Night Clubs Reviews

Dec 18, 2002 - Motor City All Star Revue dishes up corn and lots of golden oldies at Harrah's Reno

By Jack Neal

Sammy's Showroom at Harrah's Reno Hotel Casino has a crowd pleaser on its hands. Producer Greg Thompson's Motor City All Star Revue, featuring singers John Stone, Adrian Jackson, Vernon Taylor and William Mount, is attracting large, wildly enthusiastic audiences who love to get in on the act.

And getting in on the act is what the Motor City All Stars encourage their audiences to do. "Encourage" is an understatement. There's lots of tableside schmoosing and handshaking with fans of this friendly foursome in the bright red outfits. If you don't like to be included in such public displays of love and affection, don't worry. These guys aren't that intrusive. What they're really out to do is entertain and please and they do both with flair and ease. In addition to having attractive, ingratiating personalities, what each of these four singers brings to the mix are first rate voices and the musical chutzpah to package their voices into a fun and very attractive nightclub act.

The Motor City All Stars are a spinoff quartet from such stalwart male singing groups of yesteryear as the Temptations, The Platters, The Drifters, The Coasters and The Four Tops. And we mustn't forget the Mills Brothers. Some of the show's best tunes and most nicely brought off songs, such as "Glow Worm" and "Paper Doll," are hits the Mills Brothers made famous.

But these guys aren't just ditto experts. As individuals they actually sang with the groups they recreate, and wonderfully so, on stage. Then presto, with each 1930s, '40s, '50s, 60s and '70s top-of-the-line, top-of-the-charts hit they sing, it's nostalgia time. No one can resist the likes of "Up The Lazy River," "You Make Me Feel So Good," "Only You," "On Broadway" and at least two dozen more big hits that are now popular standards. The Motor City All Stars revue is a memory lane of at least five decades of American popular music that's ageless.

Blending the rhythm of gospel, the blues of jazz and the melodic sense of mainstream pop, this singing foursome is good enough and then some - once past some terribly corny jokes - to make graying baby boomers feel pubescent again.

When they return from Christmas break, the Motor City All Stars can be seen in Sammy's Showroom at Harrah's Reno, 219 Center Street, Reno, beginning December 26 (2002) through March 2003. For information and reservations call 775-788-2900.