The Boston Globe from Boston, Massachusetts • 38

38 THE BOSTON GLOBE FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 1992 THE MUSIC SECTION Radio Tracks Categories they never dreamed of Clapton's poignant song spans the dial By Susan Bickelhaupt GLOBE STAFF UO7 hat's radio about these days? It's about an aging musician, 15 cats and an uproar over a public radio station in New Hampshire. First, the musician. ning for a while, until he flashed his muscular little hiney on the MTV Awards. My bet is that little Mikey will be the first to be found in a closet, curled in the fetal position, humming "Never Can Say Goodbye" and hugging his Liz Taylor doll. Sad.

Best New Artist, Non-Mammal Division: That little red button, third from the left, in the studio where New Kids on the Block record. Press it once and out comes a group! The Special Award for the Woefully Neglected: Tuck and Patti in the jazz vocal category; anything for the incomparable Smokey Robinson and a special darn-there-was-no-body-like-him Grammy for the late Champion Jack Dupree. PATRICIA SMITH orders. Patsy would have been proud. Most Dead Air While Waiting for Career to be Resurrected: Bobby Brown, although his rumored romance with Whitney Houston is fabulous tabloid fodder and (c'mon now, admit it) a bit silly; also, we always knew that Vanilla Ice's pompadour had more staying power than he did.

By the way, the Ice Man is now claiming to be a black female vocalist in order to capture even more of that all-important crossover market. Best Performance By An Androgynous Falsetto Warbler Who Will Either Spend Years in Therapy or Grow Long Fingernails Like Howard Hughes: Anything by Michael Jackson. Prince was in the run The Grammy folks may think they have it all covered, but that's not the case. Best Pop Vocal Performance Male, Record of the Year, Best New Artist, Best Bluegrass Album they call those categories? Just for once, let's narrow those babies down a little and get specific: Most Shameless Ride on the Coattails of the Dearly Departed: Natalie Cole for "Unforgettable," her syrupy duet with her late father. Second Most Shameless Ride on the Coattails of the Dearly Departed: The folks behind the Patsy Cline boxed set, that must-have, gotta-get-it, no-home-is-complete-without-it record collection that, is, of course, not available in any store.

In fact, it only seems to be available through garbled, breathless, panicky phone Eric Clapton hell be 52 next month, so we think it's fair to call him aging wrote the soundtrack to the movie "Rush," and one of the singles is making a splash on the "airwaves. stations jumped on "Tears in Heaven" right 'away, since Clapton is a mainstay of theirs. But then Top 40 stations latched onto it, and now adult contemporary stations are introducing it to listeners. The song is by a rocker, but is hardly typical rock 'n' roll song since it pays tribute to Clapton's 4-year-old son i. who fell from a New York high-rise and died last year.

So it's more of a tearjerker than a foot-stomper. Will judges open their eyes to R.E.M.? "Poignant" is how WBCN-FM disc jockey Charles describes the song that he never doubted would cross over all radio formats. which is fine with owner Ed Perry. While some radio stations beyond Rte. 495 long to be called Boston stations, Perry has no such desires.

"We're about as local as you can get" he said of the station that's also simulcast on WATB-FM in Yarmouth. "It's sort of a return to the way radio used to be 30 years ago." WATD'S music offers no hard rock or dance tunes, yet is a little more uptempo than Boston adult-music stations WMJX-FM or WSSH-FM. In the evening, WATD plays acoustic music, with blues featured overnight and oldies all weekend. And even though the news, weather and sports have a local focus, the announcers are not your typical smalltown radio jocks. Perry said virtually everyone used to work in Boston.

This week, in fact, Andrea Phillips, is on the air as she fills in for a vacationing disc jockey. Phillips was cently let go from WZOU-FM and used to work at WATD. And while he's glad to have Boston talent ratings mean little to Perry (which is good, since the station is generally muscled out of the Boston metro market). "We intentionally limit the focus to the South Shore," Perry said. "If we tried to compete, we'd be just another -Boston station." No fear of that especially with broadcasts like the one this morning, with 15 cats in a limo.

Finally, it was less than a month ago that WEVO-FM (89.1), the NPR station in Concord, N.H., announced plans to slash its jazz and folk tunes and beef up its classical music, effective this week. In inimitable Yankee-style, though, the listeners re-' volted. They made phone calls; they sent letters; they gathered last Tuesday at a board of trustees meeting to discuss their outrage. The result was that management listened to a point anyway. WEVO will expand its classical music during the evening, but will not shelve folk and jazz entirely.

Jazz programs will air on Friday and Saturday evenings, with folk music on Sunday and new age music Sunday night "The new schedule recognizes that people do want to hear more classical music when they're at home at night" said general manager Mark Handley. But the reinstatement of jazz and folk, he said, reflects the listener input the station received. He said the board of trustees will set up a process for future decision making and recommendations. ning for "Runnin' Back to You." Beating Aretha Franklin and Patti LaBelle? Just watch. VocaL Male: Luther Van-dross finally won his first Grammy last year and hell grab another for "Power of Love." Alternative Music Album: More success for R.E.M.'s "Out of Time." Although they were more mainstream than alternative last year, they've been alternative rock's knight-on-horseback for eons.

They'll beat out discs by Jesus Jones, Nirvana, Elvis Costello and Richard Thompson. Rap Performance by a Duo or Group: Public Enemy still has enemies, period. Naughty by Nature's not well-known; nor is Heavy the Boyz and Salt-N-Pepa. Grammy voters will go lite and opt for DJ Jazzy Jeff the Fresh Prince's "Summertime." Contemporary Folk Album: Artistically, Rosanne Cash's "Interiors" is the best, but she's considered more country than folk. Look for John Prine's "The Missing Years" to win, if just because he's long overdue.

The Raitt syndrome again. than Words." Talk about prom ballads. Rock Vocal Performance, Solo: Eric Clapton's "24 Nights." How can Clapton lose after the year he has had, both musically and emotionally? He has never had more respect. Rock Vocal, Duo or Group: Tom Petty's "Into the Great Wide Open" is the front-runner over a group of singles led by Queensryche's "Silent Lucidity" and Jane's Addiction's "Been Caught Stealing." The Grammy committee never explains why albums and singles are sometimes grouped together, but Petty's album is too strong, regardless. Hard Rock Performance with Vocal: Van Halen, ACDC, Guns N' Roses and Alice in Chains duke it out.

Guns are too disliked; ACDC too leftrfield; Alice in Chains too unknown. That leaves Van Halen when the dust settles. Metal Performance with Vocal: Anthrax, Motorhead, Soundgarden, Megadeth and Metallica duel. Metal-lica all the way. Vocal, Female: Former bad girl Vanessa Williams completes her return to respectability by win PREDICTIONS Continued from Page 35 ing My Religion" and Amy Grant's "Baby Baby." Song of the Yean OK, Adams' song has to get something.

This could be it A surprise finalist is Marc Cohn's "Walking in Memphis," but to many Grammy voters, who is Marc Cohn? New Artist: Dance acts score well in this area. Score one for Music Factory, a hip-hopdisco group that will rule over Cohn, Color Me Badd, Seal and Boyz II Men. Pop VocaL Female: A tight race. Here's betting that Raitt's "Something to Talk About" will beat Mar-iah Carey's "Emotions." Raitt has conducted herself with dignity since her sweep and voters will want to give her at least one encore. Pop VocaL Male: Industry darling Michael Bolton will win with "When a Man Loves a Woman," besting Adams' "(Everything I Do) I Do It For You." Pop Performance by a Duo or Group: How about a little regional chauvinism? Boston's Extreme will win their1 first Grammy for "More naturally jumped on it because it's Clapton, then 'everyone else wants to play it because it's listenable, and 'they can appear to be hip," he said.

Among the adult contemporary stations in town, is playing it, WMJX-FM is taking a hard listen and will probably play it very soon. WBMX-FM will a little longer to add it Steve Rivers, program director at WXKS-FM, said got a lot of calls from people crying when first heard it "Eric has a very strong album rock base, but because of the tempo and lyric content, it really crosses all Rivers said. In case you haven't heard, the emotional lyrics of a father's tribute to his dead son, include: you know myface ifl saw you in heaven? jaddyou know my name ifl saw you in heaven? I'm suip there are notears in on to the cats. WATD-FM (95.9) disc jockey Joe McMillan will 'broadcast from a limousine as he drives into Boston this morning with 15 homeless cats from a shelter in ''Plymouth. Hell drop them off at the weekend cat show f'atthe Hynes Auditorium, partly in pursuit of homes for C'th'em, and partly as a promotional stunt station often broadcasts from around the South but rarely strays from its home in Marshfield, Your Choice Kathleen Battle Itzhak ftriman THE BACH ALBUM OrcheMraof Si.

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