Ted Neeley and His Little Big Band to Perform at PlayhouseSquare, 3/23

From JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR to DJANGO, Ted Neeley is set to perform his concert, featuring Broadway hits and insider stories, March 23 at PlayhouseSquare.

"He's just a man... he's just a man..." Try telling that to Oscar-winning filmmaker Quentin Tarantino. On a winter day in early 2012, Ted Neeley sat in an idling car at an imposing security gate waiting for a response from the large house above; he had been summoned out of the blue by Tarantino, ostensibly for some as-yet-unnamed film project. As the gate slowly opened, a figure appeared at the top of the driveway. Arms splayed wide, the call of "Jeeeeeeeeezusssssssssss" found Tarantino--manically animated as ever-sweeping down and scooping up Ted in a big bear hug.

"I used to play you in my bedroom as a kid!" Quentin admitted as the two men regarded each other. Tarantino, ever the lover of all things "movie" (particularly fringe and kitsch), had such a high regard for both the film Jesus Christ Superstar and Ted as Jesus, that he wanted to include Neeley in his latest film, the spaghetti western-cum-southern-gothic-slave romp, Django Unchained. How could Ted say no?

Ted was beginning another chapter in his career. His first performances in Jesus Christ Superstar on Broadway and in LA (the first show ever at the Universal Amphitheatre), were followed by a series of misses and near misses that led to Neeley's casting in the 1973 film of Superstar, leading to a Golden Globe Nomination for Best Actor in a Musical and one for Newcomer of the year. (Just another of those overnight successes that are many years in the making!) A few films followed, an album, TV appearances; Ted composed for several films and worked in the studio with various artists.

And then again came the divine light; several regional reprises of the Superstar role led to a large-scale revival of the show that reunited Ted and his erstwhile Judas, Carl Anderson. That tour lasted from early 1992 until 1997. Other versions followed...so much so that it led to the quip that Ted had been Jesus longer than Jesus had been Jesus and that, perhaps, Ted might want to consider a re-imagining of the show as "Moses Christ Superstar".

Ted, however, is eternally-almost preternaturally--young, But no world-weariness for Ted; he's too busy with the present. His new show features highlights of his musical and professional history, lore and back-stories mostly untold, and music from his new CD that combines the rangy Texas dust of his youth with the nuances of a world wanderer. (Ted Neeley and his Little Big Band performs at PlayhouseSquare's intimate Ohio Theatre Sat., March 23 at 8 pm. Tickets are $50, $40, $35 & $25 at 216-241-6000 or at playhousesquare.org.)

At a recent mounting of Ted's new stage show at the venerable Rubicon Theatre (which Ted helped found) in Ventura, California, the audience was on its feet as always for his searing "Gethsemane". This is wine that has aged well. The notes are still there, but the gravitas experience that it has wrought brings with it facets of interpretation that were missing in the original.

Now he's fronting a band again ..,as he was in back those many years ago in Ranger, Texas, a dusty little town between Dallas and Amarillo where he first picked up a pair of drumsticks and performed locally with his school buddies whenever an opportunity presented itself. The band morphed into a rough and tumble outfit that could play a county fair or a beer-soaked honky-tonk. And, as the band crawled its way across the Southwest towards the glimmering mirage of Los Angeles, they paid for gas and food by playing at any shack or shed that would have them.

Right at the genesis of the seminal LA scene that would launch so many artists, Ted and his band landed on the Sunset Strip in the mid-sixties. Seeing they had played so many gigs and covered so many musical genres out of necessity, the band began working immediately. Ted began to attract attention. As he puts it, "I was the guy who could hit the high notes". Most of the boys eventually filtered back to Texas, but Ted stayed.

In 1965 he signed a Capitol Records contract helming the Teddie Neeley Five and even made the cover of Teen Beat magazine. But teenybopper stardom wasn't in the cards for Ted. By accident, he wound up at an audition for a new rock musical when he accompanied an actor friend to the open call. As he stood in the stark glare of a single stage light, a voice from the darkness commanded him to sing something... anything. The voice belonged to director Tom O'Horgan...the show was Hair, and...the rest, as they say....

Today, as in those bygone Sunset Strip days, Ted is still "the guy who can hit the high notes"... and he's in that little Tarantino film. And, if anyone who attends his new show wants to thrust out their arms and shout out "Jeeeeeeeeezusssssssssss"....well, that'll be all right by Ted Neeley.

To post a comment, you must register and login.