Columnist Susan Snyder: Bellagio slips us a Mickki

Friday, March 9, 2001 | 8:36 a.m.

Susan Snyder's column appears Fridays, Sundays and Tuesdays. Reach her at snyder@lasvegassun.com or 259-4082.

By the time she was 8 years old Mickki Brown knew she was going to be a singer and live in Las Vegas.

She figured it out while watching Elvis Presley's movie "Viva Las Vegas."

"I said, 'OK that's where I'm going to move,' " Brown recalled.

She made good on the promise. Brown, 43, has lived in Las Vegas since 1989, and she sings four afternoons a week in Bellagio's Allegro Lounge.

She remembers driving into Las Vegas a dozen years ago, standing in front of the now-gone Landmark hotel-casino and thinking, "I have arrived."

"I would go all over town and sneak into every show. I would walk onto the stages and think, 'Elvis stood right here or Frank and Sammy stood right here,' " Brown said.

It's the star-struck passion that lures hundreds of performers to Las Vegas' stages every week. They're the singers, musicians and dancers who don't have tigers, blue faces or $100 ticket prices. And for many the road to Las Vegas has been a winding one marked by the hotel and supper-club gigs from hell.

Brown laughs when she recalls some of her adventures -- like the one back in the early 1980s when she and her partner at the time played a Holiday Inn in God-Knows-Where Pennsylvania.

"It was a Holiday Inn between two truck stops. That was it. And we were the first black couple that had ever played there," she said. "Every manager, security guard -- everybody down to the garbage people -- stood in a line at the back of the room."

Brown recalled another episode when a man who had been arguing with his girlfriend jumped up out of his chair and poured a pitcher of beer on her head. And she can never forget that ill-fated trip through Vermont when she had to keep pouring transmission fluid into the car to keep it moving.

Disney ships, teeny-tiny restaurants without room to turn around on the stage, Wayne Newton tours -- even a nonsinging stint waiting tables at a barbecue restaurant -- Brown has been there and bought the T-shirt.

"I've had waitresses stop right in front and shout across the room, 'You want bread with that?' " she said, laughing.

And then came Bellagio.

"I walked into that when they first opened and thought, 'They finally built one for me.' I was determined to work in that building," she said. "I've earned it."

It was a 40-year journey. Brown first sang publicly at age 3 in the Christmas pageant of the Baptist church where her father was minister. The song was "We Are Santa's Reindeer."

She still remembers the words, but don't ask her to sing it. And don't ask her to sing "Respect," "Proud Mary" or "Woolly Bully." Like many entertainers, Brown has a short list of songs she never, ever wants to sing on request.

Still, patrons are hard pressed to find a song Brown can't sing in her smooth, soulful soprano. You can catch Brown's act at Bellagio from noon to 5:30 p.m. Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. On Sundays she sings from 4:30 to 8:45 p.m.

Brown heads to Geneva later this year to record her second CD. But she'll be back.

"This is where I intended to end up," Brown said. "Las Vegas is a nice place to arrive to."