Columnist Jerry Fink: Albisani has the Keys to success

Friday, May 11, 2001 | 9:13 a.m.

Jerry Fink's lounge column appears on Fridays. Reach him at 259-4058 or at jerry@lasvegassun.com.

Maggie Albisani's adoring fans are mostly men, some of whom may be equally comfortable in an Armani suit or a Christian Dior gown.

The sultry Italian singer from the Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn woos her mostly gay audience at the Keys lounge on East Sahara Avenue every Friday and Saturday night -- and during brunch on Sundays.

"It was a regular dumpy straight bar at one time, but new owners came in and changed it all around, " Albisani (who is straight) said.

Albisani has been at the club 3 1/2 years, belting out songs made popular by Barbra Streisand, Connie Francis, Sarah Vaughan and many others. She does standards, pop, rock and jazz.

"I'm a singer's singer," she said. "As I'm getting older, my voice is getting better. It's mellowing and I'm relaxing."

Albisani grew up in the same neighborhood that produced Streisand, a classmate of Albisani's older sister.

"She lived a few blocks from me," she said. "There were tons of talented kids in my neighborhood."

Albisani's first ambition was to act.

"My singing career started late," she said. "My background was theater."

Eventually Albisani began singing in clubs.

"I liked the spontaneity. It is not as rigid as theater," she said.

Watching her perform, one can appreciate Albisani's need to be flexible. She schmoozes with her audience, flirts with the men who eagerly stuff money into a bowl on a piano or down the front of her low-cut dress -- all in great fun.

"I like the cabaret stuff," Albisani said. "Nothing is better than cabaret."

Albisani moved to Las Vegas with a friend almost 10 years ago.

"My first job was at the Fremont, with a five-piece band on a stage behind the bar," she said.

Before Keys she performed at a number of venues on the Strip, including the Stardust, as well as many clubs off the Strip.

Earlier this year Albisani left Keys briefly to join female impersonator Kenny Kerr's new show at the New Frontier, but she said she left after a month "for artistic reasons."

Now Albisani is back at the Keys, where she recently made two CDs -- "Just in Time" and "Someone to Watch Over Me."

"Keys is delightful," she said. "The customers love talent. They take you for what you are. There is still a basic respect for the performer here that I have not found in a lot of other clubs.

"So many people come up to me and take hold of my hand. They get very emotional and tell me how much they enjoyed me and how big a difference I made in their evening. You don't often have that in the straight clubs."

Former baccarat dealer Steve Murphy, who has owned the Coachman Inn on Eastern Avenue near Desert Inn Road for 13 years, opened Keys five years ago. He turned it into a gay bar.

"The straight place was not working," Murphy, who is also straight, said. "We needed a new venue and at the time there was only a couple of other gay places in town. We wanted a good piano bar that catered to upper-scale gay doctors and lawyers and people of that caliber."

Now, he said, there are seven gay clubs in the neighborhood.

"We have a lot of fun," Murphy said.

Three years ago the small club put on a full-scale production of "Grease."

"We had people dancing on the bar and everywhere else," he said. "Everybody dressed up as all the 'Grease' characters."

Sunday nights are for women only. There are often events for cross-dressers and other activities for the alternative-lifestyles community.

"We get a lot of straight people in here, but it's predominantly gay," Murphy said. "Nobody gets bothered. It's a classy place."

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