Adele savours six Grammy victories (From The Northern Echo)

Adele savours six Grammy victories

4:46am Monday 13th February 2012 in National News © Press Association 2011

Songstress Adele and the late Amy Winehouse led an early British charge at this year's sombre Grammy Awards, which have been dampened by the shock death of singing star Whitney Houston.

Adele captured six Grammys at the pre-telecast ceremony which came just 24 hours after the troubled 48-year-old Houston was discovered in a bathtub at her Los Angeles hotel.

With six awards, Adele matched Beyonce for most Grammy wins in a night by a female act. Adele's six wins include album, record and song of the year. Beyonce set the record two years ago.

Adele was shaking as she won album of the year, almost in tears as she held the award. Adele's 21 was 2011's best-selling album. It has sold more than six million units in the United States. She yelled at the end of her speech: "Thank you so much!"

Meanwhile, Mitch and Janis Winehouse, the parents of the British singer Amy who died last year at the age of 27 following a battle with drugs and alcohol, were invited on stage to jointly accept a posthumous award on her behalf.

The gong for best pop performance by a duo or group was awarded for Winehouse's duet with Tony Bennett on the single Body and Soul. "We shouldn't be here. Our darling daughter should be here. These are the cards that we're dealt," said Mitch after he was called on stage by Bennett.

British singer/songwriter Corinne Bailey Rae also picked up a Grammy for best R&B performance as the night kicked off.

The televised segment of the 54th annual awards opened with a prayer and standing ovation to the singer, who herself won a clutch of six prestigious Recording Academy gongs over a turbulent career marred by spells of drug addiction.

Host LL Cool J said: "There is no way around this. We've had a death in our family so at least for me, the only thing that seems right is to start with a prayer for our fallen sister Whitney Houston." He declared the night one to "celebrate and remember", and played a clip of Houston performing I Will Always Love You from the 1994 Grammys.

Houston, one of the world's best-selling artists in the 1980s and 1990s, died on Saturday at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, where she was preparing to attend a pre-Grammy party.