RAIN: The Beatles Experience from Ed Sullivan to Abbey Road

Joey Curatolo - (Vocals, Bass, Piano, Guitar)

Unquestionably the greatest artist to portray Paul McCartney on stage, Joey grew up in a Brooklyn household where classical music and opera formed the soundtrack. A natural musician and singer, he was infatuated with the Beatles when they hit America, taught himself guitar at ten, played piano by ear and at 16 was moonlighting in a traveling Top 40 cover band. At 17, Joey was entered by friends into a McCartney sound-alike contest at a Beatle festival. Without preparation, he won and caught the eye of a producer for the Broadway production of Beatlemania. Joey ended up in the West Coast version. He joined Rain in 1983—helping propel the band into a class by itself. Today, his vocals and bass, piano and guitar playing remain as powerful as ever.

Steve Landes - (Vocals, Rhythm Guitar, Piano, Harmonica)

With a singing voice dead-on to the young John Lennon’s, Steve was the perfect replacement in Rain for Jim Riddle, the Lennon portrayer who succumbed tragically to a brain tumor in 1997. The precocious Steve taught himself guitar at ten listening to Beatles records and by 13 was fronting a Top 40 cover band in his native Philadelphia area. At 17 he joined Beatlemania and further developed his musicianship, including as a Beatlemania roommate and close friend of Riddle. Steve later honed acting skills in a Los Angeles play, The Fab Four. After passing the audition with Rain, his career was set. On one of his travels to England , he found himself at Liverpool’s Casbah Club, owned by pre-Ringo Beatles drummer Pete Best. Encouraged to get on stage, Steve belted the rocker “Slow Down,” on which Lennon sang lead on a 1965 Beatles record. Best cited the performance at a Beatles convention, saying it helped make for one of the best nights ever at the Casbah. Visit Steve’s Website www.steve-landes.com

Joe Bithorn - (Vocals, Lead Guitar)

George Harrison portrayer Joe grew up on the same Manhattan block where jazz genius Thelonious Monk resided. Steeped in classical music and jazz, young Joe nevertheless dabbled in many genres when teaching himself acoustic guitar. Smitten by the Beatles, at nine he switched to electric guitar and by 13 was famous in his neighborhood. By 16 he was a studio session musician. He joined a national tour of Beatlemania, mastering Harrison’s scouse accent on the job. Joe passed Rain’s audition by playing both lead guitar parts of “And Your Bird Can Sing” simultaneously, which Harrison and McCartney played in the studio. Joe managed the feat by employing double-stop bends on the strings, playing an open E string while bending the B string on the seventh fret. In Rain he manages all sorts of fretboard wizardry—including replicating studio sounds with a guitar synthesizer.

Ralph Castelli - (Drums, Percussion, Vocals)

By six, Ralph was pounding his older brother’s drum set whenever he could sneak on it. By eight, the Los Angles native wanted to be Ringo Starr. By ten, Ralph was drumming for money at buffets in a trio with his guitar-strumming brother and accordion-squeezing cousin. After his high school band broke up after graduation, Ralph caught wind of an audition for “Beatles sound-alike” and earned a spot in the Los Angeles cast of Beatlemania. He later was hired for the drummer’s part in the 1981 movie adaptation of the production. Ralph dabbled in small parts on TV sitcoms, he was also up for TV show Joanie loves Chachie. He joined Rain in 1983, continuing his lifelong dream of mastering Ringo’s extraordinarily precise, artfully cadenced rock drumming.

Mark Lewis (Keyboards, Percussion)

The managerial and creative mind that transformed Rain from a 1970s southern California bar band doing Beatles covers into an ultra-professional act with the best Beatles tribute musicians in the world, offstage keyboardist Mark traces his love of the Fab Four to the Sunday night of Feb. 9, 1964, when his generation was smitten by the Beatles appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show. An accomplished pianist at 13, having studied since age five, Mark was soon playing the Farfisa organ in teenage rock bands around his native Los Angeles. After college he met two talented musicians who did Beatles covers in a bar band called Reign. Over the next five years the band gained regional fame, changed its spelling to Rain, cut the soundtrack to the made-for-TV movie Birth of the Beatles, but nearly unraveled numerous times trying to do its own songs and win a record contract. Only Mark stuck it out, took over the managerial reins and recruited the committed quartet of proficient musicians and stage performers who would gel into Rain’s longstanding lineup. Mark ensures the Beatles’ studio sound is replicated in full during Rain shows, playing piano and organ and inserting necessary sounds of the Beatles background instrumentation he’s painstakingly recorded.

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