Egremont — If you want to know how ANY Beatles song goes, just ask Tom Teeley, one of the original New York cast members of the 1970s theatrical sensation Beatlemania. He carries all the songs around in his head and dispenses them with faithful precision according to the need of the moment. One such moment occurred on June 1, 2017, when Tom led the musicians in Jeremy Yudkin’s celebration at Lenox Town Hall of the 50th anniversary of the Beatles releasing their seminal LP, “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.” Without Teeley in the band, it would have been a completely different show.
Now he’s doing it again, but with a broader range of material and a new willingness to depart from convention. The Eggmen, playing at the Egremont Barn on August 5 at 7:30 p.m., are not a Beatles simulation, and they’re not exactly a tribute band, either. You should think of their show as an immersive appreciation of the Beatles—with surprises. The group’s lineup features some of the Berkshires’ finest pop musicians: Steve Ide from the BTUs and Arlo Guthrie band, Rob Putnam, also from the BTUs, and drummer Tom Major from Entrain, Bo Diddley, and Four Sticks.
I asked Mr. Teeley to tell his story of how he became a career Beatles specialist.
Tom, how did you get started with all this maniacal Beatles stuff?
I got my start back in the late 70s, when I auditioned for the Beatlemania show, which had just opened with the first tier of musicians. There was a dead-ringer lookalike for Paul McCartney at the time on all the ads, and that kind of sold the show. And immediately they began hiring, because the original cast was headed to Los Angeles to do a run out there. So they needed a New York cast.
I was a huge Beatles fan, and really, by process of elimination of who I might be able to look somewhat like, I decided to audition for George Harrison. I didn’t think I looked anything like the other guys, and I could possibly look like George with the hair and some makeup.
So I auditioned as George, I got hired after two or three rounds, and that launched my Beatles work. So I did Broadway—we were at the Winter Garden, the Lunt-Fontanne, and the show finally closed at the Palace Theatre. So we were in three different Broadway houses during its run.
And how long was that?
Roughly two years plus. It had a great run. Then there were touring companies that continued after that, and at that point, I thought I was done with the [Beatles] business. I really did not do any Beatles shows from ’79-1980 until 1981, when I got a call from…The same producers were gonna do a film version of the Broadway show called “Beatlemania: the Movie.” I got cast as George.
In the early 2000s I got a call to join up with a symphony show that was a Beatles show—and it’s still up and running—which is called “Classical Mystery Tour,” and that actually was my favorite Beatles show, because, essentially, it’s four guys and then a sixty-piece orchestra behind you. We had excellent charts, and I got goosebumps every time we did the “Golden Slumbers” medley, where you have, you know, full strings behind you…
You mean “The Long and Winding Road”?
Yes, exactly—all the go-to songs that you can imagine, and then a couple that we took the liberty to add just a string line or two where there was originally an organ, just to keep the orchestra playing and to combine that with songs people want to hear—’cause they want to hear certain songs—and you also have to have the orchestra doing something. So I did that on and off through the 2000s and did my last performance with them about three years ago.
The other Beatles production that I did was around 2009. I left “Classical Mystery Tour” and I started working with a show called “Rain,” a tribute to the Beatles, and they did a Broadway run as well. Those were guys I knew from Beatlemania, and they had been working for years and years. So they had a lot of gigs, and they had this great Broadway run coming, so I jumped ship, ’cause I wanted to take advantage of what was going on there, which was a lot of work and some really nice, cushy gigs—sit-down gigs.
For the New York show, we were there for almost nine months, and that was fantastic. I could pop back and forth between the Berkshires and work on Broadway.
So I worked with them until 2014 or ’15 and then worked, again, another two or three years with “Classical Mystery Tour.” The last show I did with “Classical” was in Germany at the beginning of 2020, and really, we had no idea what was about to happen, so that was my last official sort of Beatles show of that style, and I don’t know if I’ll do them anymore. They were dress-up gigs. I’ve been doing it for a long time, and I don’t relish doing that—getting dressed up, which is why I enjoy what we’re doing now.
How did the Eggmen form?
The idea for The Eggmen was not even mine. It was Tom Major’s idea. He kept bugging me, said we gotta put a Beatles show together.
So we got Steve Ide, who used to work with Arlo [Guthrie] and he’s in the BTUs—and also Rob Putnam, a bass player from the BTUs. We just started playing and rehearsing, and I started walking these guys through all the parts. So we had a little bit of Beatles school.
Basically, I’m singing most of this Eggmen show, and I also get to finally sing some of the Lennon things that I’ve always wanted to sing—and the McCartney stuff as well—and not just be limited to…George was not a very featured character in the other kind of Beatles shows, so it was only a couple of songs that George got to own. And harmony singing and then all your guitar parts. And for this show, I switch between piano and guitar.
So we’re not just doing re-creations of the records but doing other kind of versions of songs, and mixing that in, as well. We do a jazzier version of “Nowhere Man” and also renditions that are well known cover versions.
In the next show we’ll do Joe Cocker’s version of “With a Little Help from My Friends,” which he made famous at Woodstock. (I’m probably gonna have a guest singer do that; I don’t want to shred my vocals to do Joe.)
Steve Ide’s wife, Carol, is on vocals. My wife—she goes by Gigi Hageman Teeley—was a keyboard player in Beatlemania. So we go way back playing Beatles music together. When we talked about doing this, I said to Gigi, why don’t you dust off the “Get Back” Billy Preston stuff and the “Revolution” Billy Preston stuff. And she’s a great singer. So we have two additional voices and some additional keyboard parts from Gigi to fill things out. And we will have an occasional guest singer.
We did our first gig on June 9, and it was a Thursday night, and I didn’t know if anybody was going to show up. But, you know, Steve Ide has a lot of people on his mailing list, and we had a packed house! So we were really happy with that. It went really well.
What’s next?
We’re playing on the 5th of August and again on September 16.
See the Eggmen August 5 at the Egremont Barn at 7:30 p.m.
Admission is $20. Purchase tickets here.
