Veteran performer brings flair of Elton John to the Wichita Symphony

A veteran of Broadway, musical tours and working on stage with Barry Manilow and Frankie Valli, Craig A. Meyer was convinced he was above performing as a tribute act.

“In my head, my inner dialogue was, ‘I don’t want to go to the elephant graveyard of entertainment to become an impersonator,’” he recalled from his home in Atlanta.

But while coaching a friend who was developing a Dolly Parton tribute act and performing a few Elton John songs during a concert in Atlanta – receiving compliments for both his audio and visual likeness to the singer – the Southern California native got on his own yellow brick road in 2008.

“Remember When Rock Was Young: The Elton John Experience” debuted, first with accompaniment tracks and then quickly a full band. By 2013, he had commissioned arrangements for Elton John music with a symphony orchestra.

As Elton, Meyer will join the Wichita Symphony Orchestra for a pops concert next weekend.

“I don’t think that I’m Elton John. I don’t want to be Elton John. There is one Elton John and I’m glad for the life that he is living and the music that he and Bernie (Taupin, lyricist) have given us and all of his other collaborators, but I don’t have a shrine to Elton in my home,” he said. “I kind of see this as Elton for me is my superhero. I step into the phone booth, I come out as him. I do what I have to do. I step back in and I come out as very normal me.”

Meyer said it was a key business decision for him to commission his own arrangements.

“Unlike a lot of performers that are pops performers and tribute performers that work with orchestras, I own all of my arrangements,” Meyer said. “I commissioned everything paid for it all. I found out later on that usually, artists will find a conductor who’s also an arranger and have them create the scores. And then they’re sort of attached to the show, but the artist does not own their show.

“It’s my show. I own my show,” he continued. “Everything. I own the branding. I own the arrangements. It’s all mine. And that is because all mine is because artists so many times don’t have the control over their own careers on so many levels. And owning your own show and your own company really gives you that freedom to say, ‘This is mine.’ You take the lumps along with the glory and the goods, but you know, at least I know that it’s mine.”

Meyer wanted arrangements that were reminiscent of Elton John’s live concerts in Australia and New York’s Madison Square Garden rather than the album versions.

“I wasn’t interested in doing carbon copy studio cuts per se, mostly because when you go to a live show, you don’t want to, at least I don’t want to hear the studio cut,” he said. “If I wanted to hear the studio cut, I can stay at home with my headphones and not have to be in the crowd and just enjoy the music on my own.”

The lush symphony arrangements sound different from the album cuts, he said, especially “Funeral for a Friend,” which Meyer calls “nothing really short of spectacular.”

“It’s really amazing,” he said. “It was originally done with a synthesizer, but to hear the strings and the horns performing this piece is just magical.”

With a strong belief that many in pops audience orchestra also have tickets to the touring musicals in the same spaces, such as Century II, Meyer asked for a medley of Elton John’s three biggest Broadway hits: “The Lion King,” “Aida” and “Billy Elliott.”

“It’s just really fun,” he said. “And that was really great to create from the ground up.”

Meyer said he wanted to make sure the symphony performers got as much playing time as he did on stage.

“A lot of times on pops concerts like these, the orchestras are parsley on the plate or less than parsley on the plate,” he said. “The featured pop band will use them for maybe a third of their show or half of the show. And a lot of times they’re just sitting there. As a musician, when the opportunity came to put together the show I was like, they have to be involved in every song.”

Meyer wanted to make sure his two favorite instruments, the cello and French horn, were both featured during the night.

An actor on Broadway in “Meet Me in St. Louis” and touring with “Cats,” “Starlight Express” and “White Christmas,” Meyer said he feels like he’s playing the role of Elton John rather than being a duplicate.

“There is dialogue in the show and I speak as him,” Meyer said. “But I did approach this as a piece of theater and looked back on all my experience with all the great directors that I’ve worked with in New York and on national tours and at Disney and at all these brilliant minds that have put together these shows that really work, that when audiences see them, it lands, and it clicks.

“They may not know why it clicks, but it just does,” he continued. “I used all of those techniques and secrets and secret sauce to craft a show that really draws an audience in, lifts them up, takes them down and takes them on an emotional and energy journey till when we finally get to the end of the show. There’s just this explosion of joy.”

Meyer brings his own five-piece touring band and two backup singers on stage with him in the symphonic shows.

His show opens with “The Bitch is Back,” an early hit from 1974, which brings back memories for Meyer.

“That was the first Elton album, the ‘Caribou’ album that came into our house,” he recalled. “And I remember my older sister getting it. And breaking the seal on the album and setting it down on the record player and hearing that cue scratch. And then that guitar coming through And every time I hear that guitar at the top of my show, I’m 11 years old and I get to go and play.”

‘REMEMBER WHEN ROCK WAS YOUNG: THE ELTON JOHN EXPERIENCE’ WITH WICHITA SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

When: 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 8

Where: Century II concert hall, 225 W. Douglas

Tickets: $20-$85, from wichitasymphony.org, the symphony box office or at 316-267-7658

This story was originally published February 2, 2025 at 4:26 AM.