Wayne Newton

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If you think it no longer counts for something to be Wayne Newton in this town, think again.

In 1995, my first interview with Mr. Las Vegas addressed a hoarse voice he blamed on "walking pneumonia," the fallout from six months of "fatigue and illness" and years of court battles.

So that’s 14 years, at least, that Newton’s singing voice has been an issue. Fourteen years that a cold or acid reflux or various other ways he explained it has hindered his crooning. In the face of that, what other local headliner could sustain his mystique and allure for so long?

Newton is a unique figure in show business, and his new autobiographical showcase at the Tropicana reminds us why.

It’s titled "Once Before I Go," and in it, old video clips reopen the door to ’60s and ’70s variety television. It was the end of the era, but only now is that so obvious.

Watching an aging and tired Dean Martin limp through an Al Jolson medley with the earnest young, feathery-haired (and powerfully singing!) Newton, you can see how some wishful parents might have thought a generational torch could be passed.

Instead, the rock music of the counterculture is now the stuff that sells cars to baby boomers. Only Newton and a few others were left to carry the nightclub crooner tradition into the 2000s.

Newton is the rare singer to sustain himself almost entirely on his sequined, helmet-haired charm as a live performer — and parodies of said image in movies — despite his preposterous onstage claim of having recorded 165 albums. (Maybe if he counts every compilation and reissue in every corner of the world.)

From baby-faced farmboy to mustached nemesis of the Beach Boys in the Reagan years — a culture war recounted in the new show — Newton’s saga unfolds in album covers, snapshots and video.

In the elaborate, front-loaded opening, the audience is surprised to see a bus pull onto the stage to drop the young Wayne (Alex Cruppi) in 1959 Las Vegas. "What’ll I wear?" he asks.

"A tux, of course."

The show never again gets this ambitious or theatrical. But it does offer a few new tricks — and more important, structure and pace — getting the 67-year-old out of an inflexible format he was beating to death long after his voice quit on him.

He still chatters on too long with the jokes about Viagra and his American Indian heritage. But now he sings "You’re Nobody Till Somebody Loves You" with Sammy Davis Jr. on the video screen, and joins in with the Mills Brothers on "Up A Lazy River."

About one point, the bandstand carrying 20 musicians and three singers yields to a small band in camouflage doing a USO show on a flatbed stage. Newton jams on electric guitar to "Good Hearted Woman," reminding us of the military visits that have been the real contribution of his later career.

It’s all a welcome change of pace, and you wish other Las Vegas legends had the same chance to throw themselves a multimedia celebration. Of course, the hidden goal is to reduce his singing time. Newton watches Dean Martin with the rest of us, and at one point, there’s a 15-minute stretch between songs.

But yes, there are still songs. And he does not sing them well. Can you do a good show with a bad voice? Possibly, but this is the divide where ticket buyers have to make their own call. The Midnight Idol’s vocals range from throat-ache painful ("Daddy Don’t You Walk So Fast") to almost passable, given the right mix of theatrical mood and inflections (Elvis Presley’s "American Trilogy").

By the time he gets to the climatic title tune, the loyal and the sentimental are likely to see Newton as a noble warrior, bent but not broken. The mere curious may be glad to say they’ve seen him, but happy to take the title’s promise as his word.

Contact reporter Mike Weatherford at mweatherford@ reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0288.