Greg & Steve: Educational Pied Pipers

What do a couple of “fortysomething-and-then-some” ex-Newport Beach surfers from the ‘60s have in common with the multimillion-selling, “Baby Beluga”-singing, children’s music phenom Raffi?

Record sales. You may not have heard of Greg Scelsa and Steve Millang--heck, even many parents with children don’t know who they are--but the duo known simply as Greg & Steve have played Carnegie Hall, they can sell out 15,000-seat venues and their fans--special education and early childhood educators, plus the clued-in parents of young children--have bought over two million copies of their 10 albums.

In terms of financial success, that puts the laid-back, Los Angeles-based kids’ rock ‘n’ rollers near the top of the Raffi-led children’s music field.

They tour the United States and Canada more than 100 days a year; locally, they can be seen in concert today through Thursday at El Camino College in Torrance and on May 20 at Citrus College in Glendora.

The reason for the pair’s quiet success? From the 1975 release of “We All Live Together,” their first album on their independent Youngheart Records label, Greg & Steve have almost exclusively targeted the educational market. Their polished, movement-oriented songs, humor and strong rock and bluesy vocals have won praise and broad national support among teachers and children in public and private preschools, Headstart programs and early primary schools.

Education is still their primary market, but in recent years, with additional resources from Young-heart’s merger in 1990 with Creative Teaching Press, Greg & Steve albums and videos have begun slipping into the mainstream children’s music market.

“We haven’t changed what we do particularly,” said Scelsa, from a Chinese restaurant in Detroit--he and Millang traded the phone back and forth, while grabbing a post-concert bite before heading up to Pennsylvania for another gig.

“I think the rest of the industry is catching up with us. They’re learning that children’s music isn’t necessarily just entertainment. It has to be more than that. Because of our educational roots, we are extremely aware that each song we do has an educational skew to it, from motor skills to social awareness to language development.”

Those educational roots go back to 1968, when Scelsa and Millang, after playing in rock bands through high school, moved to Los Angeles “to get closer to the music business,” Millang said. To pay the rent, they found jobs in special education classes as teacher assistants where “they would ask us to bring our guitars in and we would stop cleaning paintbrushes and start singing to the kids.”

For six years, until the release of their first album, the pair “unofficially” became music teachers, “traveling from school to school doing music programs.”

“It certainly beat playing Holiday Inn bar gigs,” Scelsa said. “We found a real sense of purpose. We’re still blown away that people show up for our concerts.”

Underscoring the respect they’ve earned, Millang and Scelsa, each married with three kids, are in demand for their annual state and national workshops for educators.

“I saw them first perform 18 years ago,” said Heidi Thumlert, an early education specialist and member of the National Association for the Education of Young Children. She was impressed with Greg & Steve’s ‘60s rock ‘n’ roll style, notably different at a time when “most performers came out of the ‘50s folk tradition.

“They had this wonderful fresh approach to engaging children . . . the way they were able to involve children physically in the music” set them apart from other artists. “Now, there are a lot of artists who do that kind of stuff, but Greg & Steve were pioneers.”

Scelsa and Millang don’t fit the usual funky or folky personas typical of other children’s performers. Good-looking in a casual, well-groomed, pressed khakis-and-pullover way, they have the polished look of a couple of successful weekending execs--and indeed, they both are involved in the adult side of the record business.

Millang is a producer who owns the Silverlake Sound Studio, serving such clients as MCA and Warner Bros. Records; Scelsa, who writes most of the duo’s predominantly mid-’60s-style rock ‘n’ roll children’s material, has written and co-written hit songs for such Motown R&B; groups as The Boys and Klymaxx.

Still, even after 18 years on the road, both say that nothing compares to performing for children.

“We feel we have the best seat in the house,” Scelsa said, “because we get to see the faces of the children and teachers and parents. As long as people keep wanting us, we’re going to keep going.”

* Greg & Steve, Marsee Auditorium, El Camino College, 16007 Crenshaw Blvd., Torrance, today through Thursday at 10 a.m., $4.50, (310) 541-5819. Haugh Performing Arts Center, Citrus College, 1000 W. Foothill Blvd., Glendora on May 20 at 7 p.m., $4-$7, (818) 914-8509.