Eight months after his death, legendary artist Ray Charles’ final album, Genius Loves Company, won a leading eight Grammy awards last Sunday night.
The album, which has sold more than two million copies, won for album of the year, record of the year (Here We Go Again with Norah Jones), pop vocal album, pop collaboration with vocals, best instrumental arrangement accompanying a vocalist, best gospel performance, best engineered album and best surround sound album. Out of 60-plus albums, this is the most that Charles has sold.
Also making noise was Kanye West, the multifaceted songwriter-producer who was unceremoniously shut out of the American Music Awards after his impressive 2004 rap debut album The College Dropout. He was the most nominated artist of the year with 10 Grammys, but he only took home three – best rap album, best rap song (Jesus Walks) and best R&B song (for his songwriting talents on Alicia Keys’ You Don’t Know My Name).
Speaking of Keys, that wasn’t her only award this year. She was nominated for eight Grammys, as was R&B giant Usher, and she took home four. Keys and Usher shared an award for best R&B performance by a duo or group with vocals for chart-topper My Boo
Other 2005 Grammy winners included Smokie Norful, The Blind Boys of Alabama, the Black Eyed Peas, Jay-Z, Jill Scott and Prince.