Under The Streetlamp
You may have seen their act at a theatre near you but once you’ve seen them and heard them – you won’t forget them!
In fact they’ve been seen by 300 million people on the 5 PBS Specials they’ve performed on.
We are speaking about the group Under The Streetlamp.
Brandon Wardell talked with us about his group.
Q – Brandon, as tribute acts go Under The Streetlamp is unique. Your group is singing songs from really the whole spectrum of the Rock’n’Roll era. Why did you decide to go that route? I’m thinking it has something to do with getting more work?
A – (laughs).Well, we got our start in the show ‘Jersey Boys’ and so we learned obviously the whole Four Seasons catalog for that show. There’s a bunch of songs in thee.
During the show we started doing some extra curricular shows in Chicago. So, we started with ‘Jersey Boys’ and then decided let’s do some material as the four of us. We’ll do some other artists.
What it ended up being was a little club circuit that we did. Over time it was wait a minute we love the (Four) Seasons but, there are so many great artists of this time period why don’t we differentiate ourselves from groups that do tributes to solely The Four Seasons and we decided to open it up.
Literally, we’re a tribute to the era of music that we’re fond of, the 50’s, 60’s and a couple of 70’s songs. Usually those are classics. There are standards that are just wonderful. Who knew they were written a hundred years ago?
Q – Do your audiences know the songs you’re singing or is it new for some of them?
A – We have a really wide range of ages. We have perhaps the grandmother or great grandmother that grew up with some of this music. We have the mother and the child. And of course there are fathers too.
Just an example of this four generation thing that happens with our group:
It’s kind of interesting how many of these older songs that that these children know. Of course the older groups know them. It’s almost like we have a crowd that knew the music from when it was released. We have a crowd that is familiar with it specifically from ‘Jersey Boys’. ‘Jersey Boys’ has been around for a long time. So, they know the Seasons catalog from ‘Jersey Boys’ rather than knowing it from the radio or records. So, that trickles down into the young, young children.
There are seven year olds that are Big fans.
I had a mother at my child’s school and she comes up to me and said, ’You did a career day last year.’
I went in and played some songs on the guitar and we had sing alongs. I told the kids about my group and showed them some videos. And, she showed me a picture of her child.
She said she’s been an enormous fan since that day. It just changed her world. She watches our videos and sings along and does the dances.
She showed me a video and this little kid, she’s in elementary school – she’s enjoying this music too.
I guess it’s a testament to how strong this music is and how well it connects with a lot of generations.
Q – Are you changing the songs around in your set(s) so you and the other guys don’t get bored?
A – Well, gosh Frankie Valli is 91 now and he’s been singing the same songs since the early 60’s. Typically we look at it as an opportunity to honor a different artist. We’re really just looking for the best music of the time that we can bring to the audience and we rotate the songs. A lot of the songs have been on our PBS Specials. We have five of them and we still do some songs from that. A lot of songs from those specials. But, we have a new, old catalog of songs so we can put some other artists in there.
We typically look for great music. We’re able to take these songs and make them our own. We make them a Doo Wop version that would be a vocally driven piece. Sometimes we pick artists that are like that. Other times, Roy Orbison for example doesn’t typically have a lot of Doo Wop although there are some really great songs that are deeper in the catalog that are really cool vocally driven songs like ‘Pretty Woman’. It has one harmony on the record but we make two more. So, we’re always doing three part harmony on the lead pretty much when it’s appropriate. We take these songs and we take these artists and we turn them into music that is our signature.
Q – Do you ever sing songs that aren’t typically ‘’hits” for the artists?
A – We typically go right for the heart. We give people the songs that they want to hear. Every audience wants to hear ‘Pretty Woman’, a song that everyone loves to hear. We like to do it as much as we can. Diving back into a catalog happens but typically that would be some kind of special occurrence for us like a medley. We’ll make a note of mentioning in the show tat it’s a song that they might or might not know.
Q – You’re performing 6 months of the year which translates to how many gigs a year?
A – Well, we’ve done as many as 70 shows in a year. It just depends on the year. 70 has been the sweet spot for us. We’re all family people and we just honestly don’t want to be on the road 365 days a year.
Q – Do you travel with your own musicians or do you use a House Band in the city you’re performing in?
A – We travel with a seven piece band. Our musicians are out of Chicago. We have a wonderful group of musicians and they travel with us all over the place.
Q – You base yourself out of Sarasota, Florida. Isn’t that the city where a lot of carnival performers retire to?
A – Absolutely. The Ringling Museum is here about 5 minutes from my house. There are a lot of performers here from all over. We actually have a Medieval Fair that’s coming up in the next two weeks( End of October 2025) and a lot of these circus performers do the Wheel Of Fortune and fire and all of those things. They come and perform at the Renaissance Fair so we get to go and see all these cool performances.
They put on characters so you get to see them portraying a character from Medieval times.
Q – If you wanted to book a gig in Sarasota could you do it?
A – Absolutely. When we’ve been here we’ve played the Van Wezel which is also affectionately called the Purple Cow. It’s a large purple building that the Broadway shows and touring shows come through. It’s a touring house that has concerts and plays . That’s the kind of venue we typically play. We play a lot of PAC’s. We play theatres where Jersey Boys or some other musical has been.
We play a lot of casinos. We do private parties. So, there’s a range of different places but I’d say the majority of our shows are at a theatre.
Q – How big of a theatre?
A – Normally we’re going between 1,000-2,000 seats. We go bigger. Go smaller, but that’s sort of for us the sweet spot for the theatres we typically play.
Q – You attended the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. You moved to New York City. Did you have to move to New York to jump start your career?
A – Absolutely. The group- all of us are theatre performers and we came out of doing musicals. So, when I moved to New York I had every intention of doing Shakespeare in the park, Moliere, Ibsen and all those fancy plays. I quickly realized that New York is a place where musicals happen and although there are wonderful plays being done the majority of opportunities for a fellow like me happen to be in musical theatre. So, that’s why I ended up going.
I had a wonderful person who gave me an opportunity to live above their costume design studio for nothing in exchange for work and I was able to work my way through that and within 9 months I had a Broadway show.
So, I was very fortunate ‘cause there are so few opportunities for performers to actually do Broadway shows on Broadway. So, that opportunity came and I had a chance to take it and I just ran with it.
I knew I wanted to go to New York . I decided I wanted to be a professional performer very early but I didn’t decide that I wanted to be a musical theatre performer until probably my sophomore year of high school and then I put it on a shelf and said this is just silliness and as soon as I got out I said that was so much fun I want to do that again and it just took off from there.
Q – Under The Streetlamp conjures up an image of guys who were singing on street corners in Philadelphia and New York. Is that the visual you were going for when you named the group?
A – Yes. Actually we got our name during Jersey Boys. There is a line at the end of the show that Frankie has and he addresses the audience and he basically says that all the fame and fortune and money is great but four guys under a street lamp – that was the Best. That was his quote and so we took it from there and realized that evoked a certain visual and that’s who we are. We identified with that and built our show on that.
Q – Brandon, you’re a performer, a producer, a director, a writer, a production manager, a technician, and an engineer. So, I guess you’ll never be out of work!
A – (laughs) Well, I hope not. I do a bit of everything and I’ve always found that fascinating to be able to do. I guess it started honestly with wanting to be a producer. So, I decided that I need to understand what all these people do. Then out of necessity over the years I would learn this thing and learn that thing and learn this program and learn that program. Over the course of time I just accumulated a Swiss Army knife of different skills and I use most of them today.
©Gary James
Official Website: underthestreetlamp.com
