Blind singers take on Las Vegas

Thursday, May 4, 2000 | 10:21 a.m.

What: Outasight.

When: noon-1:30 p.m. Friday.

Where: Caesars Palace Tower registration area at the entrance to Ballrooms II and III.

Cost: Free.

Information: Call 257-6445.

Although they are blind, three Las Vegas singers have not lost sight of the goal they have stubbornly pursued for 10 years -- a career in singing.

"All we want is the opportunity to succeed," Eli Del Rio, spokesman for the trio Outasight, said. "Show us where the door is and we'll knock that sucker down.

"We want to help pave the way for younger talent with handicaps. There is still a lack of awareness in the able-bodied community about (the handicapped). We're trying to erase those stereotypes."

The group will entertain Friday at Caesars Palace hotel-casino during a luncheon that is part of National Tourism Week activities. Their performance is open to the public.

Del Rio and Otis Albert, both 36, and Robert Smith, 31, moved to Las Vegas from Los Angeles more than a month ago after finally becoming frustrated with the lack of career progress there.

"We were spinning our wheels. There was nobody to really push our career. L.A. is so corporate, you can't really talk to the right people," Del Rio said.

Outasight's music is doo-wop, a genre that has been around since the late 1940s. It hit its peak in the early 1960s but has never completely disappeared and is beginning to experience a comeback with nostalgia concerts.

"Doo-wop will always be around," Del Rio said. "Like country music for Oklahoma, doo-wop will always be big in Philly (Philadelphia) and New York. Blues and doo-wop will never die."

Del Rio first heard doo-wop when he was a child in his native Ecuador.

He and his partners have been influenced by such groups as the Moonglows ("Sincerely"), the Flamingos ("Golden Teardrops") and Dion and the Belmonts ("I Wonder Why").

Doo-wop groups are known for singing in contrasting bass and high falsetto tones, without musical accompaniment. "We know we have the talent and I've been told we're not bad-looking guys. We're upbeat and positive. We're going to make it," Del Rio said.

He and his partners are excited about Friday's event, hoping that it's the break they have been waiting for. "This will be our first gig that actually pays us some real money," Del Rio said. "And a lot of important people (in the tourism and casino industry) will be at the luncheon."

They got the one-time engagement thanks to Connie Ross, an enthusiastic supporter of Outasight and chairwoman of the luncheon committee for the Tourism Week event, sponsored by Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce and the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority.

"The first time I heard them they blew me away," said Ross, publicity director at the Imperial Palace hotel-casino and a co-host of "Backstage Live," a nationally syndicated weekly television talk show that airs from the hotel.

"She invited us one time to sing a song on her TV show," Del Rio said. "We ended up doing six songs that night and were invited back three or four times. She's been very supportive of us."

Ross is pushing their career not as a business person, but as a fan. "I like their music," she said.

Work is 'outasight'

Getting singing jobs has not been easy for Outasight. The men have played too many one-night stands to count, including clubs, political rallies, parties, schools, charitable events, golf tournaments and anything else they could book.

Most of their gigs were just for tips and exposure. Getting booked isn't easy, even if you're sighted. Del Rio said that a friend helps out but he has other responsibilities. "We've gotten most of our work through networking in the L.A. area," he said.

Their primary income has been from outside the entertainment world. Smith and Del Rio have wives who work; Smith occasionally does commercials and once appeared in an episode of the short-lived television series "Harry and the Hendersons." Del Rio is a licensed massage therapist, and he and Albert also are personal trainers.

A couple of months ago they decided they might have better luck in Las Vegas, but within days of arriving they ran into a situation they say they had never faced anywhere else -- discrimination. "We might have expected it in a small town in the Midwest, but Vegas?" Del Rio said.

A bartender at the Mariachi Cafe on East Sahara Avenue refused to serve them beer because they were blind, ostensibly because the bartender thought the business might be open to a potential lawsuit.

The story made local headlines and resulted in an apology to the three. The apology was accepted.

"That's all behind us now. For the most part, Vegas has been a wonderful place. We've met a lot of nice people who have been very helpful to us," Del Rio said.

Looking to the future

"We don't want to be given anything for free," Del Rio said. "All we want is the opportunity (to perform). We believe we have what it takes."

Some might find the group's positive attitude surprising, considering the obstacles life has thrown in their paths.

Albert, who lived in Houston until he was 13, and Smith, who was born in Los Angeles, have been blind since birth. Both were born premature and were exposed to too much oxygen in incubators, which resulted in blindness.

Del Rio was born with perfect vision in Guyaquil, Ecuador, but at the age of 5 developed retinitis pigmentosa, a hereditary condition that affects the light-sensitive area of the eye. He was 7 years old when the family moved to California and by age 15 he was totally blind.

The three men have been friends for 20 years. Albert and Del Rio attended the same high school, where they formed a rap group when rap first became popular. Smith met at them at an event at the Los Angeles Foundation for the Junior Blind, where all of them spent time in their youth.

Although Smith didn't do much singing until he met Albert and Del Rio, music seems to have come to him naturally. His father is O.C. Smith, who hit the charts in 1968 with the Grammy-nominated song "God Didn't Make Little Green Apples."

Robert Smith has had little contact with his famous father since his parents divorced when he was about 6 years old. He said his father refuses to help him in his singing career.

"I don't know why he won't help," Smith said. "He just didn't want me to be in entertainment, still doesn't. I don't know the reasoning. He said to me, 'If you're in it, just don't mention my name.' It's really strange. "But he's doing other things now. He has his own church, a different kind of religion."

O.C. Smith, who could not be reached for comment, now bills himself as Dr. O.C. Smith and has a website devoted to motivational tapes he produces promoting what he calls "Mind Power."

They see as one

Del Rio, Albert and Smith discovered their harmonizing talent by accident in 1990.

"We went to a party and, just playing around, started singing some of the old songs," Del Rio recalled. "My wife said it sounded pretty good, but anybody thinks they can sing after a couple of drinks. We decided to enter a talent show just for laughs."

But it was no laughing matter when they won. They've chased a career ever since.

The singers are in perfect harmony, off-stage as well as on. "We're closer than brothers," Del Rio said. "We are spiritual brothers."

The men see eye-to-eye on most things. They have the same sense of humor about their blindness, the same goals, the same determination to become successful entertainers. They even share the same address.

They have lived together for more than 10 years, beginning in Los Angeles.

"My wife, Nancy, and I got married in 1988," Del Rio said. "We practically kidnapped Otis from a situation he was living in at that time. He was not eating regularly, his roommates were taking his money, stealing from him."

Smith moved in with the Del Rios and Albert in 1990 after a falling out with his mother. Living a communal-type arrangement is as natural to them as their talent.

When Smith married in 1997, rather than finding a place with his wife, Rosie, they joined the tightly knit extended family.

The Smiths are expecting their first child in four months, but caring for the infant will be a joint effort for the group. The approaching birth has provided an added incentive for them to succeed.

"The biggest reason we're trying to push our career 100 percent right now is that Robert and Rosie's baby is on the way. We want to give the baby a good future. Through our talent, we want to provide for the baby, and for mine and Nancy's when we have one and for Otis' (child) when he finds the right girl and gets married," Del Rio said.

Del Rio added that he owes his family instincts to his culture. "In the Latin culture, we tend to do a lot of things with family. We're very family oriented," he said. "My mom and dad basically adopted these guys. They call them their kids.

"The guys told me it's a good feeling. If you don't come from a close-knit family, then when you start doing family things together it's like a brand new world."

Del Rio gets his tenacity from his parents.

"They raised me to be a leader, to never feel bad about my lack of sight. They taught me that when God takes something away, he gives you an extra something. He took our sight and he gave us the voices, the will and the determination to succeed."

archive