  Amy Winehouse performs live via satellite in London at the 50th Annual Grammy Awards on Sunday in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Kevork Djansezian)
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LOS ANGELES -- Almost as fast as you can say 1-2-3-4, Canada's Feist was run over by the Amy Winehouse express last night at the Grammy Awards.
The troubled Brit singer repeatedly stole Feist's, then Kanye West's, thunder -- until Herbie Hancock stole everybody's at the end of the night.
Winehouse took home the most Grammys, winning five of the six categories in which she was nominated -- including two of the three biggies: Song and record of the year for her self-written Rehab.
In a shocker, though, album of the year went to Hancock for River: The Joni Letters, a progressive jazz treatment of songs by legendary Canadian Joni Mitchell. Earlier in the night, after winning best contemporary jazz album, Hancock thanked Mitchell for her "incredible words and music." Mitchell herself and fellow Canadian Leonard Cohen are among the singers on the album.
West won four rap Grammys yet lost in four other categories, including best album.
The Calgary-raised Feist was up for four awards -- more than any other Canadian this year -- but lost three times to Winehouse, and once to Johnny Cash. Feist's hit song 1234 and fellow Canadian Nelly Furtado's Say It Right both were in the running for female pop vocal performance, and Feist's The Reminder was up for pop vocal album, but Winehouse won those trophies.
Winehouse, the second most-nominated artist after West, also beat out Feist as best new artist.
After initially being denied a U.S. visa, Winehouse was granted one by American authorities on Friday -- too late for her to change plans, though. So via satellite hookup from London's Riverside Studios, Winehouse performed vocally strong, if physically weird (she shook her skinny legs a lot), versions of You Know I'm No Good and Rehab.
Winehouse looked genuinely shocked, with her mouth and eyes wide open, after winning record of the year, moving to the back of the stage for a group hug with her band, while her studio audience chanted, "Amy! Amy! Amy!"
"Thank you to my mom and dad, for my Blake incarcerated," said Winehouse, referring to her husband Blake Fielder-Civil, "and this is for London 'cause Camden Town is burning down!"
Hancock seemed as stunned as everybody else by his best-album win.
"What a beautiful day this is," he said. "It's been 43 years since the first and only (previous) time a jazz artist got the album-of-the-year award (Getz & Gilberto were first). And I'd like to thank the academy for courageously breaking the mould this time and, in doing so, honouring the giants on whose shoulders (I stand). This proves that the impossible can be made possible."
West, the innovative, outspoken rapper, had been uncharacteristically but understandably low-key following the death of his mother, Donda, late last year due to complications following plastic surgery. He delivered a unique performance with French techno duo Daft Punk, including an emotional version of Hey Mama, which he wrote for his mom years ago. (He even had the word Mama shaved into the back of his head.)
"Just to say something about my mother, I appreciate all the support, I appreciate all the prayers," West said upon winning best rap album. He then scolded the show's producers for playing wrap-up music before he was done speaking.
West then looked up and said to his mother, "And I know you wouldn't want me to stop, and you want me to be the No. 1 artist in the world, and Mama, all I'm going to do is keep making you proud."
As for the Canadians, Feist also lost in the short form video category, as her 1234 was cut down by Cash's God's Gonna Cut You Down.
Feist performed an offbeat version of 1234, on an acoustic guitar backed by a seven-man horn section. Carole King introduced her as "a one-of a kind singer-songwriter."
Furtado, the B.C.-raised pop/dance phenom, lost a second Grammy, for pop collaboration with vocals. Her work with Timbaland and Justin Timberlake on Give It To Me was beaten out by Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin and Alison Krauss, for Gone Gone Gone (Done Moved On).
Unlike Feist and Furtado, not all nominated Canadians lost.
Crooner Michael Buble won for traditional pop vocal album for Call Me Irresponsible, and Joni Mitchell herself won in pop instrumental for One Week Last Summer, but neither was on hand to accept their trophies.
Buble lost his second Grammy bid for male pop vocal performance for his Everything, which Timberlake won.
Vancouver violinist James Ehnes also won an early Grammy for best instrumental soloist performance with orchestra for his performance of Barber/Korngold/Walton: Violin Concertos.
"I'd like to thank CBC for backing this recording, the days when they used to support classic music," said Vancouver Symphony Orchestra conductor Bramvell Tovey, who won along with an absent Ehnes.
The Band, the hugely influential outfit that had previously backed Bob Dylan when he transformed from an acoustic folkie to an electric rocker, was given a lifetime achievement Grammy on Saturday
