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As promised, here is Old School's Grammy recap. There were a couple highlights, but not a whole lot to write home about. I assume that if you are reading this, you read my Grammy preview from Saturday. If not, I suggest you click on February Archive and read that one first. If so, we are ready to move on.

First, I have to say that Alicia Keys really was the highlight of the show.

She kicked the show off performing a slick duet with Frank Sinatra. Check it out here.

Keys is a tremendous artist and really got the show off on the right foot. She was then presented with the award for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance by none other than Prince himself (who won for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance in the non-televised portion of the ceremonies). She won this award for her song No One and I cannot understand how this was not also nominated for Record of the Year?

Much later in the show, Keys returned to perform the song No One in one of the best performances of the night as she was joined by another one of my favorites, John Mayer, on guitar.

I feel that all of these Alicia Keys moments were really some of the best this show, which dragged on for over 3+ hours, had to offer.

If Alicia Keys was the highlight, I have to say Amy Winehouse has to be the lowlight. She was not able to obtain a visa to attend the show, so she performed via satellite from London.

This performance was what you would expect from her and if you are a fan then you probably enjoyed it. I am just not a fan of Winehouse in any way, shape or form. I applaud her uniqueness, but just don't think her music is all that special. That's what it all comes down to, right? The lowlight was not necessarily this horrible performance, but the fact that Amy Winehouse took home Grammy's for Record of the Year, Song of the Year and Best Female Pop Performance. This was very disappointing to me. She also won Best New Artist which I can understand because the competition in this category was negligible. I just wish with such little quality music being produced that they would not waste recognition on the garbage that Amy Winehouse is putting out there.

Her acceptance speech for Record of the Year, also via satellite, was even a lower lowlight with her fake look of surprise and then incoherent mumbling. I think you can all tell where I stand on this issue, so we will move on to some better things.

As a pleasant surprise to the ‘80s fiend that I am, Morris Day and The Time performed their hit Jungle Love.

This was pretty cool until Rihanna joined them to perform her mega hit Umbrella.

She looked fantastic, but the song still does not do it for me. It was great to see The Time perform together again. One of the funny, but true, lines that I heard was What is the best thing about the 2008 Grammy Awards being over? You might never have to hear the song, Umbrella again. We can only hope.

Carrie Underwood performed her country smash Before He Cheats. Again, I am not a fan of country music, but Ms. Underwood looked beautiful as always. She was nominated for Song of the Year (which she lost to Winehouse), but won the Best Country Song award.

There was a performance by Kanye West. I am not a fan of Kanye, but he did have some cool glow in the dark sunglasses as you can see in the picture. Other than that, he also performed a second song dedicated to his mother who recently passed away.

Tom Hanks introduced a Beatles tribute which featured a performance from the show Love (which later won the award for Best Soundtrack) and the movie Across the Universe. The first was a strange interpretive dance from the Cirque du Soleil show that really was rather horrible to watch even though I am a huge Beatles fan. The second was a fantastic performance of Let it Be featuring a young boy by the name of Timothy Mitchum.

In one of the other highlights of the evening, Fergie performed a song accompanied by John Legend

on the piano. I have a link to this stunning performance here: Fergie and Legend duet.

If her singing on Big Girls Don't Cry does not already prove it, this performance really shows off what an amazing voice Fergie possesses. I also need to say that Fergie's Big Girls Don't Cry definitely deserved to win Best Female Pop Performance which was unfortunately won by Winehouse's Rehab

Also noteworthy was a tremendous performance of Proud Mary by Tina Turner joined by the amazing Beyoncé.

Turner is well renown for her high energy performances and the gorgeous Beyoncé complemented her extremely well. It was great to see how the show wove the stars of today with legends of the industry throughout the evening. However, this could have been effectively edited and trimmed down to at least thee hours.

If my biggest disappointment of the night was all of the awards given to Amy Winehouse, the biggest surprise had to be that Herbie Hancock actually stole the Album of the Year award. I don't think anyone was expecting this and, even if it may or may not been warranted, yet it was nice to see them honor diversity.

I was happy to see that Justin Timberlake's What Goes Around...Comes Aroundat least won for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance. I was also pleased to see Maroon 5 win for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group, though neither award was presented live during the televised portion of the show.

That puts a wrap on my Grammy recap. There were a couple fantastic performances, but even those were not all that truly memorable in the big scheme of things. At least - to my ears - I think we are in the midst of a music slump or recession, if you will. There are still some tremendous artists and songs, but unfortunately they are not always the ones getting all of the awards and airplay.

Thanks for reading Kickin' it Old School.

Please be sure to click on my tblog Archives to read any previous issues you may have missed.

If you like what you read, please subscribe and/or tell a friend or two. Peace and much love.

Quote of the day: Great music is that which penetrates the ear with facility and leaves the memory with difficulty. Magical music never leaves the memory.-Sir Thomas Beecham

Download this:

No One by Alicia Keys - As mentioned above, this song from her recent album As I Am won for Best Female R&B Performance, but probably deserved to at least be nominated for more.