ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, January 4, 1997 TAG: 9701070024
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 12 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JOHN ROGERS ASSOCIATED PRESS
The first thing Casey Piotrowski wants to make clear is that he's not some crackpot who has nothing better to do. It just happens that he likes the Beatles - a lot.
And that is why this sometime actor, voice-over artist and former disc jockey has put his life on hold for most of the past year to single-mindedly pursue one goal: getting the Beatles a Grammy for their new song, ``Real Love.'' Not just any Grammy, either, but the one for record of the year.
``I'm not some nut with a bunch of Beatles memorabilia,'' he says, sounding only slightly defensive. ``I don't have a Beatles lunch box, or wear a Beatles wig, or psychedelic clothing, or anything like that. It's just always been the music with me. It's always been great.''
What's more, Piotrowski believes, the Beatles never got their due from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, which hands out the Grammys.
They did win two Grammys in 1964, one for best new artist and another for best performance by a vocal group on ``A Hard Day's Night.'' And two more in 1967, best contemporary album and album of the year for ``Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.''
But that's small change for a group of musicians whose collective work, Piotrowski is certain, eventually will be measured alongside Beethoven's.
``Because of the way they broke up in 1970, and because probably nobody thought it was going to be forever back then,'' he says, ``the music industry didn't have the opportunity to salute them the way it should have.''
After John Lennon died in 1980 and the years turned to decades with no new Beatles music, Piotrowski, 46, came to accept that that was the way it probably always would be.
Then came word of the Beatles ``Anthology'' in late 1995 and the scaled-down version of Beatlemania it touched off. But best of all for Piotrowski, the new Beatles CDs and videos came with a ``new'' Beatles hit record as well.
Completed by Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr from a Lennon demo tape, ``Real Love'' became the group's 24th gold single. What's more, it gave the music industry one last chance, Piotrowski calculated, to bestow on the Beatles a record-of-the-year Grammy.
With that in mind, he leaped into action. Having recently left Southern California's KOLA radio, he put his efforts into full-time lobbying. He sent out press kits, put fliers in stores, and contacted rock music critics and radio hosts around the country. He even wrote to representatives of the Beatles and other musicians.
``Like a lot of people in their mid-40s,'' he says from his home in suburban Los Angeles, ``the Beatles seem to have defined my whole life. When I became a teen-ager, they came along. When I was going into my 20s, they broke up. When I turned 30, that was when John Lennon was killed. Now I'm middle-aged and I'm in love. I've found real love, and they've gotten back together.''
The surviving Beatles and Lennon's widow, Yoko Ono, seem flattered.
``It's extremely nice of anyone to be in the mode of wishing to support us,'' longtime Beatles' spokesman Derek Taylor said from London. ``It's an extremely pleasant, nice surprise.''
Ono thought it was a wonderful thing to do, said her spokesman, Elliott Mintz.
``She said she was pleased that anyone would be interested in drawing that kind of attention to one of John's songs,'' Mintz said.
Others weren't so sure.
``I've never heard of anything like this before,'' said Paul Freundlich of Rogers & Cowan, who is in charge of publicity for the ``Anthology'' series.
``Can an outsider help to make a difference in the nominating process? I would be somewhat doubtful,'' Freundlich said. ``I believe that [the recording academy] seeks to preserve its integrity, and if one person could really have an impact on getting something nominated, then the next question might be does the nominating structure need to be re-examined.''
Academy officials declined to comment. But Analee Canto, assistant to the executive vice president at Capitol, the Beatles' U.S. label, said, ``[The academy] does not look for people from the outside to try to influence the process.''
``But certainly we appreciate all his efforts at trying to get people behind it,'' she quickly added. ``Everybody here thinks it's really great that he's doing this.''
And Freundlich acknowledged he wouldn't mind seeing ``Real Love'' win.
``I think it's certainly a song that's worthy of consideration,'' he says of the gentle Beatles ballad that began with just Lennon's voice and piano before the others expanded on it.
Fred Shuster, the music critic for the Daily News of Los Angeles, emphatically disagrees.
``I don't think it has a snowball's chance of ever being nominated for a Grammy,'' says Shuster, who has argued the issued with Piotrowski. ``It was a terrible song to begin with, not that that's ever stopped anything from being nominated before. But it's not like the Beatles never won a Grammy before either.''
Whatever one thinks of ``Real Love,'' it probably will be the last new Beatles song the world hears, Taylor said. The group also released ``Free As a Bird'' (created from another unfinished Lennon tape) last year.
``I don't think, apart from one other song that Yoko made available to us, called `Now and Then,' that they have anything else to work with,'' Taylor said.
``They thought about finishing `Now and Then' but decided against it, in part because we didn't want to wear out our welcome,'' he continued. ``We didn't want people saying, `Another new Beatles' song? Not again.'''
And what will Piotrowski do if ``Real Love'' doesn't capture a Grammy at February's awards ceremony?
``The genie is out of the bottle now,'' he says. ``If it doesn't win a Grammy, then I'm trying for People's Choice Awards, then the American Music Awards, then the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.''
LENGTH: Long : 108 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: Through the miracle of technology, ``Real Love,'' theby CNBBeatles' newest song, was released last year. color.