Reckless in Vegas rocks Rat Pack-era tunes at Cabaret Jazz

Reckless in Vegas went Vegas before they ever came — or, in leader Michael Shapiro's case, came back — to Vegas.

But now that they're here, they're home.

It may be destiny, considering the trio's acronym: RIV, nickname of the recently shuttered Riviera hotel-casino.

The vintage Vegas connection extends to the music RIV will play Friday at The Smith Center's Cabaret Jazz, a show that sold out more than two weeks in advance. (At deadline, only a few seats remained.)

Even if you can't catch RIV's act Friday, never fear — you'll have other chances to experience what Shapiro describes as "Vegas stuff made modern."

Think Rat Pack with an alt-rock, Green Day edge.

In RIV's collective hands, Dean Martin's sinuous, Latin-tinged "Sway" becomes a rockin' romp complete with grinding guitars and an energetic clap track.

Their driving rock version of Frank Sinatra's jaunty "Luck Be a Lady" launches with an edgy guitar riff that sounds like it escaped from another early 1960s classic, "The Twilight Zone."

As for Sammy Davis Jr., RIV's rendition of his trademark "Mr. Bojangles" collides with riffs from Jimi Hendrix's "Manic Depression," prompting such reactions as " 'What are you guys, crazy?' " Shapiro says, chuckling.

Other '60s fixtures who get the RIV treatment range from Elvis Presley to Tom Jones to Frankie Valli to Sonny and Cher.

Throughout the show, RIV — guitarist Shapiro, drummer Ryan "Dr. Fu" Low and bassist Chris Nichols — sing and banter between numbers, echoing the swinging lounge scene of Las Vegas' ring-a-ding-ding past.

RIV's upcoming gigs include Aug. 28-29 at Marilyn's Lounge in the Eastside Cannery and Sept. 19 and Oct. 17 in Santa Fe Station's Chrome Showroom.

And the same Vegas vibe that drives RIV drove Shapiro, 44, back to Las Vegas after 15 years away from Southern Nevada.

A Chaparral High School graduate, Shapiro moved to Las Vegas at the ripe old age of 1 and grew up listening to tales spun by his grandfather Barney, whose next door neighbor in the Las Vegas Country Club was Frank "Lefty" Rosenthal, the sports handicapper, casino executive and mob associate who inspired Martin Scorsese's movie "Casino."

"From (age) 18 to 30," Shapiro's grandfather "was my best friend," says Shapiro, who noted that his grandfather (who owned an eighth of the Royal Nevada casino, sold out when it became the Stardust and then started United Coin) "had the best stories" from an era that "was classy and sophisticated," he adds. "Quintessentially Vegas."

That quintessentially Vegas background went on the back burner in 2000, when Shapiro moved to Portland, Ore., and then to Marin County, Calif., across the Golden Gate bridge from San Francisco.

Throughout, Shapiro kept rocking, graduating from teenage cover bands to his own group, Trip, with which he recorded and toured.

An early influence: none other than Bruce Springsteen, whose first wife, actress-model Julianne Phillips, was Shapiro's mother's sister-in-law. When Shapiro was 16, Springsteen visited, "spending two hours jamming and talking with me about music. Very inspiring, to say the least."

Although Shapiro believes his "original music was working," he pondered a switch to a potentially more lucrative tribute act.

That is, until a suggestion from RIV record producer — and Marin County neighbor — Dan Shea (who's worked with, among others, Jennifer Lopez, Mariah Carey and Carlos Santana) changed the band's direction.

"About halfway into the mix," Shapiro recalls, Shea asked him if he knew Neil Diamond's "Solitary Man," then played a Green Day song, telling Shapiro " 'I want you to do that to this.' "

That musical mashup led to "this vision to do what we're doing now," Shapiro says, reinterpreting and reinvigorating songs that were already "beautiful as they were," he says.

Not to mention "sung by some of the best singers in the world," he adds. So RIV has been "very careful not to screw it up."

RIV's initial Vegas foray came last fall when they played five weekends at the Downtown Grand, but it wasn't until April that Shapiro decided to return to Vegas for good.

"This is the first time in my music career where I'm not questioning anything," Shapiro says. "I was beginning to think this 30-year career was a hobby. But I don't think that anymore."

For more stories from Carol Cling go to bestoflasvegas.com. Contact her at ccling@reviewjournal.com and follow @CarolSCling on Twitter.