Singer Lou Rawls laments old Vegas’ passing while prepping for shows at new jazz club

Thursday, Aug. 17, 2000 | 9:07 a.m.

What: Lou Rawls and Nancy Wilson

When: 10:30 tonight; 8 and 10:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday

Where: Blue Note Jazz Club, Aladdin's Desert Passage mall

Ticket: $65 table seating; $40 bar seating

Information: 836-8404

Lou Rawls could read a telephone book and his deep, rich baritone would make it sound like music.

The man with the velvet voice will inaugurate the Las Vegas version of New York's famed Blue Note Jazz Club with two performances tonight, in what he hopes will be a return by this city to its musical roots.

"If any place in world should have a jazz club on every corner it's Las Vegas, but there is such a lack of it here," Rawls said in a recent phone interview. "Hopefully, the Blue Note will turn that around."

The club is part of the new Desert Passage mall adjacent to the Aladdin hotel-casino.

"The Blue Note (which seats 450) is the perfect size for me," Rawls said in a voice that has become instantly recognizable over the past four decades. "Frank Sinatra said one time that he, Tony Bennett, Joe Williams and myself were saloon singers. How can you go into a huge arena and connect with your audience? How can you be romantic?"

As part of the cabaret's debut, the super-cool, laid-back singer, along with legendary jazz artist Nancy Wilson, will tonight give private performances followed by a show for the public. They'll return Friday and Saturday for two shows each night.

Following Saturday's performances Rawls will go to New Orleans to attend a gospel convention.

"I started out as a gospel singer when I was 8 years old," he said. "I have a gospel album coming out in late fall."

Though his roots are in gospel, those roots have developed many branches.

"I've gone the full spectrum -- from gospel to blues to jazz to soul to pop -- and the public has accepted what I've done through it all. I think it means I've been doing something right at the right time," Rawls said.

During his 40-plus years as a recording artist he has made more than 60 albums, received 13 Grammy nominations, had one platinum album, five gold albums and a gold single.

There isn't enough ink to list all of his recordings, but a few of his hits include "Dead End Street," which earned him his first Grammy in 1967 for Best Rhythm and Blues Vocal Performance; "Lady Love," "Natural Man" and "Wind Beneath My Wings," before it became a hit for Bette Midler, in the early 1980s.

In the spring Rawls begins a nationwide tour of a new musical stage show entitled "Me & Mrs. Jones," based on the classic song about a romance between a woman and a judge.

The 65-year-old entertainer hasn't slowed down much since his youth, when he sang in church choirs and acquired the style of such greats as the late Billy Eckstine and Joe Williams. He's still playing clubs and concerts and making records.

"I'm busier than ever," Rawls said. "I'm all over the place. Lately I've been performing at Indian reservations ... I've played them all: Louisiana, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Mississippi."

He said casinos on reservations are pretty much like casinos everywhere. "They're not any different. They still have the slots ... it's just not Vegas," he said.

Rawls became a mainstay on the Las Vegas entertainment scene following his 1962 solo debut album, "I'd Rather Drink Muddy Water," and the international hit "Love Is a Hurtin' Thing."

"I don't do as much (in Las Vegas) as I used to, but I still work there," he said.

When Rawls first came to town, he said, the tallest building on the Strip was the old Sands hotel-casino, and he was among the first entertainers to play the Aladdin Theatre for the Performing Arts when it opened in 1976.

Rawls ticked off a list of venues he has played here over the years. The list would have been shorter if he had said where he hadn't appeared.

"I played the Hilton, Caesars, Harrahs, Bally's, Desert Inn," he recalled. "I went all the way back to the Thunderbird. I played the Fremont and Golden Nugget. I was at the Orleans last November with the Fifth Dimension.

"I played the old MGM Grand and the Flamingo. The only place I didn't play was the Stardust."

Rawls said downtown's Golden Nugget used to be one of his favorite venues.

"It was more of a Las Vegas-people kind of place." he said. "People who lived in Vegas would come there."

Rawls said old Las Vegas was quaint. "Then they started this mega-building craze."

At about the same time dress codes became more lax. People started wearing cutoffs, T-shirts and sandals to performances.

"When I first started in the '60s there was a dress code," Rawls said. "People had to dress appropriately. You had to wear a jacket. At a lot of shows, if you didn't have a jacket they would loan you one.

"Cutoffs, T-shirts and stuff like that were not acceptable." He said now they seem to be the rule, rather than the exception.

"The ambiance is not there," Rawls said. "That was just what it was all about. You go to a dinner and a show and you dress the part. Women don't sit around the house all day waiting to be be taken to a nice dinner and a show wearing cutoffs.

"When people go out they go out to dress up. That's the prerequisite. If you take out your wife or girlfriend, you dress. Don't go in a T-shirt.

"What if I came out on stage in ripped pants?"

Rawls also laments the change in the entertainment philosophy that seems to have taken over Las Vegas, putting more emphasis on large-scale productions and concerts.

"They fired everybody (who knew about entertainment) and hired a bunch of new people. The whole concept of show business has changed. It has no meaning. They do a lot of one-night bookings," he said.

He preferred the days when entertainers would be booked to perform for a week or two at a time and "you could develop a rapport with your audience."