Have a ‘Rockin’ Christmas’ at The Ritz
Sha Na Na to perform holiday tunes and fan favorites FridayBy MaryAnn Kromer, mkromer@advertiser-tribune.com
Music fans know 2009 was the 40th anniversary of the Woodstock Music Festival, immortalized in film and on vinyl. At 7:30 p.m. Friday, The Ritz Theatre in Tiffin is to host one of the bands that appeared at Woodstock in 1969 and still is playing rock and roll. That group is Sha Na Na.
What is more amazing is the band's co-founders, Jocko Marcellino and Donnie York, still tour with the band for more than 50 concerts a year world wide.
This past July, the group released "Sha Na Na: 40th Anniversary Collector's Edition," a CD with 20 signature tracks. The Ritz audience can bet on hearing selections from the CD, as well as some rock and roll Christmas songs.
Marcellino and Scott Simon, another longtime member of the group, said they were pleased to talk about the show and the recording in recent phone interviews.
Where does one begin to choose music for a 40th anniversary CD?
"We tried to cover the different phases of our career. We started in college in 1969, and we did Woodstock shortly thereafter," Marcellino said.
The band said it also wanted to include songs from its television variety show, from the sound track of "Grease," an original or two and other "stuff we love."
Marcellino said they had to stick with tracks they owned and controlled. In addition to performing, Marcellino produced the tracks on the CD, reviewing them as he drove around in his car.
Sha Na Na had its origins at Columbia University in New York, where Marcellino was studying on a football scholarship. There, he also sang with a glee club ensemble, The Kingsmen, but his musical endeavors began at an early age.
"In kindergarten, I am told, I was the leader of the band at school. My teacher told my parents I had musical inclinations," Marcellino said.
In the Marcellinos' attic was a drum that was dusted off so Jocko could play. He joked that hand-me-downs in his family of six children included musical instruments as well as clothing.
By age 7, he said he was taking drum lessons. By age 11, he was playing in rock groups in his hometown, Quincy, Mass. Later he joined the high school band, the Pilgrims.
"I was also a football player. One time, they needed me to drum at half-time. So I got permission from my coach, took off my shoulder pads, drummed with the band, and put my pads back on," Marcellino said.
After graduation, Marcellino said he and his drum set were off to Columbia. During the glee club performances, Marcellino and 11 other men did an a cappella segment of 1950s rock songs. He said it was so well-received the group added instruments, costumes and a new name, taken from the 1950s tune, "Get a Job" by the Silhouettes. Marcellino's drums came in handy.
While the band was playing at a club near the university, the producers of Woodstock happened to be in the audience and looking for talent. The band was signed that night to play at the festival. The day before the event was to open, Marcellino said he and the bass player spent the night in a motel.
The next day, they made their way to the concert site along emergency roads, pulling a U-Haul.
Sha Na Na was scheduled to play Sunday night, but they kept getting bumped as other performers ran over their time slots or the weather kept everyone off the stage. Marcellino said they kept going back to the trailer to sleep while they waited.
"Finally, Monday morning, (Jimi) Hendrix and his players started to tune up. We'd been out there all that time ... the crowd was down to about 50,000," Marcellino recalled.
Just when they were about to give up on performing, someone decided they should play for about 30 minutes to open for Hendrix. Marcellino said from the stage the grounds looked like a refugee camp, but their perseverance paid off. The cameras were rolling for their rendition of "At the Hop." It was the start of a lengthy career for Sha Na Na.
Current band members include Marcellino, York, Screamin' Scott Simon, Reggie Battise, Jim "Billy" Waldbillig, Paulie Kimbarow, Gene Jaramillo, and "Downtown" Michael Brown.
"Our bread and butter has always been our live show," Marcellino said. "It's great. I get to rock and roll with my friends. I love the material ... These songs keep coming around again."
Performing with Sha Na Na is only one facet of Marcellino's show business career. He is an actor, songwriter and producer. Now residing in southern California, he also performs with Jocko and the Rockets. His newest project is scriptwriting. Marcellino said he loves what he is doing, especially when he can collaborate with other artists.
Scott Simon, the band's keyboard player, did not appear at Woodstock, but he has been part of Sha Na Na since 1970. Now the tour manager and musical director, he also spoke by phone and recalled performing at The Ritz a few years ago.
"We have played in your theater, and we're really glad to be back," Simon said.
The second half of The Ritz concert is to feature songs from the Sha Na Na Christmas CD, "Rockin' Christmas." Simon, the co-writer of "Sandy" from the motion picture, "Grease," also has an original cut on the Christmas album. Like all songwriters, he said he wishes he had composed the Irving Berlin classic, "White Christmas." The piece he did write has an oldies flavor, in keeping with the band's repertoire. For the recording, he arranged the song, sang all the vocals and played the piano.
"I wrote this song 40 years ago, 'Wish You Were Here,' trying to write a holiday song. It's a beautiful lyric," Simon said. "Fortunately, songs have a very long shelf life, so I had to wait until Sha Na Na put out a Christmas CD so I could record the thing."
Simon said his dream is for Celine Dion to hear it and record it. The song may not be on the program for Tiffin, but Simon said the show is to include "The Rockin' Dreidel Song," many secular tunes and a segment of traditional Christmas songs so the audience can join in the singing.
Like Marcellino, Simon took up music as a child. Growing up in the Kansas City area, he said he started playing piano by ear at age 4 or 5. His mother made him take lessons with a series of classical instructors.
"I never practiced - typical - but I could play by ear. So by 6th grade, she sent me to the Kansas City Conservatory of Music where I studied jazz. Then I started playing guitar, banjo and bass," Simon said.
By the time he enrolled at Columbia and hooked up with Marcellino, Simon had a double concentration in English literature and music. Published poet Kenneth Koch was one of his instructors. The literary background helped Simon to compose lyrics for the songs he would write. He said timelessness is an important element for the music Sha Na Na performs.
"In being true to the genre, you should not be improving on perfection. That's what Sha Na Na tries to do onstage. The antics, the wardrobe, the choreography, the silliness, the fun and the audience participation, that's value added. But the music's integrity is very important. You don't try to improve on oldies," Simon said.
Although he loves performing, Simon admitted it can be very exhausting. In order to be ready to do a 7:30 p.m. show in Tiffin, he said the musicians must rise early Thursday, take two flights from California to Cleveland and drive for more than an hour. Of course, Ohio is three hours ahead of the western time zone. The group prefers to spend the night in the town where they are to play and get everything set up, checked and rehearsed the day of the show.
The band said it enjoys playing shows in Ohio, which Simon calls "a hard-rocking state." At a 2002 gig in Cleveland, the group stopped at The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The keyboard Sha Na Na used at Woodstock is enshrined there. Simon recalled the band played with Alice Cooper in 1971 in Cleveland, and he expressed respect for the many artists that Ohio has produced.
"There's no audience for rock and roll like northern Ohio," Simon said. "We consider it our second home."
Besides changes in the group's physical appearances, changes in the music business have occurred during the band's reign. Simon bemoaned the demise of the recording business as the Internet made music widely accessible for free.
"Download, download, download. It's over for product. It's over except at the Sha Na Na show in Tiffin, Ohio, where you can buy not only the 40th Anniversary CD but the Christmas CD," Simon said.
The Rockin' Christmas show will feature some of Sha Na Na's classic rock 'n' roll tunes such as "Rock 'n' Roll is Here to Stay," "At the Hop" and "Willie and the Hand Jive" as well as rockin' holiday songs such as "Run Run Rudolph," "I Want to Rock 'n' Roll for Christmas" and "Santa's on a Diet."
Republic Lumber is sponsoring the Rockin' Christmas Show. Tickets range from $15-$35. To purchase tickets, stop by The Ritz box office, 30 S. Washington St., visit www.ritztheatre.org or call (419) 448-8544.
