Night Clubs Reviews

Jun 13, 2004 - Las Vegas lounge singer Jimmy Hopper doesn't make it as a star at Harrah's Tahoe

By Jack Neal

For such show-business luminaries as Jack Benny, Judy Garland and Frank Sinatra, playing Harrah's Lake Tahoe's legendary South Shore Room was like performing in New York's Carnegie Hall.

How sad it is, then, to see this great nightclub venue fall into such disreputable times. Las Vegas lounge singer Jimmy Hopper is presenting his "Journey of the Heart" show now through September 26 (2004). It's a genuine stinker as opposed to, I suppose, a disingenuous one.

Voted "Entertainer of the Year" by Gaming Today and "Performer of the Year" by the Las Vegas Review-Journal one might conclude that the Jimmy Hopper Show is worth seeing and hearing neither of which is true for people who have any sensitivity for music or sophistication in what it takes to create a reasonably entertaining show.

Jimmy Hopper is the latest booking Harrah's upper management thinks will enhance its club's image and attract paying customers. It's a decision that makes the Enron Corporation seem competently run.

Not that Jimmy Hopper is without talent. He can sing. Not that his four-piece band is without talent. Sporting guitarist Jimmy Crespo (former lead guitarist with Aerosmith), keyboardist John-Paul Gasparrelli (formerly musical director for "O" in Las Vegas), violinist Jerry Goodman (among many others he's recorded with jazz harmonica great Toots Thielemans) and drummer extraordinaire Jamie Borden, the Jimmy Hopper Band is loaded with talent.

But those exceptional pluses don't stand a chance when they go head to head with the show's abundance of minuses.

How do I hate thee? Let me count but a few of the ways.

The volume of sound emanating from the stage is at least twice as pumped as it should be, making Hopper's "Journey of the Heart" more of an ear smasher than a heart throbber. The sound levels make listening as enjoyable as spending an evening with one's ears within inches of a jackhammer pulverizing concrete. The Douglas County Health Department should put a limit on the decibels with which this show bludgeons or close it as a danger to the public health.

Jimmy Hopper's stage appearance is a mix of cadaver (pasty faced, ivory naveled and drapped in a black funereal coat) and drag queen (glitter around the eyes); neither of which is a bother - just odd looking and confusing. Worse and more to the point, not once did Mr. Hopper sing a song to convey the song's meaning, but to promote himself and his graceful but irrelevant and most often distracting movements.

As for the South Shore Room itself, it, too, has seen better days. The once elegant "South Shore Room" neon sign now reads "ore Room." The rest is burned out. The once beautiful room is now disfigured with ugly signs indicating seating sections. The once superb cocktail service (the young women are still lovely, if overworked) is gravely diminished by plastic stemware. The only thing missing from this tawdry scene is the smell of urine that would push this once proud and magical room to its ultimate fall from grace and into the doldrums of complete skid-row tacky.

The last thing to go, of course, given this kind of dreadful experience will be the public. The room was filled to about 30 percent of capacity when I saw the show last Saturday (6/12/04) and large numbers of that crowd walked out long before final (in this case "terminal") bows. Ken Lay where are you now that Harrah's so desperately needs you?

"Jimmy Hopper - Journey of the Hearty" is on stage at Harrah's Lake Tahoe nightly at 8 p.m., except Mondays, through September 26. Tickets are $30, but it's my guess the management will have to comp patrons to get anyone into the room. For information call 1-800-427 7247.