LOS ANGELES

"And the Grammy goes to ..."

Henny and the Versa J's?

	Robin Rombach, Post-Gazette Members of polka group Henny and the Versa J's, from left -- Stas' Ogrodny, Henny Jasiewicz, Ryan Ogrodny, Dee-Dee Ogrodny, Butchie Jasiewicz, Frank Gibala, Randy Koslosky -- were suited up with hopes of bringing home the Grammy for best polka album. Click photo for larger image.

You can see in the boyish enthusiasm that lights up his face as he punches the air and yells when the presenter reads his band name from the list of nominees that Ryan Ogrodny is thinking that the polka Grammy might just go their way.

All seven members of McKeesport's Versa J's, including Stas' and Dee-Dee, Ryan's parents; Uncle Henny; and his cousin, Butchie Jasiewicz, have put their day jobs (in Ryan's case, college) on hold to fly to California to celebrate the greatest thrill a weekend band could hope for.

And it's all come down to what's inside that little envelope.

Seconds later, Brave Combo is rushing the stage to take the Grammy as the smiles and color fade from the Ogrodny family faces and the realization sets in that the upset they were dreaming of just wasn't meant to be, that rubbing shoulders with the rich and famous -- look, Tyne Daly -- and hearing their band name read aloud, correctly, at a Grammy ceremony would have to suffice. For now, at least.

But these are polka people.

Let the guys in Slipknot leave the room, their masks hung low, as Lemmy takes the podium for Motorhead's best metal Grammy.

Versa J's don't pout. They shake it off in time to smile and cheer when Cenobio "Bubba" Hernandez of Brave Combo ends his speech with "Polkas rock."

They laugh out loud when, minutes later, Bill Clinton is given a Grammy for his spoken-word performance.

"There's some disappointment," says Frank Gibala, who, at 61, took his first flight ever to be at the ceremony. "But everybody's in there joking."

As new member Randy Koslosky, who joined the band eight years ago and wrote a number of the songs on "Come on Over," the band's eighth album, puts it, "It is what it is."

"What's important," he says, as the other pre-broadcast awards are being handed out at the convention center, "is to do something good and have it be nice for people. Whatever else happens, happens."

And it helps to have good things to say about the band that sent you home without a Grammy. As Koslosky notes of Brave Combo, "Those guys are real ambassadors of polka. They do a good job of dispelling the stereotypes of polka.

And when he said, 'Polkas rock,' there was way too much response for that cheering just to have come from the polka people."

By the time they hit the after-party, where Ryan is thrilled to announce, "We just saw Kevin Bacon," the polka people from Pittsburgh are having the time of their lives again, despite the loud, non-polka music drowning out their conversations.

After all, it is an honor most musicians never know to walk the red carpet on Grammy night.

There's only one degree of separation now between the group and Kevin Bacon.

There's a road trip to Disneyland planned for the morning.

And how often does a kid from White Oak get a chance to hang with Earl Scruggs or have a conversation with an artist he describes as "my hero and icon when it comes to fiddle playing," Mark O'Connor, at a pre-Grammy nominee party?

"Everybody was very congenial and down to earth, which I wasn't expecting," says Ryan. "And having the nominee medal around you helped a lot, because they knew they were among their peers, in a way."

As the group is preparing to leave the Biltmore for the afternoon awards, it seems as though every third person that walks through the lobby is a fellow nominee.

"Good luck," they tell each other.

Not that people saying "Good luck" matters much at this point. The votes have already been counted.

Luck has had its say.

And what it says this year, in part, is that more Grammy voters know Brave Combo than the Versa J's.

Which comes as no surprise to Henny Jasiewicz, who's celebrating 50 years of playing polka.

After all, they self-released their nominated album while holding down day jobs.

"I'm not really disappointed," he says at the party, where the band is joined by several members of the entourage -- both friends and family -- who flew out just to be there for them, 27 strong, including children. "It's not that I really expected to win. We do this as a sideline, as a hobby."

His first reaction, he says, when Butchie Jasiewicz, his son and drummer, called to tell him they'd been nominated, was as follows:

"You gotta be kidding me."

The mood is upbeat at the table as the friends and family reminisce and tease each other.

Butchie needles Ryan -- often cited by his bandmates as the Michael Jordan of the group: "I don't remember Michael Jordan not winning the game."

Henny says of Gibala's reaction to Brave Combo winning, "Thirty years ago, he would've kicked somebody's ..."

But there's talk of the future, too.

"The kid'll be back here," Butchie says of Ryan, 19. "I don't know about the rest of us."

Then, nodding toward Gibala and his smiling dad, he reconsiders.

"I think this whole Grammy experience is putting a little spark in these guys after all the years they put in."

Gibala's been playing with Henny for ages -- a 16-year stint in the Bellhops, launched in 1954 and packed with members of Gibala's family, followed in '72 by the founding of the Versa J's with Henny's sister Dee-Dee and his father, Henry.

The band name is short for the Versatile Jasiewiczes.

Henny blames his sister.

"Never did like that band name, to tell you the truth," he admits with a laugh.

They brought in Henny's son -- who'd started taking lessons, after all -- when their drummer announced at a Saturday gig that he was quitting.

"I remember him opening my door," Butchie says. "He said, 'Be ready. You're playing tomorrow.'"

Butchie didn't sleep that night, as he recalls.

His cousin, Ryan, though, was far too young for stage fright when he joined the band. He was 2¹*₂ at the time and singing two or three numbers a night.

By that point, Gibala had quit, returning after 14 years in 1989, when Henry died.

He'd been thinking of quitting again before the Grammy nominations were announced.

"I wanted to retire," he says at the party. "But Randy has five new songs he's been putzing around with and the way they sound, we could be back here. So I guess I'm gonna hang around at least another couple years."

But even if they never get another nomination, from now on, they'll be the Grammy-nominated Henny & The Versa J's.

"On our tombstones," says Gibala, "they can carve that. Grammy-nominated."

Grammy-winning would be nice, but in the meantime, Ryan points out, " 'Come on Over' is still the same record it was the night before the Grammys. When I walked into the hall that day, I started crying, because just being there, to me, was unbelievable. I was so excited, just thinking about all the work I'd put in through the years and all the work my family had put in before I was born. So losing was a little disappointing, but after about a minute, it kind of subsided, and I realized it was still the same CD."