McKnight Shift

Brian McKnight dreams of challenging television's late-night powers-that-be in the ratings someday.

"I'd love to have a nighttime show to compete against Dave (Letterman) and Jay (Leno), a la Arsenio Hall," McKnight said in a phone interview from Los Angeles on Tuesday. "That's kind of missing (from late night) at this point, and that's a goal of mine, to get there."

Just six months ago such aspirations couldn't have been further from the mind of McKnight, a multiplatinum R&B vocalist who plays the Texas Station's Dallas Events Center on Saturday night. Doors open at 7 p.m. for the 8 p.m. performance.

But now, with a two-month stint as the co-host of "The Vegas Show" -- a local daytime talk show spotlighting entertainers -- on his resume, the 35-year-old Buffalo, N.Y., native has his eye fixed on a future in television.

"It was something that I'd never even thought about doing until it was brought to me," McKnight said. "But now I've opened up so many doors in that venue. It's something that I want to be good at, and something I take seriously."

At the moment, "The Vegas Show" is on hiatus, as the program's producers work to finalize a deal for national syndication. Executive producer Rick Garson said the Vegas-based show should resume its taping schedule sometime early in 2005.

"We hope to have an announcement in 30 to 45 days on where it's going to go ... which syndicator it's going to be with," Garson said Wednesday. "It should happen in the first quarter of next year."

When "The Vegas Show" begins airing nationally, Garson said McKnight and Sheena Easton will be back as hosts.

"It's a great team," Garson said. "Brian and Sheena are great together. It says a lot for how talented Brian is. He's a creative genius."

Saturday's Texas Station show provides McKnight an opportunity to spend more time in a city the Los Angeles resident adopted as a second home this summer while taping 22 episodes of "The Vegas Show."

"I love Vegas," McKnight said. "When you talk about live entertainment, it's the place to do it. To become a staple there, man, that's a career builder.

"And from a career maintenance standpoint, it's great. Look what Celine (Dion) has been able to do."

While working on "The Vegas Show," McKnight commuted between his home in L.A. and the Golden Nugget, site of the show's makeshift studio.

"The people over at the Nugget were really good about putting me up in a high-rollers' suite while I was there, so that made it real cool," McKnight said. "And I left one of my cars there. So it was like living there. I spent maybe two days a week in L.A., and the rest of my time in Vegas."

That meant treating the city quite differently than McKnight had during the short stopovers he made over the years as a performer.

"I think it was important to not treat it like I do when I come there to hang out," he said. "You know, you can go nonstop in Vegas and look up and you've been awake for four days in a row. So having to be on the set at 8 every morning, I made a conscious decision to try and be as normal as possible."

Garson said that once the show -- which originally aired on KVVU Channel 5 -- is syndicated, it could move from the Nugget to a new hotel-casino, possibly one housing a permanent studio.

"The Golden Nugget was great, but it was hard to set it up and break it down every day," Garson said. "We're talking to a couple of properties, including the Nugget."

Having released six studio albums -- all of which have reached the top 20 of Billboard's R&B/Hip-Hop Chart -- McKnight said he wasn't looking for a new gig as a talk-show host.

But when Clint Holmes, who had co-hosted last year's "Vegas Live!" show with Easton, vacated his seat on "The Vegas Show" days before taping began in June, McKnight received an unexpected offer.

"They were actually looking to book some of the acts on my record label, and they told my manager they were looking for a new host," McKnight said. "And he was like, 'Well, what do you think of Brian? He might be interested.' "

Once details were revealed, McKnight said he jumped at the opportunity to "finally show people all the sides of my personality."

And if it didn't work out, he figured, the damage would be minimal.

"Because it was local, if I fell on my face, the only people that would know would be the people of Las Vegas," he said, laughing.

As it turned out, though, McKnight was proud of his contributions to "The Vegas Show."

"The only thing that took getting used to was sharing the stage with someone. I was so used to being up there by myself," McKnight said. "But Sheena's great. I think since we both come from the same place as performers, we both respected each other so much."

Garson also rated McKnight's first stint a success.

"As much as I love and respect Clint, certain things are meant to be," Garson said. "Brian is a natural."

McKnight's upcoming album, "Gemini," was originally slated for a summer or fall release, but has been pushed back indefinitely after a shakeup at his label, Universal/Motown Records, he said.

"When the president (Kedar Massenburg) gets fired, that changes everything," McKnight said. "I'd love to have it out now, because I'm really proud of it. But I can't rush it. Because if the label's not ready, it could be the greatest thing in the world but nobody will ever know."

While he waits, McKnight continues to write new songs, some of which he said could supplant tracks on the original, finished version of "Gemini."

"I think it's ready now, but my nature is I can't stop writing songs," he said. "We'll see. I think I've got at least four or five strong commercial singles, so I think that I've put together a pretty good record."

Not to mention a pretty good first foray into the world of television with "The Vegas Show."

"Now that I know that it worked and we got good ratings and everything was cool, if we can go in there, change this, move this around, accent this, dot this I and cross this T, we may have something that's really good," McKnight said.

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