Petula Clark: An Afternoon's Revealation

The Cannery Casiono group here in Las Vegas knows its audience. Hence, entertainment at its three casinos — The Cannery, the Eastside Cannery and the Rampart — caters to that audience. They are mostly locals and, according to Entertainment Director Kathy Spehar, "they are mostly Baby Boomers" who, apparently enjoy the likes of Felix Cavaliere's Rascals (note: they are no longer billed as the "Young" Rascals), Tommy James & The Shondells, Little Anthony and the Imperials and this afternoon at 4 pm, Petula Clark at the Rampart Casino.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with such entertainment and, whatever one's age, when the soundtrack of your life is played — no matter how you keep up with what's current or who you may have on your iPod — it's usually lots of fun.

So it was with Ms. Clark. She seemed bemused by the 4 pm showtime ("I didn't know they did teatime shows here in Las Vegas"), but looked good and sounded good. At least, I think she sounded good.

This is the one casino in the group that (I believe) doesn't have a real performance space. The shows are in a lovely ballroom with a decent-sized stage. The problem is the acoustics. There appeared to be two huge speakers and a mic setup. That's all. Too often Clark's voice sounded muffled and/or unclear. Some around us were complaining that they couldn't understand what she was singing and, since her enunciation was fine, the fault had to lie in the equipment.

That said, Clark was all charm and grace. She knew what her audience wanted to hear and, with accomplished accompaniment by her musical director Grant Sturiale and his musicians,  she gave them Downtown, Don't Sleep In The Subway, I Know A Place, My Love and so on. Her discography dates back to her childhood and, as she proved singing La Vie En Rose in French and snippets of Love This Is My Song in French and Italian, along with English.

Along the way she spoke a bit of meeting some well-known folks — Charlie Chaplni (who wrote Love This Is My Song for his film A Countess From Hong Kong) and Sophia Loren, who starred in the film. She sang Look To The Rainbow and How Are Things In Glocca Morra from Finian's Rainbow and spoke of what it felt like to dance with Fred Astaire (you can just imagine).

The show made clear that, still today, Petula Clark is a gifted singer. What was a revealation to me was her work on Broadway which, somehow, I must have missed. She sang Norma Desmond's With One Look from Sunset Boulevard and even treated the audience to Desmond's classic line, "I am big. It's the pictures that got small." From Blood Brothers she sang the ineffably moving Tell Me It's Not True.

Maybe I'm shallow, but I didn't know she could do this so well. For me, at least, the pop cheerfulness of Downtown had eclipsed the rest.

Thus, in closing I'll apologize to Ms. Clark for not knowing  her depth and breadth (sorry, I saw Glenn Close in Sunset Boulevard) and urge anyone who gets the chance to go see her.

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