Three Shows A Night The Consecration of Nick Apollo Forte By Chris Davidson
Like a tour guide in Duluth, Nick Apollo Forte works alone. Ten fingers, 88 keys and a few hundred bucks -- that's all he needs. Being the backup band for Nick Forte is like being Orson Welles' decathalon coach or William Shatner's wig washer. It's just not done.
Figuring the sorry state of lounge acts nowadays (my town's most popular singer does John Denver imitations to a disco beat), Nick's the real deal. He even managed to make a Woody Allen movie funny. Check out Broadway Danny Rose, with Nick as Lou Canova, a real ice singer/swinger/boozehound in a clingy tux and blow-dried cut. Like a tipsy Frankie Laine, Lou sings about indigestion and knows a version of "My Funny Valentine" with special lyrics about the moon landing. Watching Nick perform today, he's a mixture of Lou (he does his movie tunes sandwiched between "Summer Wind" and "The Wonder of You"), Dean Martin (Nick's "That's Amore" is music parmigiana), Nat Cole (his piano jumps like butter on a hot griddle) and Paul Sorvino (Nick's about as built as the GoodFellas big daddy).
Nick played a recent gig in New Haven, Connecticut (the urban equivalent of cruising in a K car), and showed the locals that the guy who recorded "Scungilli Song" in the Seventies, now 55 years young, still had the power to cook on all burners.
The lounge tore a page out of Atlantic City high fashion. Tall windows overlooking a busy street; signed pictures of John Davidson and Meat Loaf (with clothes, thankfully); a wooden bar heavy enough to collapse on; red vinyl booths along one wall; small wooden tables scattered around; a parquet dance floor with a stained-glass ceiling above. It was dark enough to avoid seeing your date.
Nick sat at a small piano between the bar and dance floor, looking healthier (green T-shirt, white pants, white slip-on shoes, dark tan) than the whole crowd put together. He'd been playing for hours as it closed in on midnight, mixing and matching verses and harmonies like Elton John's wardrobe designer on a shopping spree.
He'd already done about 100 songs, and he was peaking. It started innocently enough with "San Francisco." Then Nick cranked the electric rhythm machine, and an Andy Gibb/heavy-metal beat pounded from the speakers. He whooped out some nonsense lyrics and jumped up beside the piano. A second later, he was sitting again. The crowd brought out utensils, and proceeded to eat him for dinner. Nick looked over at the bar, said, "You knew I was crazy," and dove straight into the next batch of songs.
For the rest of the night, there would be no question why he chose "Apollo" for a show biz name: Nick was the god of lounge singers. The audience dug him even more. Old guys pouring on the sauce for young women, men with big rings talking louder than the music, a couple in matching warmup suits drinking scotch, two jazz nuts keeping time on the table with a spoon, a few old timers dancing to the slow numbers. They knew greatness had driven to New Haven, parked and walked inside.
Young couples at a function in the next room went to the bar and watched for a minute as their drinks were being made. One cat clapped above his head when Nick sang "Agida" from his movie. Nick could have finished the night with 80 choruses of "Kumbaya." He could commit no crime. With almost 40 years of show business stashed away, Nick's definitely had hotter nights, playing for wilder crowds in better joints. But he's surely had worse, when opening for a juggler sounded good. Nick's still keeping audiences awake better than Johnny Carson, and for that (not to mention he hawks his own records between sets) he deserves a spot beside the immortals. As Lou Canova once said, "Big gun, big gun. No two ways about it."