That Old Black Magic: Louis Prima, Keely Smith, and the Golden Age of Las Vegas (29 page)

Keely continued to do cabaret shows here and there, in her hometown of Palm Springs (she had settled there when she married in 1974) and in Chicago, Miami, and New York. In his
Times
review of her opening night at the Rainbow and Stars in March 1991, Stephen Holden wrote, “The singer, who still wears the same Tonto haircut she had in the 1950’s, balanced the playfulness with wistful renditions of several ballads that showed her voice to be in good condition. As a pop-jazz torch singer, her style has always been utterly direct and unpretentious. Performing her signature song, ‘I Wish You Love,’ arranged in a modified bolero style, she projected the same air of long-suffering solitude as she did three decades ago.”

What began a significant change was, no surprise, because of a Palm Springs neighbor: Frank Sinatra. In 1997, Keely learned that he was seriously ill with various heart and lung ailments and was not expected to live much longer. As a gift, she wanted to make an album of her favorite Sinatra songs.

Keely had signed a contract with Concord Records, a small jazz and blues label in California, and for it she recorded an album titled
Swing, Swing, Swing.
For the Sinatra project, she went into the studio to record with the Frankie Capp Orchestra, and among the four arrangers involved were her son-in-law, Dennis Michaels (Toni’s husband), and Billy May, who had done the arrangements for her second solo album in 1958. Forty years later, they re-created the Vegas sound, and Keely’s voice sounded like that of a woman much younger than sixty-nine.

After an introduction by Frank Sinatra Jr., Keely swung through eighteen of Old Blue Eyes’ signature songs, including “Angel Eyes,” which Frank Sr. had requested. The bulk of the recording was done on December 12, 1997, Sinatra’s eighty-second birthday. Between “Angel Eyes” and “New York, New York” the musicians recorded a birthday tribute to Sinatra.

“The years passed,” wrote Frank Sinatra Jr. in his liner notes. “Now, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, Keely is thinking fondly of Sinatra, her pal and soul mate, and of today’s time that has left them as just two of the surviving singers of that great era. Perhaps new generations will come to know about Sinatra … and his faithful Indian companion, Keely, who loves and respects him as a talent, as a friend, and as an artist.”

“It was truly a labor of love,” said Keely about the record titled
Keely Sings Sinatra.
“Not only was Frank Sinatra a dear, dear friend, he was my love, my pal, the one I would run to when I needed a shoulder to cry on. So, some of the songs in this CD were difficult for me to sing because I knew he was sick and would not survive.”

Keely sent Sinatra a copy of the CD while it was still being readied for release. He called her to say he loved it. This was their last conversation.

“I did not release this CD when it was finished because just after Frank heard it, he passed away,” Keely said. “I did not want to use the publicity and jump on the bandwagon—people were coming out of the woodwork releasing Sinatra CD tributes. I was too close to Frank and loved him too much to do that.”

Keely Sings Sinatra
was released in 1999, and the reviews were ecstatic. For the first time since “I Wish You Love” and “That Old Black Magic,” the seventy-one-year-old Keely was nominated for a Grammy Award. She did not win, but she was fully back as an artist.

Other albums followed in what became a five-record contract with the Concord label—
Keely Swings Basie Style with Strings
and
Vegas ‘58—Today.
The latter was recorded live at the nightclub Feinstein’s at the Regency in 2004, and the
New York Observer
described it as “the most joyous show she’s ever performed in New York.” The show included a new version of “Oh Marie” titled “Oh Louis.”

She has given a handful of interviews about her career and seems to be at peace with her years with Louis. “They were marvelous years,” Keely told one writer, “filled with love, warmth, laughter, and all the nice things.”

Approaching eighty, she continued to be rediscovered. It was a packed house every night for the month of April in 2007 when Keely did two shows a night at the Café Carlyle in Manhattan. On opening night Tommy Tune, Karen Akers, Phoebe Snow, and other performers were there to pay homage to a swing survivor. On another night, both Diana Krall and Bette Midler were in the audience.

Variety
reported, “One only has to be on hand for ‘Jump, Jive, an’ Wail’ to know that she has retained the ability to swing as brightly as she did with her late husband, partner and showman, Louis Prima, in their legendary lounge act a half-century ago. Smith has retained a firm, soulful voice fueled by a dusky strength. Her voice is a bold musical instrument with range and color.” The nickname she had acquired during her comeback, the Queen of Swing, was more frequently invoked than ever.

According to the
New York Times,
“As the golden age of Las Vegas recedes into the gin-scented mists of Rat Pack lore, that eternal tomboy Keely Smith, now 79, is the one left standing. She is the kind of garrulous star witness dear to the hearts of showbiz historians and gossip mongers. Hers is no sob story ending in redemption. Las Vegas in ‘58 or thereabouts was fun, fun, fun. We should have been there.”

We still are, as long as Keely keeps performing.

Over the years there have been attempts to reunite—sort of—Louis Prima and Keely Smith. The Gap came close in the mid-1990s when it sponsored commercials that featured their version of “Jump, Jive, an’ Wail.” Toni and Luanne gave it a shot when they collaborated with Randy Johnson and Thomas Porras on the writing of a play titled
The Wildest!!!: Hip, Cool and Swinging.
The musical had its world premiere in California on July 24, 2004, and a copy of the text is available from the publisher Samuel French Inc.

A musical titled
Louis & Keely,
created by Jake Broder and Vanessa Claire Smith, opened in June 2008 in Los Angeles to excellent reviews. It tells the story of their relationship and “The Wildest” through Louis’s memory as he lies in the coma. Film director Taylor Hackford—whose work includes the Ray Charles biopic
Ray
—was involved for a time but then left the project. The production closed in November 2009, and producers made plans for a national tour. That July, a cast CD was released to strong reviews.

But the only reunion that truly mattered was a real one that happened just once, between Louis and Keely themselves. In 1971, with his career losing steam once more as
The Jungle Book
bump flattened out, Prima seized upon what he thought was a surefire cure—he and Keely would get back together. It worked once, why not try it again?

True, it had been ten years since they had last performed together, and a lot had changed in American entertainment since then, but there had to be enough people who were nostalgic for the couple—especially in Las Vegas—to make a comeback possible. The timing was perfect because a big hit on TV was
The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour,
and it was being pointed out repeatedly that the young duo had modeled their stage dynamic on Louis and Keely.

The problem, however, was that the fast divorce in 1961 had only initiated years of fighting over money and, of course, there had been Louis’s public dismissals of Keely’s role in the success of “The Wildest.” In a cable wired to Earl Wilson, a
New York Post
columnist, in 1962, Prima stated, “I have no desire whatsoever to have any dealings with Keely Smith under any conditions. There is nothing in the world or no one that could ever make me accept this woman in our act.”

But with every passing year, Louis learned—or relearned—how important a role Keely had played with her genuine gifts. He wrote her letters, claiming that working together again would revive both their careers.

While this was probably true, Keely refused. She contended that she continued to feel hurt by his actions during their last year together, and she still had feelings of betrayal and was still smarting over Louis’s arrogance toward her and lack of generosity during the last ten years. And in any case, she wanted to continue staying home with the two daughters that he had overlooked often in favor of his new family.

But Louis and Keely did indeed have one more live performance together left in them. Louis’s letters became more pleasant over the next two years … and persuasive.

In November 1973, Prima and Sam Butera and the Witnesses were booked at Harrah’s in Reno. They were performing in the lounge, with Eddy Arnold the headliner in the main room. It was opening night. Keely was in the audience. She had let Louis know that she would be at Harrah’s but claimed it would be to see Arnold, not him. It seemed more likely that Keely wanted to scope out the act and see if she could fit back into it.

Still sharp-eyed with an audience, Louis spotted her during a song, and when it was over he introduced her. A spotlight sought her out, and the crowd erupted in applause. “Babe, come on up!” Louis brayed.

Nervously, yet urged on by the delighted audience, Keely went up onto the stage. The band launched into “That Old Black Magic.” Keely was tentative at first, then suddenly it was as though they had just performed it the night before. Both sounded wonderful.

The crowd stood and cheered. “The Wildest” was back! It felt as if Louis and Keely had never parted. They clicked together just as though they were at the Sahara in 1958 and it was 2:00
A.M.
Go on from here and it would be one of the best comeback stories in American entertainment—just think if Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis had ever reconciled. The prototype for Sonny and Cher was back in business. Just imagine how they would be greeted back on the Strip, where there was more money to be made than ever.

Louis beamed. Sam’s face was split in the widest grin possible, and he prepared the band to do another number. Louis could envision that, against all odds and about to turn sixty-three, he had still one more act to go.

Keely knew she could sure use the financial benefits of a comeback too, and it was right here for the taking. But as the audience shouted for more, it all came crashing down on her. The recognition that the old black magic between them that began in a Virginia Beach dance hall twenty-five years ago was still there and might well never die was overwhelming.

She began sobbing. The audience groaned as Keely fled the stage.

She and Louis never appeared onstage together again. Their act and the love story that was a part of it became history. Over a quarter-century later, Keely regretted that her emotions had gotten the better of her. When interviewed by David Kamp for his
Vanity Fair
article, she said, “It shouldn’t have ended the way it did. It didn’t need to. Sometimes I wish I’d had enough sense to try to keep it up. It would have made sense.”

Instead, for Louis Prima and Keely Smith, an incomparable duo who enchanted Las Vegas during its golden age, life for them was like the title of a song on their album
The Call of the Wildest:
“There’ll Be No Next Time.”

The 2010 New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival featured some of the best acts in music: B. B. King, the Allman Brothers Band, Van Morrison, Aretha Franklin, Simon and Garfunkel, Pearl Jam, a wide range of hometown talent led by the Neville Brothers and Dr. John … and Louis Prima and Keely Smith.

No, Louis hadn’t climbed out of his crypt in the Metairie Cemetery to play pretty for the people one more time, but the more superstitious spectators in New Orleans might have thought so. On the second and last weekend of the festival, Louis Prima Jr. shook the crowd up with the same kind of infectious fun and stagecraft that had been his father’s trademarks. He wore a brown pinstripe suit, a hot pink shirt, and a smile that wouldn’t quit as he and his band swung through “Jump, Jive an’ Wail,” “Angelina,” and, at the end, “When the Saints Go Marching In.” His mother, Gia, had to be very proud, and a bit wistful.

The festival was dedicated to Louis Prima in honor of his centennial. He would have turned one hundred in December 2010, and the city where he was born wanted every music lover to know that Louis was one of their own, an original artist who brought more glory to New Orleans music. An admirer of his, Tony Bennett, had painted the official festival portrait of Louis, and no doubt as Bennett did so he thought of that golden age in Las Vegas when “The Wildest” made audiences shout for more.

Generously, the festival organizers extended an invitation to Keely Smith. She had just turned eighty-two, but nothing would stop her from being in New Orleans to honor Louis and to remind his fans how important she was in his life and career. Apparently, it was too much to ask that she and Louis’s son perform together, so they did separate shows, with Keely performing the opening weekend. That was good news for the audience, having two acts full of that old black magic.

Keely sang that song as well as “You Go to My Head” and “Just a Gigolo” (with the crowd singing along) and other tunes that had elevated her and Louis to one of the most entertaining acts in American music. Her hair was still dark and short, and dressed in a scarlet jacket she was easy to see from a distance. The
New Orleans Times-Picayune
music critic in attendance, Doug MacCash, described Keely’s voice as “smooth as a calm day on the Bayou St. John.”

He added about her performance: “It was transporting. I felt like I was really in touch with the era, hearing it how it ought to be done.”

When asked afterward about how she and Louis first worked together, Keely replied, “What evolved is, we fell in love. And then you can sing anything, folks.”

But she proved that April afternoon that no one could sing it like Louis Prima and Keely Smith.

My first expression of gratitude goes to Bridget Warner LeRoy, who, as usual, knew what was good for me better than I did and introduced me to the life and music of Louis Prima and Keely Smith.