Seattle Symphony, Marvin Hamlisch, Sha Na Na celebrate 'The Fabulous '50s'

"I didn't know the 1950s were the good old days until we were past them," cracks Seattle Symphony Orchestra's principal pops conductor, Marvin Hamlisch.

A multiple-award-winning composer, Hamlisch, 65, has set his sights on the Eisenhower years as a theme for the season premiere of Seattle Symphony's pops program.

He will host five performances beginning this coming Thursday through Sunday at Benaroya Hall. The audience for Saturday evening's show is encouraged to dress in 1950s fashion and enjoy a sock-hop in the Grand Lobby afterward. James Dean, hula hoops, fallout shelters, beatniks, Mickey Mantle — Hamlisch will be brewing nostalgia for the fads, fashions and icons of a pivotal decade. Above all, he and the orchestra will be celebrating the arrival of a new sound on 1950s radio.

"The show is mostly rock 'n' roll," says Hamlisch. "We'll be playing songs and medleys made famous by certain artists."

Hamlisch and the Seattle Symphony Orchestra won't be alone in the effort. Who better to tap as the guest star in a celebration of the 1950s than the band that stoked fond memories of doo-wop at, of all places, Woodstock?

"You can't have more fun at a show like this than invite Sha Na Na, with their leather jackets and pompadour hair and old songs," Hamlisch says. "The audience will go crazy."

Formed at Columbia University in 1969, Sha Na Na became a sensation when their spirited, tongue-in-cheek performance of Danny & the Juniors' 1957 hit "At the Hop" became a kooky highlight of Michael Wadleigh's 1970 documentary "Woodstock."

It was an early sign of a coming trend in U.S. pop culture. The 1970s were full of 1950s accents, including television's "Happy Days" and Broadway's "Grease." A 1978 film of "Grease" featured Sha Na Na, and included a song, "Sandy," cowritten by the group's pianist, Screamin' Scott Simon.

But there was no such national mood for nostalgia in 1969, when Sha Na Na was rushed onstage at Woodstock, appearing just before Jimi Hendrix.

"We spent two nights and three days waiting to get on," says John "Jocko" Marcellino, Sha Na Na's original drummer and one of two founding members still with the band. "Everything was pushed back because of the rain and power problems. There were only 40,000 people left, and I saw Hendrix getting ready, so I assumed we weren't going to get on. Suddenly we were told we had 35 minutes to perform."

Marcellino, 59, says Sha Na Na performs about 50 concerts a year. The group recently released a 40th anniversary CD, and is looking forward to the opportunity to work with Hamlisch.

"We're excited because playing with a symphony means we can get that 'wall of sound' effect on certain songs," Marcellino says.

He won't preview too much about the show, but does say the band will do a special version of Rodgers and Hart's "Blue Moon," tracing the way it was first sung in 1934 (as a slow ballad) to the Marcels' vibrant doo-wop version in 1961.

"We see two or three generations of people coming to the same shows," says Marcellino. "We're playing America's folk music."

Tom Keogh: tomwkeogh@yahoo.com