Columnist Jerry Fink: Teen vocalist won’t give up the fate

Monday, Oct. 24, 2005 | 7:59 a.m.

Fate.

Sometimes it works in your favor. Sometimes it doesn't.

Fate has made Las Vegas home for 17-year-old blues/R&B singer Sarah Todora, at least temporarily.

Whether that is a good thing or a bad thing, only time will tell.

For now the teenager is trying to make the best of her fortune -- sorting out whether she's fortunate or unfortunate.

She is pursuing a singing career that has always loomed large in her life, but until now has been just out of reach for one reason or another -- sometimes because of a lack of opportunity, sometimes because of her own anxiety.

"I've been singing since I was 9," she said, her Louisiana accent a soft reminder of her heritage. At age 13 she wrote a song, "Too Young for Nashville," which was produced by keyboardist Nelson Blanchard, a prominent Louisiana musician.

"I started traveling with a band when I was 13," Sarah said, "but my first big engagement was when I was 15 and my band and I were the featured group at the annual Mardi Gras in Washington, D.C."

With the attention garnered by that engagement, it looked as if her career was going to take off. But she became anxious.

"I wasn't sure of myself," she said.

And so she declined offers that would have advanced her career.

But fate wouldn't leave her alone.

Fate's name in this odyssey is Katrina, the hurricane that created havoc when it hit Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama on Aug. 29.

Sarah and her father, Philip Todora, 43, who lived in Lafayette, La., had come to Las Vegas to promote a number of Louisiana magicians, setting up gigs for them locally.

"We left two days before Katrina," said Philip Todora, a manager of entertainers who heads a one-man company, FIG Productions. "We were arranging for a number of engagements."

They uprooted their lives to promote Louisiana artists with the intention of traveling back and forth between Las Vegas and the South. But when the hurricane hit, the musicians scattered.

There was no place to go back to, so they have been stuck here without resources.

"Everything we came here to do was finished," Todora said. "It took two weeks just to make contact with some of the musicians."

And so the divorced father is focusing on promoting his daughter, whom he has raised since she was 8.

Sarah is a gifted singer who first caught her father's ear when she was 9. At the time he owned a shoe-repair business.

"When I heard the sound of Stevie Nicks coming out from the back of my shoe shop, it sent chills down my spine," the proud father said.

He recognized Sarah's talent, but didn't aggressively push it, allowing her to develop at her own pace.

Even after selling his shop two years ago and striking out on his own to start a talent management business, he didn't try to make her do something she wasn't comfortable with.

"I focused on school," Sarah said. "I got my GED and was trying to decide what I wanted to do with my life."

Katrina forced her to make some decisions.

When the storm disrupted her father's fledgling business, erasing his income, she decided maybe fate meant for her to entertain.

Philip Todora said, "She said to me, 'Look, Dad, I know you're hurting. If you want me to, I'm going to start performing,' She stepped up."

Through mutual friends they met Jerry Tiffe, who performs at Capozzoli's (3333 S. Maryland Parkway) on Saturday nights.

Tiffe was infatuated with the teen's talent and has shared the stage with her, off and on, for the past month or so. She will perform at 9 p.m. Saturday.

"Mr. Jerry is about the best thing that has happened to us," Sarah said.

Tiffe helped her form a band so that when she does get a gig she will have live musicians to back her up.

Sarah -- who once raised $800 by selling M&M's so she could attend a music camp one summer -- has performed at a couple of fundraisers, trying to raise enough money so that she and her father can survive for a few more weeks, until something solid comes along.

"We're down to $300," Philip Todora said. "Help can't come any too soon."

And that help is now in the hands of fate.

Jerry Fink can be reached at 259-4058 or jerry@lasvegassun.com.