Friday, Sept. 19, 2003 | 9:39 a.m.
Who: Ricci Martin and Gary Lewis & the Playboys.
When: 7:30 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.
Where: Suncoast Showroom.
Tickets: $29.95, $34.95, $39.95.
Information: (702) 636-7111.
It was a no-brainer.
Two of the sons of the renowned comic duo of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, performing together on the same stage.
The first time 49-year-old Ricci Martin and 58-year-old Gary Lewis shared a billing was at an Italian festival in Buffalo, N.Y., on July 29.
The reaction to their performance was good enough for them to agree to an encore appearance at the Suncoast on Saturday (Martin's 50th birthday) and Sunday.
Whether the two will meet again onstage is uncertain, but both say they would be happy to do it.
"I can't help but think that it would work," Martin said. "It felt good that one time. We might find it viable again, maybe doing more together onstage and try to give it a little more meat."
"You never know," Lewis said. "We don't know if it would warrant more work. We aren't making any long-range plans, but if someone else wants to hire us we would be happy to do it."
Their first tandem performance was a spur-of-the moment show. Martin was on tour in Ohio and Pennsylvania with "A Dean Martin Tribute." The tour ended July 27, and Martin's agent booked him for an Italian heritage festival in Buffalo on July 29.
Lewis, of Gary Lewis and the Playboys, lives in Rochester, N.Y., 75 miles east of Buffalo. Martin's agent thought it would be a good promotion to get them on the same stage.
"It was so much fun being up there with him," Martin, one of seven children, said of Lewis during a telephone interview from his home in near Woodland, Utah. "He's such a sensational, easygoing guy.
"You never know how those things are going to go, but it turned out to be, not a miracle, but it felt like being part of the old days, like what my dad might have felt."
Although their fathers were the world's hottest comedy team from 1949 to 1956, the sons didn't know each other.
Martin said they met for the first time the evening before their show in Buffalo at a piano bar to rehearse a number they would do together.
Each vocalist has his own act. Lewis has been the lead singer of his group for more than 40 years, and Martin has been performing "A Dean Martin Tribute" for about a year, a production he originated at Riviera's Le Bistro Theatre.
In Buffalo, each did his own thing but also sang a duet, "Ain't That a Kick in the Head," a popular song from the original "Ocean's 11" film.
Same song, second verse
They will continue the format created at their initial meeting -- Martin will do a slimmed-down version of his 90-minute tribute show; Lewis will join him for "Kick in the Head" and "Every Street's a Boulevard (in Old New York)," then Gary Lewis and the Playboys will take the spotlight.
The fathers of Martin and Lewis sang "Every Street's a Boulevard" in the 1954 film "Living it Up."
There will be some shtick between the duo in the Suncoast show, but don't expect a madcap Lewis frustrating a suave, aloof Martin.
"It would be instant death to do my father," Lewis, one of six children, said during a telephone interview from his home.
While his father made a career out of zany comedy, Lewis' only interest has been music.
"I really enjoy playing music," he said. "I guess that's what has kept me going. The business has been good to me."
His musical inclination could be genetic. His mother, Patti, was a singer with the Jimmy Dorsey Orchestra.
"She was still singing with the band when she was 8 months pregnant with me," Lewis said.
His grandfather, Danny Lewis (Jerry's father), was a vaudeville entertainer. His grandmother, Rae Lewis, was an entertainer, pianist, music arranger and musical director for her husband.
Lewis began playing drums at age 5 and guitar at age 14.
At the College of Theater Arts at the Pasadena Playhouse in Pasadena, Calif., he put aside music for a while and studied acting. Then, in 1964, the Beatles arrived in the United States.
"That was a breath of fresh air," Lewis said. "They were my inspiration."
He quit school and formed Gary Lewis and The Playboys.
The band performed at Disneyland during the summer of 1964, where a record producer heard them and pitched a song that Bobby Vee had turned down -- "This Diamond Ring."
"That was our very first recording," Lewis said. "Dad said we should go on 'The Ed Sullivan Show' to launch it."
Las Vegas resident Jerry Lewis, who appeared on the Sullivan show with Dean Martin many times, arranged the booking.
After the Playboys performed the song on the show, it sold a million records in six weeks and shot to No. 1.
"It surprised my father," Lewis said. "He was very proud.
"The only advice he ever gave me was to do whatever I wanted to do, but whatever I do, give it 100 percent."
In 1965 and 1966, Gary Lewis and the Playboys released seven songs that made the Top 10, including "This Diamond Ring," "Count Me In," "Save Your Heart For Me," "She's Just My Style," "Everybody Loves A Clown," "Sure Gonna Miss Her" and "Green Grass."
In late 1966, Lewis was drafted. He entered the Army on Jan. 1, 1967. By the time he received his discharge two years later, music tastes had changed.
"The music had become harder," Lewis recalled. "Janis Joplin. Jimi Hendrix. I didn't want to try to record things like that just for the sake of staying in music. I kept playing, but at smaller venues."
He said the music trend changed again in the early '80s, and they began performing in larger venues.
"There was a resurgence in the market for '60s music," he said.
Over the years Gary Lewis and the Playboys have performed at the Las Vegas Hilton three times and, last New Year's Eve, at Arizona Charlie's West. He sometimes visits his father in Vegas.
Lewis said the eight years age difference between he and Ricci Martin precluded their being pals.
Martin said the difference was like 100 years. When "This Diamond Ring" was No. 1, he was only 12 years old.
"I was still playing around in the back yard," he said. "I was too young to be into music at that time."
Martin sings
As he grew older, Martin's interest in music also grew, and he became a record producer.
He didn't begin performing until after his book, "That's Amore, A Son Remembers Dean Martin," was published last year.
Elements of the book are a part of his tribute show, which includes not only singing but discussing his father and the breakup of the Martin & Lewis team.
Martin is scheduled to appear at 6 p.m. this evening on the "Larry King Live" show (CNN, Cox cable channel 20) in a one-hour special on Dean Martin, who died in 1995 at age 78 of acute respiratory failure.
There is another connection between Ricci Martin and Gary Lewis, albeit a tenuous one.
Lewis and Dean "Dino" Martin Jr., Dean's oldest son, were musical contemporaries in the '60s, when Dino recorded with Dino, Desi & Billy.
In addition to Dino Martin (who died in a plane crash in 1987), the group included Desiderio "Desi" Arnaz IV (now a resident of Boulder City) and William "Billy" Hinsche (a Henderson resident).
Hinsche is the musical director for Ricci Martin's tribute show.
Martin said there has been very little time for he and Lewis to rehearse for the upcoming show. Both have busy concert schedules.
They met for a couple of hours before the Buffalo show, with Hinsche at the piano and Martin and Lewis deciding who was going to sing what verses of "Ain't That a Kick in the Head."
Martin said they probably will get together again the night before the Suncoast performance to work on their second duet.
"It adds to great spontaneity, like the Rat Pack had," he said. "They didn't rehearse at all. They knew the music -- you can over-rehearse."
He said he was surprised at how easily they worked together the first time, and is eager to repeat the performance.
"I'm so looking forward to this," Martin said. "Vegas is the perfect place, and to be working with Gary Lewis is absolutely uncanny."
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