Irving was raving to me about Jennifer Hudson.  He’d hooked up with Vijay Singh at the golf tournament and then gone to the Super Bowl.  But Irving, she was ON TAPE!  But he told me she sang live in the stadium, that Jennifer was in the league of Christina.

Yeah, right.

Last night I went to the MusiCares dinner.  This is one thing NARAS gets right.  I’ve got to give Neil Portnow credit for not only raising so much money, but giving it away.  This is their biggest event of the year.  It brings out a lot of looky-loos, NARAS members from the hinterlands, but just about every hitter in the business too, in town for the Grammys.

I talked at length to Rob Stringer.  He told me his goal was to have TWENTY acts like MGMT, who sold 300-500,000 albums every time out.  Sure, Amanda Ghost may not know much about the business, but his problem isn’t infrastructure, but records, he needs something the Epic team can work, he’s hoping she delivers.

Phil Ramone told me about this barely pubescent act he was working with who was blowing up north of the border, who was generating a bidding war down here.

I got Larry Vallon’s take on the Live Nation/Ticketmaster deal.  Even Rapino’s too.  As for Ethan Smith, who broke the story, I couldn’t get a peep out of him, other than he was frustrated they’d laid off the "Wall Street Journal" mailroom employee after twenty years on the job.  Why do the little people have to bear the brunt of the masters of the universe’s mistakes?

And I’m sitting way down front, at Jay Marciano’s table, with my back to the stage, discussing the status of the festival marketplace with Coran Capshaw, when I realize we’re the only two people still talking.

That’s what you do at these clusterfucks.  Business.  The greatest talent in the world can be on stage, and the assembled multitude is ignoring the proceedings.  They work with household names every day.

People had even put down their BlackBerries, everybody was focused on the stage.  Jimmy Kimmel had not commanded this level of attention.  I wanted to discuss Phish with Coran, but he too was beginning to be distracted, by this failed "American Idol" contestant gracing the stage.

The band was a collection of killers.  Everyone from Cretone Mark Goldenberg to Heartbreaker Benmont Tench to eternal Detroit hippie Don Was.  But they were mere background to the woman singing.

"Sweet Caroline" was the unexpected follow-up to "Brother Love’s Travelling Salvation Show".  "Cherry, Cherry"" and "Kentucky Woman" were enough, Neil Diamond had nothing left to prove, we were expecting more serviceable tracks that were not classics to fill out his career.  But then came the song inspired by the President’s daughter.  Funny how the truly great music endures.  In an era where underground FM radio was burgeoning, I smiled every time I heard "Sweet Caroline" on the radio during the summer of ’69.

Then came "Holly Holy".  Slow and burning.  It brings me back to riding the bus to school.

Yes, "Holly Holy" is part of the time capsule.  It hasn’t survived.  You hear it at Neil’s show, occasionally on oldies radio, still if you lived through the era, you remember it.  A soulful number that sounded just a bit ersatz in the days of Jimi Hendrix and Cream.

But what Jennifer Hudson was singing was something completely different.  It was the same song, but rearranged.  Slowed down, with emphasis.  This suddenly sleek survivor of traumatic stress stood on stage like Babe Ruth, like Barbra Streisand, like no singer we’ve had in this century.  It wasn’t about her, there was no diva element.  It was like watching Joe Cocker sing "With A Little Help From My Friends", an ultra-famous song he made his own.

Mariah Carey has ruined vocals for nearly two decades now.  It’s about melisma, it’s all about the performer, it’s not about the song.  I respect singer-songwriters.  The hard part is coming up with the material, anybody can sing.  But that was not what was going on last night.  Jennifer Hudson was not just singing, she was inhabiting the song.  It was like you were in a rowboat and the QE2 suddenly came cruising by.  She demanded your complete attention.  You were mesmerized.  And wowed.  She’s not supposed to be this good.  And she’s not imploring us to love her, she’s not manipulating us, she’s not grimacing, she’s just SINGING THE SONG!

If we were truly living in the twenty first century, if the rights holders didn’t have their heads up their asses and radio wasn’t beholden to research, Jennifer Hudson’s rendition of "Holly Holy" would have been mixed by Elliott Scheiner last night and been available on iTunes this morning.  She would perform her rendition at the Grammys tomorrow.  You’ve got to seize the moment.  You don’t overplan and overmarket, you just serve up what’s absolutely right, what’s absolutely necessary, when the whole world is watching.

The whole world was not watching last night.  Just a bunch of jaded industry insiders and wannabes.

But when Jennifer Hudson was finally finished, way too soon, you never want great performances to end, I shot to my feet, like so many others, and gave her a standing ovation.  Even though she was the first performer of the night.

No one else came close except for Neil himself.  Who hit "Cherry, Cherry" so far out of the park Felice and I couldn’t believe it was really him.  He sounded SO great he HAD to be singing to tape, there had to be some electronic trickery, because he sounded exactly like NEIL DIAMOND!

Music is just like love.  When you’re least expecting it, you come across a gem, that changes your whole day, your entire life.  We focus on the winners, but it’s the losers who boil our blood, who make our lives worth living. Kelly Clarkson is good.  Carrie Underwood is the beneficiary of the best material in Nash Vegas.  But suddenly, I believe the hype.  Jennifer Hudson is something else.  She’s not just a figurehead, a front for the creations of studio rats.  She’s got TALENT!