A famed film composer and former SCTV comedian were at the front of the pack of Canadians who took home Grammy Awards at Sunday's annual music celebration.
Howard Shore earned yet another accolade for his work on the Lord of the Rings trilogy. The Grammy was for best score.
- style="list-style: none">Please see:
- Timberlake apologizes at Grammys
"It's a great honour to work on these movies," said the Toronto-born musician. "[I had]great inspirations from professor Tolkien's book and Peter Jackson's amazing imagery."
Hamilton-born Eugene Levy took home a gramophone trophy for writing the song A Mighty Wind for the film of the same title.
"This is really a shock. The songs aren't real," said a startled Levy, who lives in Toronto with his wife and two children.
Jokes about the Janet Jackson hoopla started early on, with the first one coming during the two-hour awards celebration before the televised awards.
"I gotta think you have a Janet Jackson song ready. Try it out here," presenter David Foster urged Weird Al Yankovic when the comedian came to the stage to accept the award for best comedy album.
Jackson and Justin Timberlake's breast-baring Super Bowl peep show, which sparked outrage and a federal investigation, had far-reaching effects on CBS's Grammy telecast. The network, which also broadcast the Super Bowl a week ago, was to institute a five-minute tape delay of the event, to make sure no lewd or potentially offensive behaviour made it on the air.
Jackson had been scheduled to attend the show, but that changed after the Super Bowl. On Sunday, Jackson's public relations firm released a statement saying that CBS and Grammy officials had asked her not to attend. They reversed themselves Saturday and invited her back, but she declined, the statement said.
At the pre-show, Alberta's Northern Cree lost out to Black Eagle in the best native American music album category. St. Catharines' polka king Walter Ostanek, who's had 16 nods over the years, lost in his category. Ontario musician Rob McConnell was shut out for the best instrumental arrangement award.
The Cash family walked away with two trophies: Johnny Cash's video for Hurt, which showed a frail but defiant Cash, and June Carter Cash's Wildwood Flower. Their son John Carter Cash accepted the awards on behalf of his deceased parents. "What a blessing," he said.
"I produced the record for my mother. It's amazing. She died last May, and she got to hear the record, she got to experience it before she passed on," he told the audience. "I think it's a swan song."
Another posthumous winner was Warren Zevon, who won best contemporary folk album for The Wind, which he recorded while dying of lung cancer.
Sean Paul won best reggae album. Former U.S. president Bill Clinton won a Grammy in the best spoken word album for children.
Toronto trumpeter Brian Chahley, 16, performed with the high school jazz ensemble during the pre-telecast.
There are 94 trophies awarded during a two-hour pre-Grammy ceremony. This portion includes jazz, folk, classical and blues categories, banished from the TV show several years ago to keep the televised portion hip and youthful.
The Grammys are awarded by the U.S. Recording Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. About 15,000 members vote in 105 categories for recordings released between Oct. 1, 2002 and Sept. 30, 2003.