|
 |
Frank Sinatra/ Dean Martin/Various ArtistsLive From Las Vegas Capitol/EMI On the outskirts of Las Vegas there's a neon graveyard stacked with the naive old casino hoardings of yesteryear: waving cowboys, golden palm trees of lightbulbs. In this shrill shill of a town this desert junk-heap is a heartland of sentimentality. It's this Vegas from whence comes this series of 'Live From...' releases: Las Vegas when it was swingin' and cool, not kitsch and desperate. 'Live From Las Vegas' plays like a dizzying revue of talent (Sinatra, Martin, Nat King Cole, Bobby Darrin etc). It's as if one knock-out performer has barely left the stage before the full orchestra ushers in the next cat. Louis Prima rasps out the last of Too Marvellous For Words and there's Sammy Davis Jnr. sniping "and not a moment too soon either". Apparently Dean Martin wasn't always drunk, just a tremendously witty and convivial performer. If he wasn't on the piss during his second show of the night April 4, 1967 then he's certainly taking it, which makes 'Dean Martin: Live From Las Vegas' a delight. Martin is an effortlessly superb singer but when he breaks into a rambling monologue he's so dryly absurd he could share a stage with Rich Hall. Surprisingly 'Frank Sinatra: Live From Las Vegas' turns out to be the least engaging of these discs. It's from a December 1986 show during Sinatra's teleprompter years (yet he still screws up the middle eighth of New York New York) and ol' blue eyes' voice is sounding a bit creaky as he soft-pedals some of the tougher parts (which on material like For Once In My Life is the whole tune). When Sinatra died the last of Vegas' golden era went to the graveyard. The Las Vegas on these discs was a wild town for a performer to conquer; now it's somewhere singers crawl away to die. Obviously you couldn't celebrate the sound of Las Vegas today; I mean, Celine Dion? Seriously, where's an agitated white tiger when you really need one?  |
|
The latest issue available now!     |
All content copyright dB Magazine