Screamin’ Scott Simon, who as the dynamic keyboardist for the rock ’n’ roll revival act Sha Na Na regularly paid homage to Jerry Lee Lewis with electrifying versions of “Great Balls of Fire” and “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On” — and who also played a vital behind-the-scenes role as the band’s managing partner — died on Sept. 5 in Ojai, Calif. He was 75.
His daughter Nina Simon said he died of sinus cancer while in hospice care.
Mr. Simon joined Sha Na Na in 1970, a year after the group was formed, and stayed until the group’s final performance, shortly before the coronavirus lockdown in 2020.
As both a pianist and a singer, he brought his own theatricality to a group dedicated to turning doo-wop and early rock ’n’ roll songs into dramatic versions of the originals.
Wearing brightly colored shirts festooned with images of piano keys and musical notes, he played the piano on “Great Balls of Fire” partly from his knees, sometimes from his bench and occasionally with his feet. He sang the Bobby Darin hit “Splish Splash” in a bathtub, wearing a sleeveless T-shirt, boxer shorts and a towel while plinking a toy piano.
During the group’s accelerated version of Danny and the Juniors’ “At the Hop,” he never stopped jumping or doing the twist as he sang.
Mr. Simon wrote some songs that appeared on Sha Na Na’s albums, but his best-known composition was “Sandy,” from the hit 1978 movie version of the Broadway musical “Grease,” for which he wrote the lyrics and Louis St. Louis wrote the music. It was sung by a lovesick Danny Zuko (played by John Travolta) about his girlfriend (Olivia Newton-John).
Sha Na Na was also seen in “Grease” as Johnny Casino and the Gamblers and performed six songs, including “Tears on My Pillow.” All six appear on the movie’s soundtrack album, for which Sha Na Na shared in a Grammy nomination; it lost to the “Saturday Night Fever” soundtrack.
“There we were, 10 years after we started, an overnight success,” Mr. Simon told The Anchorage Times in 1990.
Jon Bauman, known as Bowzer — the band’s greaser lead character and bass singer — recalled that he and Mr. Simon were devoted to “different sides of the spectrum” of reviving the rock music of the 1950s and early ’60s.
“I was more on the doo-wop side of things and he was more of a rock ’n’ roller,” he said in an interview. “We were always trying to keep everything going.” Mr. Simon, he added, “always brought great energy to everything he did.”
In addition to piano, Mr. Simon played electronic keyboard, guitar, banjo and harmonica. In his role as managing partner, he also booked dates, wrote the set lists and dealt with the logistics of sending a 10-man group on the road.
“He dealt with all the fuss, so we gave him a fee for each show we worked,” Donny York, a singer who was an original member of the group, said in an interview.
Scott Jared Simon was born on Dec. 9, 1948, in Kansas City, Mo. His father, Kenneth, was a lawyer. His mother, Miriam (Blumenfeld) Simon, was a high school English teacher.
When he was in the sixth grade, he began studying jazz piano at the Kansas City Conservatory of Music (now the University of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory). As a teenager, he performed in jug bands and a jazz quartet.
At Columbia University, where he studied music and modern English literature, he led an R&B band, the Royal Pythons. A classmate gave him the nickname Screamin’ Scott when he heard Mr. Simon, then a freshman, singing in his dorm room.
In 1970, shortly before graduating with a bachelor’s degree, he answered an advertisement in a campus newspaper from Sha Na Na, which was seeking a new keyboardist.
The group had formed a year earlier on the Columbia campus. A performance in June 1969 at the Scene, a nightclub in Midtown Manhattan, was attended by Jimi Hendrix, who recommended them to Michael Lang, one of the promoters of the upcoming Woodstock festival. The band preceded Mr. Hendrix onstage on the morning of Aug. 18, Woodstock’s final day.
“We were exhausted and hyper at the same time,” the singer and drummer Jocko Marcellino, an original member of the group, told Variety in 2019. “I remember us playing very fast, but when I listened back to the whole set I realized we sounded great. We were campy, yes, but we were true to that music’s American roots.”
Mr. York said that Mr. Simon’s audition to replace Joe Witkin, Sha Na Na’s original keyboard player, was a revelation.
“His performance, with our musicians backing him up, and the rest of us watching, blew us away,” Mr. York said. “His ‘Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On’ was a savage attack on the piano and became one of the most impactful things in our live performances.”
The Woodstock documentary and its soundtrack album, both released in 1970, helped fueled Sha Na Na’s popularity as an enthusiastic conservator and performer of early rock ’n’ roll songs. It led to tours around the country and to a TV series, called simply “Sha Na Na,” which combined musical performances and comedy sketches. Ninety-seven original episodes aired from 1977 to 1981, and the show was later seen in reruns.
“Sha Na Na satisfied my collegiate dream, which was not to have to work for a living,” Mr. Simon told The Kansas City Star in 1987. “The idea was you would do just what you liked and somehow the money would take care of itself.”
In addition to his daughter Nina, Mr. Simon is survived by another daughter, Morgan Simon; both daughters are from his marriage in 1971 to Sarina Beges, whom he divorced after 17 years. He is also survived his wife, Deborah (Richetta) Simon, whom he married in 2000; a stepson, Nick Richetta; two granddaughters; and his sisters, Kay Grossman, Laura Neikrug and Diana Simon.
In 2001, four members of Sha Na Na, including Mr. Simon and Mr. York, appeared in a Los Angeles revival of the Broadway musical “Leader of the Pack,” about the life and music of the songwriter Ellie Greenwich, who co-wrote the title song as well as many other hits, including “Be My Baby.”
Mr. Simon told The Los Angeles Times that it was a natural for Sha Na Na to appear in a musical: “We always thought we were musical theater.”
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