Track Listing

1. Them There Eyes/Honeysuckle Rose - Louis Prima
2. I've Got You Under My Skin [previously unreleased] - Keely Smith
3. Should I/I Can't Believe That - Louis Prima
4. Don't Take Your Love From Me [previously unreleased] - Keely Smith
5. Greenback Dollar Bill - Sam Butera
6. Autumn Leaves [previously unreleased]- Keely Smith
7. The White Cliffs Of Dover - Louis Prima
8. Nothing Can Replace My Man [previously unreleased] - Keely Smith
9. Robin Hood [previously unreleased] - Louis Prima
10. Judy [previously unreleased] - Louis Prima
11. Somebody Loves Me/Nothing's Too Good For My Baby [previously unreleased] - Louis Prima & Keely Smith
12. You Can Pack [previously unreleased] - Sam Butera
13. Come Rain Or Come Shine [previously unreleased] - Keely Smith
14. Too Marvelous For Words - Louis Prima
15. Embraceable You/I Got It Bad And That Ain't Good - Louis Prima & Keely Smith
16. Buona Sera [previously unreleased] - Louis Prima
17. Tenderly/That Man Of Mine [previously unreleased] - Keely Smith
18. When The Saints Go Marching In [previously unreleased] - Louis Prima & Sam Butera
19. Closing [previously unreleased]

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #11890 in Music
• Released on: 2005-04-26
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Live

Album Description
One in a series of 8 titles to celebrate May 15th, 2005 when Las Vegas will be 100 years old. 19 tracks including 12 previously unreleased tracks. EMI.

Customer Reviews

The Truth Comes Out: The Most Manic-Depressive Act in Show Business
I'd heard a couple of their studio albums but never understood the appeal of Louis and Keely until hearing this album. Louis is manic, hyperactive, out of control; Keely is composed, sophisticated, vocally magnificent. The contrast is the key. At times their humor is almost too close for comfort (they would divorce in 3 years): Keely mockingly refers to Louis as her "Italian Stallion," then says he's too old for her; Louis says, "That's a stage joke, folks": Keely, persistent, says, "No, it's not." And all this is inserted in the lyric of a Gershwin tune.

Louis demonstrates his musicianship, his New Orleans roots, and Louis Armstrong influence. And the act makes it clear that neither Sonny and Cher nor all of the neo-swing revival groups of the mid to late 90's could touch them.

The album also reminds the listener of the days when Las Vegas was a cabaret instead of an expensive resort and postmodern theme park. This pair was merely a free lounge act, and even the lounge act had an intermission act, introduced by Louis as the Frank Morocco trio, originally from Waukegan, Illinois. The other day I played with a bass player who revealed that he was a member of that trio when this recording was made. He played 12-6 A.M. each morning and was paid $225 for the week.

"Wildest show on the Strip," recorded live.
Released in 2005 to honor the 100th anniversary of the settling of Las Vegas, this Centennial celebration with Louis Prima and Keely Smith features eighteen tracks, twelve of them never before released, and all of them recorded live. With the legendary Sam Butera on sax, as he always was for Prima and Smith during their Vegas "reign" from the mid-1950s through the early 1960s, the group operates as a threesome, consummate musicians who are also full of high energy and wild and wacky humor, devoted to showing the audience a good time.

Prima is outrageous, a jumping jack who operates full throttle every minute he is on, and he takes delight in taking a traditional, serious song and giving it completely new twists and sounds. "White Cliffs of Dover," a sentimental British song during the war, gets the swing treatment, with Prima sometimes singing in a growly Louis Armstrong voice, and finishing with a rock'em, sock'em ending. Smith, while an ostensibly sober foil for Prima onstage, is kooky in her own right, treating "Autumn Leaves" in comic fashion, with heavy drum beats representing the falling leaves as Smith sings jazz and scat and gives the song an upbeat ending, probably the least sentimental version of this song ever recorded.

Butera himself has two solo tracks here--"Greenback Dollar Bill," in which he sings, plays sax, and clowns around, with Prima playing backup for him on trumpet, and "[You Can] Pack Your Clothes [and Go Walking Out My Door]," which is full of humor, his wailing sax, and an insistent drumbeat--ample proof why Butera was such a sought after bandsman during his career.

Though nothing is sacred as Prima and Smith sing old songs in new and often unusual ways, they do so with great care for rhythm, timing, and consummate professionalism. The final two songs are a grand finale: Smith's combination of "Tenderly" and "Can't Help Loving That Man of Mine, starts out "straight," then becomes increasingly wild until she and Louis are singing in triple time with enthusiastic handclapping. The final number, "When the Saints Go Marching In," speaks for itself. Mary Whipple

Vegas Lounge
Wow, I feel as if I've walked through a time warp! Listening to this cd really is a throwback to the old "Vegas" with the lounge going all hours, it's as if you just re-entered the time, and sit to listen again to a time long ago (and far away)