Actor and musician Greg Evigan joined host Kenneth Womack to talk about becoming “possessed” by the Beatles, his new album and much more on “Everything Fab Four,” a podcast co-produced by me and Womack — a music scholar who also writes about pop music for Salon — and distributed by Salon.
Evigan, best known for his roles on the classic TV series “B.J. and the Bear” and “My Two Dads,” (which co-starred previous “Everything Fab Four” guest Paul Reiser), has also long been a singer and composer. As he told Womack, “With every show I ever did I was always thinking, how can I incorporate my music into it?”
Evigan began piano lessons at the age of eight due to his “very inspirational” mother who was an “incredible pianist,” so he already had music in his blood by the time he was 10 years old when The Beatles first appeared on “The Ed Sullivan Show.”
As he said of watching them perform, “My sister and me – I don’t know what happened to us. We were just jumping all over. It was the best thing we’d ever heard. From then on I was hooked. When the Beatles came along, I knew that’s what I wanted to do.”
Evigan started playing in bands in high school and then, just months after graduation, he was cast in the Broadway production of “Jesus Christ Superstar.” As he said with a laugh, “I pretty much went from a school bus to a tour bus.” He then moved on to the starring role of Danny Zuko in a stage production of “Grease” (replacing Barry Bostwick at the time) and from there, Hollywood – where one of his earliest roles included a bit part in Ringo Starr’s 1978 TV special, “Ringo.” He also starred in Don Kirschner’s “A Year at the Top” with fellow Beatles fan and previous “Everything Fab Four” guest Paul Shaffer, with whom Evigan remains good friends, plus over 150 other films and series. He’s also written songs for Meghan Trainor and Chromeo, among other artists.
As for his new album, “Greg Evigan with London’s Royal Philharmonic Orchestra,” it was recorded in Studio One (“the Big Room”) at Abbey Road Studios, an experience Evigan described as “incredible.” The song Womack named as his favorite from the album, “Tears Like Rain,” was actually composed by Evigan when he was a teenager, saying the Beatles have always figured into the “classical component” of his musical journey. “It’s their endless, beautiful melodies. You could play them with a full orchestra, and it would still sound like something you would want to hear.”
Listen to the entire conversation with Greg Evigan on “Everything Fab Four” and subscribe via Spotify, Apple, Google or wherever you’re listening. “Everything Fab Four” is distributed by Salon. Host Kenneth Womack is the author of a two-volume biography on Beatles producer George Martin and the bestselling books “Solid State: The Story of Abbey Road and the End of the Beatles” and “John Lennon, 1980: The Last Days in the Life.” His latest book is the authorized biography of Beatles road manager Mal Evans, “Living the Beatles Legend,” out now.
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