Columnist Jerry Fink: Show business lineage is Kaye’s key to success

Friday, Jan. 9, 2004 | 8:28 a.m.

Even if he wanted to, John Kaye couldn't escape his fate.

The 50-year-old singer/songwriter is the son of Norman Kaye, of Mary Kaye Trio fame. The trio started the Las Vegas lounge entertainment tradition in 1950 when they debuted at the Last Frontier's Ramona Room.

He is also the nephew of Mary Kaye, 79, the trio's namesake, and the grandson of the late Johnny Ka'aihue, a native Hawaiian and an entertainer who eventually settled in St. Louis in the 1930s and started the World Hawaiian School of Music.

John Kaye is keeping the family tradition alive.

Kaye and a couple of friends from the early '70s, guitarists Spider Hayes and Fred McCormick, recently re-formed a band Kaye started several years ago -- The Overlords (check out the group's website at theoverlords.com). The band is still looking for a permanent drummer.

"Spider Hayes and I have been friends since 1972 when we had a band called Crossfire," Kaye said. "We raised some eyebrows back then with our music."

They're raising eyebrows again, now at the Boston Bar & Grill, a rock 'n' roll-friendly place at Maryland Parkway and East Flamingo Road.

Although Kaye is partial to concert halls, he appreciates the blue-collar joints.

"I like the dive bars," he said. "You can do pretty much what you want to do."

What he wants to do is a mix of his original work and rock by such groups as Hootie and the Blowfish, the Goo Goo Dolls and Oasis -- and he and The Overlords will be doing it Saturday night and again on Jan. 17 and Jan. 31.

Kaye is at home in show business. His formative years were spent surrounded by the entertainment world.

"When I was a kid I used to sit in the light booths at the Tropicana and watch the trio because I was too young to be in the lounge," Kaye recalled.

But he wasn't so much influenced by his father and his aunt's music as he was by the lifestyle that accompanied show business.

"I thought, 'What a great life. You sleep all day, have barbecues and pool parties all afternoon and perform all night,' " Kaye said. "There was nothing serious about my growing up -- they were making money hand over fist doing crazy stuff."

Such celebrities as Elvis Presley, Perry Como and Johnny Mathis routinely visited his home.

"What did I know?" Kaye said. "I was growing up in Vegas. I thought the whole world lived like that."

He says the lifestyle was fun, but it wasn't what got him into music.

In fact, Kaye says his father discouraged him from performing -- instead guiding him into real estate (which was Norman's profession, in addition to entertainment).

What turned him onto music was first hearing the Beatles in 1963.

"That's when my cousin and I decided we wanted to be musicians," Kaye said. "Nothing up to that point gave me any indication music would be my life."

A few years later, at the age of 13, he and his cousin Jay Kaye formed the J.K. and Co. band and struck out for Los Angeles, where they lived with an aunt and made music.

Almost immediately they signed a recording contract with White Whale Records (the label's main group was the Turtles) and cut an album, "Suddenly One Summer," that sold 125,000 copies.

Soon after, the record company folded, and the band members went their separate ways.

Kaye's way was always music, although he also worked for his father's real estate company and has been involved in a number of businesses. He has had a real estate license since he was 18.

He formed several rock 'n' roll bands over the years and performed with others, all the while writing original music.

One of the many musicians he worked with is Jerry Lopez, formerly of the band Santa Fe and now head of the band that backs Clint Holmes. Kaye says he wrote four songs that appeared on the group's only album, released in 1987.

"I like the melodic stuff, the stuff you can walk away humming," Kaye said. "That's the stuff I like to listen to -- Huey Lewis and the News, groups like that. I don't like the screaming, yelling and rapping. I like the classic rock with good melodies."

Kaye says he has never really had any choice about whether he would be a musician -- it's so ingrained in the family genes.

His five children are musically inclined, although the oldest daughter isn't particularly interested in music.

He has three sons who play the guitar and a daughter who sings, which leaves open the possibility that, like the Mary Kaye Trio, there could be another Kaye ensemble in the future.

But Kaye is quick to dispel that idea.

"It ain't gonna happen," he said. "My wife says they're too much like me."

Lounging around

Jazz great Don Menza says he is hanging up his sax and moving to Germany. He announced his retirement effective Dec. 30, when he performed at the annual Desert Big Band and Jazz Party in Palm Springs, Calif. For many years Menza headed the "Jazz on the Strip" night at the Riviera.

What's going to happen to Tommy Rocker and his Jimmy Buffett tribute band, Conched Out, now that Buffett has opened his Margaritaville club and restaurant at the Flamingo? Rocker and Conched Out perform Friday and Saturday nights at Tommy Rocker's Bar & Grill, 4275 S. Industrial Road, and the Buffett fan club, the Parrot Head Club, meets at Rocker's on the first Wednesday of each month. Will the Parrot Heads fly the coop?

Longtime Las Vegas restaurateur James Giampietro has opened a new restaurant and lounge, Chianti Cafe, at 2895 N. Green Valley Pkwy. There is music Friday and Saturday nights and great Italian food all the time.

Boulder Station is starting the new year off with some great vocalist-guitarists for its Thursday night Boulder blues series at the Railhead. Next week Coco Montoya performs, followed by Southern blues artist Tinsley Ellis (Jan. 22) and Walter Trout (Jan. 29).

John Lee Hooker Jr., son of the late jazz legend, performs Feb. 19.

The first set of each performance begins at 8 p.m. Admission is free.