Filling the Bill

Friday, Jan. 23, 2004 | 4:43 a.m.

WEEKEND EDITION

January 24 - 25, 2004

Who: Clint Holmes, with musical director Bill Fayne.

When: 7:30 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays; dark Sundays.

Where: Harrah's Clint Holmes Theater.

Tickets: $59.95.

Information: (702) 369-5000.

Bill Fayne and Clint Holmes met as college freshmen at the State University of New York at Fredonia in 1964.

A friendship was forged at the college that has endured for 40 years. For the past 25 of those years Fayne has been the musical director for Holmes, who last week began his fifth year as the headliner at Harrah's.

Friday, Holmes and Fayne revealed their revamped version of the production, which gives Fayne more of an opportunity to show off his vocal talent than he had in previous Holmes performances.

Fayne recently discussed with the Las Vegas Sun the new show, his career and his friendship with Holmes.

Las Vegas Sun: Why make changes when the show is so successful?

Bill Fayne: To keep it fresh. We realize we have quite a good local following. This keeps people coming back. The biggest challenge is, when you have a show as successful as this one has been, to find new ways to equal or better it. We always want to push the envelope a little bit. There's no other show in town that does what we do, especially using so much original music.

To a certain degree, it's easier when you have a track record of hits, people come knowing you're a star and they're just waiting to hear the hits. There's nothing wrong with that, but it's a little more daunting when you don't have that to fall back on. We just have the quality of the music, and Clint's incredible talent and personality and the incredible talent of the band. We have never worked with such a talented group of musicians.

Sun: Are you happy with the changes?

BF: We're excited about it. I'm getting to sing a little bit more. We are doing more of what we've wanted to do for years, some Brazilian music. We've always done a Latin number, but Brazilian music is one of our favorites.

Sun: You're a singer?

BF: I started out as a piano major at Fredonia, but in my freshman year I decided to change to classical voice. I was mostly interested in the theater, but there was no theater program there at the time. Opera was close, so I decided to give legitimate singing a shot, and I loved it.

In the show we do some opera. I hadn't sung a note of classical music in 30 years when all of a sudden we decided to do the opera thing last year. It was so much fun, and so well received, that in this new show we are expanding it ever more.

Sun: How did you and Clint hook up?

BF: Because I was also a pianist I accompanied a lot of the singers on campus. We got to know each other that way. He sang with the college jazz band on occasion, also at some of the dances and other functions.

Sun: What did you do after college?

BF: My degree was in teaching. I taught high school vocal music and drama for four years and then a voice inside my head said, "You don't want to do this, you want to entertain." So I quit teaching, put a lounge band together and performed all over the world.

Sun: What kind of music did you play?

BF: It was sort of the Carpenters meet the Fifth Dimension. There were six people in the band and all of us sang. It was relatively successful. And as we were doing this, Clint had his own lounge band. We kept crossing paths all around the country. Many times my band would close at a club and the next night Clint would open.

Sun; How did you finally get together?

BF: At one point we ran into each other and he asked me if I had ever thought about getting rid of my band and traveling with him as his music director. After having been on the road (leading a band) for seven years, that sounded like a great idea. He said it would just be him and me wherever we go, and we would use the house orchestra.

Sun: When was your first gig?

Fayne: Around Thanksgiving 1977, in Tierra Verde, Fla., at a nightclub that doesn't exist any longer. I remember the opening so vividly because Clint said, "You do arrangements, right?" And I said, "Sure," but I had never written a big-band chart in my life. As a musician, people ask you if you can do this or that and you never say no. It was one of the worst experiences in my life -- everything was wrong.

Sun: After you joined Holmes, did you ever go your separate ways?

BF: Yes. We didn't work together from 1988 to 1993. The Sporting Club in Monte Carlo offered me a job as musical director, to write the arrangements for their production shows and conduct its 15-piece orchestra. I couldn't resist. I got a friend of mine to take over working for Clint.

Sun: When did you and Holmes settle in Vegas?

BF: In 1999 we went to work at the Golden Nugget, but we were only there seven months before coming to Harrah's.

Sun: What has it been like, on the road with Clint Holmes?

BF: It's been an exciting, but frustrating, 25 years. We always relate it to "Success is just around the corner," but we have discovered there are no corners, it's circular. You get to a point and there is still another step to go.