Mother and son feel at home making music onstage

In the 1990s, when Kenny Davidsen played piano and sang at Don’t Tell Mama cabaret in New York, his mother, Rita, and father, Kurt, occasionally came in to enjoy the music. Rita, a lyric soprano, “might” also be asked to sing.

“The room was small,” Kenny recalls, “and maybe 80 people were jammed in there, most of them young people who came to hear pop music. But if Mom, with her operatic voice, started to sing something like, ‘O Mio Babbino Caro’ the shh-ing began.

“When she finished, a standing ovation was routine, and I’d say, ‘Now how do I follow that!?’ ”

And now? Pianist Kenny and his parents have moved to Las Vegas. The younger Davidsen appears on Wednesdays and Saturdays starting at 8 p.m. at Don’t Tell Mama piano bar in downtown Las Vegas. He also headlines on Friday nights at the Tuscany, appearing with guest singers. Kenny is also pianist/musical director for several performers and bands.

Yep, Rita and Kurt still support their son, and Mom is still occasionally invited to sing.

“Kenny’s show at the Tuscany begins at 10 p.m., so the crowd once again tends to be young,” says audience member Maxine Gaines, “but if Rita sings, everybody quiets down and listens to a beautiful voice. The audience loves her.”

Kenny, the proud son and accompanist, says “Mom can still hit a high B flat.”

Kurt Davidsen was born in Denmark and educated at the University of Copenhagen. He moved to New York as a young man, seeking better job opportunities. Rita was born in Pennsylvania, but spent much of her young life in Maine and Massachusetts. Kenny grew up in Brooklyn Heights, N.Y.

Rita has a natural voice and very good relative pitch. Without lessons, she sang in high school, even playing the male lead, Nanki-Poo, in the all-girl-school’s production of “The Mikado.”

A year out of high school, Rita’s sister encouraged her to audition for the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. After four years of study on scholarship there, she went on for an additional two years and a master’s degree in music.

While in college, Rita spent several summers appearing with a singing group called The Funtastics on Cape Cod and a summer appearing in the Catskill Mountains.

Her singing career involved everything from appearing in a PBS special of “The Marriage of Figaro,” playing the lead role of Countess Almaviva, to a couple of seasons with the Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera, to a stipend with the Opera Theatre at the Manhattan School of Music, where she did a U.S. premiere of “Sganarelle” by Walter Kaufman, conducted by George Schick.

Schick was an assistant to Rudolph Bing at the Metropolitan Opera, which led to a Metropolitan Opera scholarship. She also sang with the New Jersey Opera Company as Mimi in “La Boheme,” was a soloist with the Livingston Symphony Orchestra, appeared in “The Merry Widow” at the Garden State Art Center, and performed numerous other individual concerts.

She met her husband, an opera lover, in New York. The couple married in 1971. Kurt’s job as an importer took him around the world, but when in town, he was a devoted audience member for Rita wherever she appeared.

Young Kenny, born four years after the marriage, seemed naturally drawn to music. Rita remembers that Kenny was just 3 when he heard recordings of “The Sound of Music” and could pick out the tunes on the piano. He was also an early reader and has perfect musical pitch.

Kenny’s aptitude for learning helped him enter school two years earlier than normal. At age 4, he was in a first-grade class of 6-year-olds. Outside of school, Kenny took violin and piano lessons with Juilliard teachers, concentrating on classical compositions.

Though Mom and Dad were thrilled that their son was a high achiever, Kenny recalls that being so much younger in all his classes was difficult.

“I don’t know. I might have been a bit stuck up, too, but I was picked on and became quite a shy kid,” he says.

At age 11, entertainers such as Billy Joel and The Beatles began attracting Kenny’s attention. When he had a violin teacher he didn’t much like, he dropped the violin lessons in 1987.

Early in Kenny’s teenage years, when a beloved aunt and uncle both died suddenly, times were difficult for the family. Kenny continued with his music, but he was mostly alone and still younger than his classmates. He was asked to be a rehearsal pianist for a school production of “Grease” while attending Stuyvesant High School. He didn’t want to do it, but his mother encouraged him.

He distinctly recalls a rehearsal for the “pink ladies” of “Grease.” When rehearsal was over, Kenny was asked if he knew any other songs. He sang and played a Billy Joel song and though he was younger than most of the girls in the cast, he noticed that suddenly everyone was watching him and liking what they heard. He could communicate through his music.

Out of high school, Kenny attended New York University majoring in music. He took a few journalism courses and figured if the music thing didn’t work out, maybe he’d be a sportswriter. He’s never been an athlete, but he’s an avid sports fan.

He earned a double major in music and journalism, and though he interned at a couple of media companies, he couldn’t imagine a future in journalism. He turned back to music.

When Kenny was hired at Don’t Tell Mama in New York, he said he knew that playing and singing were absolutely right for him. He said he loved being part of an audience’s good time, and his 10 years on that job taught him a great deal and even financed a CD of his original music.

Kenny sometimes played and sang for seven hours straight. That is, until one night when his voice disappeared.

Kenny, who had never trained as a singer, discovered he had nodules on his vocal cords. Fortunately for him, his condition was discovered early. He was told that if he rested his voice and learned proper vocal techniques, the nodules might disappear.

They did. And Kenny, for the first time, had a voice coach.

Kenny was babying his voice as he negotiated a divorce to end a three-year marriage.

“A bad time,” Kenny recalls. “I didn’t know if I’d ever sing again, and lawyers were negotiating the divorce. Then on the same day the doctor gave me the OK to sing again, my lawyer called to say an agreement had been reached. I had my life back.”

At about the same time, Rita and Kurt Davidsen were looking at their lives. Though Rita Davidsen wanted no permanent singing commitments after having her son, she sang occasionally, then took time off because of an asthma condition. She also worked as a substitute music teacher and later as an executive assistant for Amberson Inc., the company that licensed and protected Leonard Bernstein’s music. The last job ended with the recession’s onset.

Kurt’s role as an import executive ended later with the sale of his company and his own retirement.

Son Kenny suggested his parents consider moving to Las Vegas where living costs are lower than New York.

Kenny loved Las Vegas; he says that every time he came he didn’t want to leave. Rita and Kurt visited Las Vegas and liked what they saw, too.

In December, 2009, Kenny’s two biggest fans made the move to Las Vegas. In July 2011, Kenny followed suit. He wanted to see just how far his talent would take him outside of New York. The original owner of Don’t Tell Mama had moved to Las Vegas two years earlier and told Kenny he would always have a job waiting for him.

Kenny says that virtually from the day he arrived, the local entertainment community has welcomed him.

“Everyone here is so supportive,” he says. “I can hardly believe how many great talents who are also very nice people are in this town.”

Early on, besides working at Don’t Tell Mama, Kenny was hired for a private party attended by several local entertainers, one of whom was Kelly Clinton. That job led to several months’ work at the former Stirling Club. New friendships also brought him to the Tuscany. For his guest singers, his show now features a four-piece musical group: Kenny, Mike “Beans” Benigno, Jon Celentano and Dennis Blair.

Kenny’s work is still being supported “by the best parents a guy could have.” Because their son is often working late and they want to be in the audience, Kurt and Rita have learned to go with the flow. They typically don’t go to bed before 3 a.m. and don’t rise before 11 a.m. The schedule works for them; their friends in Summerlin know not to call before noon.