Grammy

Make no mistake about it. Music is Noah Farber's life. The junior at the High School for the Creative and Performing Arts says he's been playing and thinking about music "since before I could even talk. " Farber, a tall 17-year-old with a mop of jet-black hair, mustered his ambitions and overcame a little foot-shuffling shyness yesterday to share his dreams with a few of the music industry's muckety-mucks gathered at the high school. After all, he had the ear of record executive Kenneth Gamble, songwriter Julie Gold, rapper DJ Jazzy Jeff, jazz saxophonist Grover Washington Jr. and manager Joanne Rile.

March will enter the Valley Forge Music Fair this year to the mellow roar of Patti LaBelle and exit to the sweet bleatings of Julio Iglesias. In between, spring breezes promise to linger amid the strains of jazz, blues and country headliners. The following is a lineup of what's in store: ROCK AND SOUL. LaBelle, whose long career includes the disco hit "Lady Marmalade" and a 1994 Grammy nomination for the single "All Right Now," will perform at 8 p.m. today, tomorrow and Saturday.

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. - Whitney Houston was underwater and apparently unconscious when she was pulled from a Beverly Hills hotel bathtub, and she had prescription drugs in her room, authorities said Monday. Two days after the singer's death, her body was taken to a Los Angeles-area airport to be flown to New Jersey, where her family was making arrangements for a funeral to be held at the end of the week. An autopsy was performed Sunday, and authorities said there were no indications of foul play and no obvious signs of trauma on Houston's body.

Stevie Winwood - winner of two Grammys this year - is a rocker worthy of appearing on "Legends of Rock," the second part of a show featuring his vocals that airs tonight from 11 to midnight on WMMR (FM/93.3). Winwood, who broke in with the British Spencer Davis Group when he was 18, later performed with Blind Faith and Traffic. His first hit on his own, "While You See a Chance," made the charts in 1981, but he went for five years before he had another one. His Grammy award- winning "Higher Love" was No. 1 on the charts in July, and he followed that up in October with a second hit, "Freedom Overspill.

"Jimmy is married, and he lives down south. His wife lives somewhere colder," Shawn Colvin sang in a weary, flat voice Thursday at a sold-out show at the Tower Theater. "He sees another woman in a Badlands town, and she cries upon his shoulder," she continued, drawing the last word of each line out a bit, almost moaning. And it was that little near-moan that revealed the truth: Though Colvin's narrator is a hardened woman who's seen it all, she's also a girl afraid to let go of her romantic hopes.

Family Space Station. The Please Touch Museum is inviting aspiring space travelers to a new exhibit, described as an out-of-this-world adventure. The area, which replaced the "Flying Machine" exhibit, offers various play experiences. The centerpiece is the shiny silver rocket that soars above young visitors. An 18-foot steel Ring Tower provides kids with targets as they attempt to shoot rockets through the rings. Youngsters can suit up like astronauts in front of a blue screen and pretend to walk in space or fly their own rocket ship through the solar system.

Some artists are not only born with the gift of song but are lucky enough to be able to combine their voices with the ability to uplift and inspire. On Sunday night at the Keswick Theatre, seven-time Grammy nominee Ledisi (pronounced LED-uh-see) delivered her take on inspiration and self-love, with thrusting vocals, Ella-esque jazz riffs, and grooves funky enough to overcome the technical difficulties that delayed her arrival to the stage. A tight six-piece band, complete with two background singers, provided an intro that renewed the energy of the sold-out crowd.

Pop Ashes & Fire (PAX-AM/Capitol ***1/2) Ryan Adams has not always exercised a lot of quality control over his relentless stream of releases, but Ashes & Fire follows a quiet period in his career. It's his first album since disbanding the Cardinals and one of his best since his post-Whiskeytown debut, Heartbreaker . Like that album and the paired Love Is Hell EPs, Ashes & Fire is a down-tempo, mostly acoustic affair, focusing on soft, somber ballads.

Twelve-year-old Dimitri Hamlin, the son of European film star Ursula Andress and L.A. Law stud Harry Hamlin, is at that cute age when he's sensitive about what his peers think. Call it an adolescent quirk, but Dimitri recently asked his mom to stop sunbathing topless, especially because magazines like to run pictures of her baring all. Andress has tried to comply, but recently the heat overtook her. She was at the beach outside Rome with friends and, well, she couldn't resist.

GENO VENTO , son of Joey Vento, the late founder of Geno's Steaks, says he's not selling the South Philadelphia landmark after which he was named. Yesterday we mentioned rumors that he wanted out. After unsuccessful attempts at reaching Geno, he left us a voice-mail saying "the restaurant is not up for sale. " Speaking of steaks . . . Pat's King of Steaks, across the street from Geno's, ranks 26th on Gogobot.com's list of top-50 Foodie Faves nationwide. The travel site also picked Philadelphia as No. 2 on its Destination Hot List above such international cities as Montreal, Buenos Aires and Dublin.