Elton John tribute performer rocketing into Americus

AMERICUS — On his first job as a professional entertainer, Craig A. Meyer got an opening-night card from the actor who was sharing his dressing room. On it was written a message that he still keeps in the front of his mind every time he performs.

“The card said, ‘Always remember someone out there is seeing your show for the first time and someone is seeing the show for the last time,’” Meyer said. “That’s something I take out on stage with me.”

At 8 p.m. April 2, he’ll be taking to the stage at the Rylander Theatre, where he’ll perform in the style of rock legend Elton John, complete with the sparkling, outrageous outfits that fans associate with Elton. He’ll also be bringing his full band, The Rocket Band, for the tribute show, which is the season finale and annual fundraiser for the downtown Americus theater at 310 W. Lamar St.

“Remember When Rock Was Young — The Elton John Tribute” marks Meyer’s return to the Rylander stage. In 2011, he performed solo — also as Elton John — at the theater’s first fundraising gala. Heather Stanley, managing director of the Rylander, said Meyer set the standard for the theater’s galas with his first performance.

“He kind of set the bar for all the others,” Stanley said. “People in town have been asking us to have him back.”

At his 2011 show, she said, “It was just Craig on our Steinway piano and some backing tracks. It was phenomenal. This time, he coming back with a full backing band, The Rocket Band. It’s going to be a completely different show than the one we had five years ago.

“It’s a great show, a lot of energy,” she said. “It’s going to be a good time and high-quality entertainment for our gala.”

On a Sunday earlier this month, Meyer was in port in Galveston, Texas. The Liberty of the Seas had ported there earlier that morning and he had carved out some time for a phone interview before returning to the ship for another cruise performance.

“I have the most fun when I’m on stage with my band, and my band, unfortunately, does not travel with me on the cruise dates. This time (in Americus), my Rocket Band is with me, which I’m very excited about,” he said. “I love Heather and I love the Rylander and I love the audience in Americus.”

Stanley said she met Meyer by chance several years ago. They were both in Atlanta for a rally to support arts funding. That led to Meyer’s first show in Americus, one he remembers fondly.

“They are just fun-loving people and they really know how to have a good time,” he said. “We’re coming down with the whole team and we’re going to rock out the Rylander.”

Stanley noted that Meyer is a “much sought-after performer for cruise liners.” Meyer spends a great deal of time on the road performing. He chuckled when asked to estimate how many days he spends traveling for shows, noting he had just compiled that information for his income tax filing.

“We had to count all that up,” he said. “I was on the road 182 days last year and I did 60 concerts. It was a hard year, but a very fulfilling year. It looks like this year is going to be more busy.”

Spending half a year on the road can be daunting, but the Los Angeles native who now calls Atlanta home has a history of mobility. He said he lived in five U.S. states and two countries and had attended nine schools before he graduated high school. After that, he’s been to Europe, lived in Asia twice and resided in several more U.S. states before settling in Georgia.

“I was born in Los Angeles, but I’ve been a gypsy my entire life,” he said. “I’ve always been a gypsy and traveled.”

He’s been an entertainer since childhood, when he taught himself how to play the piano while listening to music.

“I started playing piano when I was very young,” Meyer said. “I learned playing the music of Elton John, Billy Joel, Barry Manilow, Stevie Wonder — all those great singer/songwriter/piano-player artists from that era. … When we were growing up, it was everywhere — you just couldn’t not hear it.”

He also is an actor. His TV credits stretch back to a 1977 appearance on “Fernwood 2night” and include appearances on “Necessary Roughness,” “General Hospital” and “Will & Grace.” He’s appeared in films, including “Identity Thief,” “Joyful Noise” and “Leatherheads,” and worked with Alan Menken on Disney’s “Aladdin,” and with Tim Rice and Elton John on “The Lion King.”

On Broadway, Meyer created the role of Clinton Badger in MGM’s classic “Meet Me In St Louis” and toured nationally in “Cats” as Skimbleshanks, The Red Caboose in “Starlight Express,” and Mike Nulty in Irving Berlin’s “White Christmas.”

“Growing up in L.A., I decided I wanted to do TV and film work in addition to my dance work and started working professionally as a child actor, very young,” Meyer said. “Starting with that, I’ve been on Broadway, I’ve toured with Barry Manilow and Frankie Valli, and I’ve done some television work.

“Ten years ago, I moved to Atlanta for a job that, it turned out, was not a good opportunity, but decided to stay in the area. I have family in Atlanta.”

That led him to again open a vocal coaching studio — this one in the Georgia capital — which, in turn, led him to meet someone he describes “a heart with arms and legs” who helped open a new door in his professional music and entertainment career.

“A woman who’s now my very dear friend Melody Knighton, who has been in the tribute industry for 20-plus years now doing Lucille Ball and Dolly Parton, came into my studio to work on her Dolly Parton show,” Meyer said.

Knighton suggested that he would be successful in the tribute entertainment industry, but Meyer declined to pursue the idea for a couple of years.

Then one evening at an Atlanta benefit, he included a couple of Elton John songs. Comments from those who attended made him reconsider the idea.

“I wasn’t doing Elton, but I was doing some of his songs,” Meyer said. “After the show, several people came up to me and said there were moments if I closed my eyes there were parts of your voice that sounded like him, and the way you were playing the song on the piano really sounded like him.

“And I thought, you know, maybe I could do this.”

So, he called his friend who was an expert in the field. Knighton went shopping with him to put together his look, helped him set up a photo shoot, record a video and develop a website. Then, she sent his information out to the contacts she had amassed in her time in the industry.

“We’re in our eighth year of the show now,” Meyer said.

And what people see, he said, is a tribute to Elton John — a faithful representation of his music.

“We cover pretty much all of it, a pretty wide swath of material,” Meyer said. “I do perform as what I call ‘glam Elton,’ so I’m in the Spandex, the high-heel platform shoes, the sparkles, the feathers, that sort of thing. Visually, it’ll be quite the spectacle.

“Musically we cover everything from his first album all the way through his work on Broadway. It covers decades of music.”

While he’s never met Elton John, who, coincidentally, also calls Atlanta home, Meyer says he certain that the original Captain Fantastic or his organization is aware of his show. “Most of the record companies realize that people like myself who are doing faithful and honoring tributes to their artists actually keep their material in front of audiences and create new audiences for them,” he said.

The show brings back memories for those in the audience, he said.

“That’s the beauty of the show we get to do,” Meyer said. “It’s the soundtrack of a generation’s youth and they love the music.

“We are able to ‘event’ those memories for our audiences. I just did two shows the other evening on Liberty of the Seas, and the audience went crazy. They forced me to do an encore.”

While acts on the ship are supposed to do 45-minute sets and then leave the stage, the crowd “wouldn’t leave the theater until I came back out.”

Asked what he hopes members an audience take home with them after a show, Meyer paused for a moment, then said that, both in teaching and performing, he has “two words that sort of are my watchwords in my work — passion and impact. I live a passionate life in order to impact the people around me so that maybe they can go live a passionate life and impact the people around them.

“What I hope my audiences get is that they feel my passion from the stage, that they feel the band’s passion for this music and what we’re doing, and that it lifts them. If they were feeling good, I hope they leave feeling great. If they were feeling a little low, I hope we brought them up to where they feel they can get through the night and tomorrow’s going to be a better day.”

An artist rarely knows the real impact he or she can have on someone, he said.

“To have the opportunity to get inside their heads and have them forget about the bad stuff that might be going on … we just did a show in February in Rochester, Minn., where the Mayo Clinic is,” Meyer said. “I got several emails and posts on my page from people who were there with patients who were undergoing treatment.”

He said they wrote that was great “to get away from the hospital and see your show and feel happy.”

“If I can make somebody feel better for a couple of hours and maybe the next morning they wake up humming an Elton John tune and remember how much fun they had the night before, then I’ve done my job,” he said. “I often joke that I’m not talented enough to cure cancer, but I can help people forget about it for a little bit of time.

“It’s a big responsibility for me.”

And responsibilities, even when a person is doing something he or she enjoys, can be weighty at times, especially when a performer spends as much time traveling as Meyer does.

“I’m definitely having to practice what one of my mentors calls very good self-care,” he said. “When I have some time to be down and resting, I do. When I have time to be with my family, I take it. If I’ve got margin time when I’m in a city on tour, I take it.”

Because of his long career and extensive travels, Meyer says he has friends all over the world. He makes time to take a day or few hours to hang out and relax with those friends. “I have really good boundaries,” he said.

When he leaves the Rylander stage, he won’t be leaving anything on it, as the saying goes. Meyer says he’ always aware of the responsibilities he mentioned. A child in the audience may be seeing his or her first live concert, he noted, and there may be someone who a few days later will go “back to be with the Lord.”

“I don’t know those stories when they happen, but it’s part of the way I approach my shows, which says to me every time I’ve got to go out there and give everything I am capable of giving that evening.”

Tickets for “Remember When Rock Was Young — The Elton John Tribute” are $45 each. The Rylander box office, which is open 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Tuesdays-Fridays and 90 minutes before performances, and can be reached at (229) 931-0001. Tickets may also be purchased at the theater’s website, rylander.org.