.
Underwood took the stage backed by longtime Texas Playboy fiddler Johnny Gimble and Asleep at the Wheel guitarist Ray Benson to give a pure, unvarnished, country-to-the-core version of "New San Antonio Rose."

The spotlight switched to Rascal Flatts, who offered a version of the Eagles' "Hotel California," which focused on Picher native Joe Don Rooney's guitar licks just as much as the vocals of Gary Levox.
Then Underwood launched into the Eagles' pop ballad "Desperado," a performance that demonstrated both her vocal range and her admirable restraint; Underwood can attack a melody with power and passion, but she knows when to caress one as well.

When Rascal Flatts tore into "Life in the Fast Lane," Underwood joined the band for an all-out rave-up.

But there were great performances throughout the night, including some surprises.

The much hyped reunion of the Police proved anticlimactic -- the single song "Roxanne" was little more than the network had been playing in the teasers leading up to the awards.

But the two acts who were the biggest winners of the night also offered two of the most gripping performances. The Dixie Chicks gave the opening performance of the night, a rousing rendition of "Not Ready to Make Nice," a blistering retort to their critics following an incident that caused much of the country-music establishment to turn its back on the group. The song already had won the Grammy for song of the year and the group would go on to win record of the year as well.

The three Texas women drew several standing ovations from an audience well aware that their victories had a political point attached.

"I, for the first time in my life, am speechless," Natalie Maines said in picking up the song-of-the-year trophy.

She quickly got over it.

On the eve of the Iraq war in 2003, Maines told a London audience: "Just so you know, we're ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas." That immediately made the band targets of hate mail, boycotts and talk-radio shouters.

Sunday, the audience clearly was in the Chicks corner and when the band was given the final award of the evening -- album of the year -- Maines returned to the microphone to suggest that the voters had "exercised their right of free speech."

The other queen of the ball was Mary J. Blige, who walked away with three wins, including best female vocal R&B performance, best R&B album for "The Breakthrough," and best R&B song for "Be Without You," which Blige performed.

She returned to the stage to join legendary R&B group Earth, Wind and Fire to back up hip-hop artist Ludacris performing his hit "Runaway."

There had been widespread speculation on which artist or artists would be called on to do a tribute to James Brown, the "Godfather of Soul," who died earlier this year. While the speculation included such male R&B singers as Usher and even Gnarls Barkley, the producers gave the job to Christina Aguilera, who offered a soulful version of Brown's "It's a Man's Man's Man's World," complete with a on-her-knees, howling into the wilderness take on Brown's own stage theatrics.