BACKSTAGE VOICES: FROM ANTIC TO ARTICULATE

Paul Simon, looking alternately befuddled, bored, defensive and always uncomfortable, gave lots of yes-and-no and I-don’t-know answers in the backstage television press area Tuesday night after accepting the Grammy’s best album award for “Graceland.”

He quickly interrupted the first inevitable question on the controversy over his recording in South Africa. “I’m not gonna talk about that tonight,” he snapped, “because I’ve been talking about it for months now and it seems to be pretty well settled.”

Later, in the deadline press section, he glancingly addressed the furor. “I think this (the award) was about music, and that’s what the album is about,” he said.

What would the African National Congress--which has denounced Simon’s actions--think about his victory?

“The ANC I hope will be as happy as I am,” he said. “We both want the same thing.”

“I just like to do what I do, and whatever the trends are, they don’t have a great influence on me, and if they did, I don’t know where I’d be today.”

That was the view of Steve Winwood, whose “Higher Love” was a surprising winner in the record of the year voting. It also won him the male pop vocal award.

“It’s a great honor to receive something like this when it’s at this point in my career,” continued Winwood, who first gained fame as a 16-year-old prodigy in 1967. “It’s the first one I’ve ever received, it’s the first time I’ve ever been to the ceremonies, and it just means more now than maybe it might’ve meant 12 or 15 years ago.”

Barbra Streisand, after receiving her eighth Grammy--this one for female pop vocal for “The Broadway Album”--reflected on her past awards: “I really had no sense of it then, what it meant--this is much more meaningful now, especially for this album that everyone thought was gonna be . . . unsuccessful or uncommercial.

“It reaffirms my belief in the public’s taste. I mean, how could George Gershwin or Rodgers and Hammerstein just have one period in music? It just reaffirms the belief that I have in the public.”

The Beastie Boys, who’ve ridden their rap music and upstart attitude to the top of the charts, lived up to their reputation, becoming more and more outrageous as they moved from one press area to the next. When they weren’t grabbing their crotches and spouting unprintable comments, they were getting more abusive to their questioners.

“What’s your appeal?” asked a woman in the radio section. “Lady,” replied a member of the New York rap trio, “that’s a stupid question.”

Retorted the reporter, “Well, give me a stupid answer.” What he gave her was what’s known as a raspberry.

They did make a few calmer comments concerning the awards. “It’s strange, because I thought we were gonna win every award, and so far we haven’t won anything,” said one Beastie, knowing full well that their December release wasn’t eligible for this year’s awards.

But if they’re nominated next year, they figure they’ll:

--Drink a lot of beer.

--Roll around naked in a lot of mayonnaise. . . .

An unidentified young man in a tuxedo walked up and said hello to B.B. King, surreptitiously attaching a sign to the back of the blues great’s jacket: “I’m Howlin Wolf.” King drew some puzzled glances before someone else removed it a little later.

There was nothing puzzling the sizzling blues jam that eventually included Willie Dixon, Koko Taylor, Big Jay McNeely, Ry Cooder, Dr. John, Jim Keltner, B.B. and Albert King, Robert Cray and Etta James--definitely the highlight of the show.

Mick Hucknall came backstage with his band, Simply Red, after performing on the show. “I can’t wait to get away from here,” the singer said to one of his musicians. “Who are all these people, and why do they care about this? I don’t care about this.”

Hucknall and company might have been more enthused if they hadn’t lost out to Bruce Hornsby in the best new artist race.

“It’s a lot better than losing,” said Ruben Blades after picking up his first-ever Grammy for the “Escenas” album, winner in the Tropical Latin category.

The busy Blades, who’s just released another Spanish-language salsa album, said he’s working on a project with Bob Dylan, Lou Reed and Elvis Costello, as well as a movie with Whoopi Goldberg.

“The thing that pleases me,” said the politically astute (and, some say, ambitious) Panamanian, “is that usually music is utilized as a form of escape rather than confrontation, and the choice that we took when I started writing was to write songs that had to do with reality, in terms of the grim side and not the happy . . . the one that is usually presented through music.”

Steve Hochman and Chris Willman contributed to this story .