By Scott Grooms
When you think of Rock and Roll you think, Elvis, The Doors, The Eagles and of course the British Invasion of the Beatles.
The Colleton Civic Center is bringing the music of the Beatles and more to Walterboro on October 1st as they present the Wannabeatles.
We spoke to Dennis Scott, founder, and leader of the Wannabeatles and asked him to describe the show. “The Wannabeetles is a tribute act, but it’s not your typical Beatles tribute act, because we do a lot of other things, including medleys that we put together of Beatles songs in very inventive and interesting ways. We also do some material from other groups of the 60s, big hit songs that people will remember.” He added, “We honor the Beatles in other ways as well, For example. The Beatles were very charismatic on stage, and they had a great senses of humor and we naturally fall into doing that, because we love to dabble in comedy, so we’ll do some parodies of Beatles songs that people seem to love.”
The Wannabeatles have been together 16 years, so they have a great camaraderie on stage, which gives a chemistry that people feed off. We always get lots of great comments about the antics and the fun that we have on stage. The band includes, drummer David Toledo, Cuban born and moved to the United States when he was seven. Scott says, “He grew up listening to the music of the Beatles, absorbing it, and growing to love it.” In addition to drums, he is great vocalist. So, when we introduce him, we refer to him as quote, Nashville’s favorite singing drummer.” The keyboard player and bass player is Nathan Burbank, a classically trained musician that wanted to rock and roll with a band.
And then the newcomer of the group is 23 years old and was attending Belmont University in Nashville. Quinton Bianchi sings, plays guitar, keyboard, woodwind instruments, and he’s great on stage. Scott says, “He does a certain song in our show, and women are throwing dollar bills at him. I mean, he’s only 23 and they’re throwing dollar bills at him because he’s stopping the show. He’s literally stopping the show.”
Scott talks about venues the have played, “We have been in the words of Johnny Cash, ‘we’ve been everywhere, man, we’ve been everywhere’. We play a lot of theaters, especially restored movie houses, which we love doing, because it’s such an intimate setting. But we played everywhere from Shipshewana, Indiana, where they have a big performing arts center to Key West in the Tennessee Williams Theater, and all the states in, around, and between.” The Walterboro stop is on a southeast tour that includes, Virginia, North and South Carolina and portions of Kentucky.
In addition to classic Beatles Songs, the group also sings songs from John, Paul, George, and Ringo during their solo career.
I asked Scott how the Wannabeatles got started. “We actually got our start by playing, not Beatles music, but regular background music at a Mexican restaurant of all places. People were eating while we were playing, and there was not a lot of interest. So one day, I said, You know what, guys, we all love the Beatles. Let’s play some Beatles songs, and we started doing that. All of a sudden people started perking up and paying attention. We thought, this is a queue that we should take notice of and we went to the manager and said, how about having a Beatles night here? The restaurant manager came up with, “Beatles and Fajitas.” So we started playing regularly there, and we started getting a following, never dreaming that it would turn into the Wannabeatles. So that’s how we got started, in a Mexican restaurant.”
People are encouraged, but not required to wear Beatles and band apparel. Scott says “It’s fun to see the array of beatle T-shirts worn by fans, and that includes not only people who were of a certain age, but also youngsters. They’re wearing Beatles T-shirts and things because they discovered the Beatles, and their parents have introduced them to the Beatles, and they love it.”
Scott adds, “We’re thrilled that we’re going to be playing at the Colleton Civic Center. We’ve never played there before. The people that we are working with there are so nice and so congenial. It’s just a pleasure to do that, and I hope that people will come out. I guarantee they will not be disappointed. And in the words of John Lennon from his one of his Sergeant Pepper songs, “a splendid time is guaranteed for all”.
You can find out more about the Wannabeatles at thewannabeatles.com or at colletoncivic.org.
