Grammys Show Is Bound To Go Into Overtime

No lip-syncing will be allowed. No patriotic numbers are planned. Bob Dylan might sing, if the mood hits him. Richard Gere, Tracy Chapman and Aerosmith will honor John Lennon.

No matter who wins the Grammys, one thing seems certain: CBS' presentation of the 33rd annual awards from Radio City Music Hall tomorrow (8-11 p.m., Ch. 7) will run longer than the allotted three hours. It always does.

``The audience dictates what happens,'' said executive producer Pierre Cossette by phone from New York. ``If you get three enormously long speeches and four long, long standing ovations, there's no way to finish the show on time.''

Standing ovations seem likely for Lennon, Dylan, Marian An

TELEVISION

derson and Kitty Wells, who are receiving lifetime achievement awards from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. Yoko Ono will accept Lennon's award. Dylan has been given the option to perform, Cossette said. Isaac Stern and Kathleen Battle will salute Anderson.

Bette Midler will open the show performing ``From a Distance.''

``The material like Midler's song looks like it was written yesterday about the war,'' Cossette said. ``But it's not by design. If there was not a war, we wouldn't be doing anything differently.''

Cossette promises there will be no lip-syncing on the first Grammy show after the Milli Vanilli scandal. (Milli Vanilli was stripped of last year's best new artist award after it was revealed months later that the duo didn't sing on its recordings.)

As far as lip-syncing on the Grammy show itself, ``In the 21 years that I've done this show, there have been three,'' Cossette said. He explained that difficult production numbers made a singing performance impossible in each of those instances.

``It's like having a basketball player sing a ballad while he's running wide open up and down the court,'' he said. ``That's what happened with Milli Vanilli last year. It was never a consideration to let them go live.''

Sinead O'Connor has withdrawn from the show, but the four other record-of-the-year nominees will sing: Midler, Mariah Carey, Phil Collins and M.C. Hammer. Also performing will be Garth Brooks, the Judds, Harry Connick Jr., Tony Bennett, Wilson Phillips and Living Colour. Winners in 16 of the 78 categories will be revealed on the air.

``This year's nominations are wonderful for television,'' Cossette said. ``Sometimes we have a lot of names that are important in the recording industry, but television land doesn't know them.'' But this year, artists like Midler and Hammer are known to recording and television audiences alike.

The Grammys usually produce some memorable moments and surprises. ``A couple of years ago, we were all in shock because five minutes before the show we looked out and on the front row there was Bruce Springsteen,'' Cossette said. Nominee Springsteen had said he wouldn't show up.

Cossette lists as a great Grammy moment the spontaneous three-minute scat duet by Ella Fitzgerald and Mel Torme in 1973.

The producer is proudest, though, of the very first Grammy telecast in 1971. He was able to sell ABC on broadcasting the show because he lined up Andy Williams as host, Cossette said. ``That show could have gone either way. If it hadn't worked, I wouldn't be sitting here doing my 21st. That show was the most thrilling.''