Butera might have had the wildest ride of all the Las Vegas lounge legends

"How do you get to Carnegie Hall?" the old joke begins.

For Sam Butera, the answer was to pick up a sax at age 7, practice, practice, practice, and spend your teens playing in Bourbon Street strip joints.

"I was in awe seeing these ladies taking their clothes off," Butera recalled a quarter century ago. When his music-loving parents found out where their boy was spending his hours practicing, "they weren't exactly pleased, but I had to get my experience somewhere."

Butera's first group was named for the stripper anthem "Night Train," and at 19, his band enjoyed success with the song "Easy Rockin'." That same year found him at Carnegie Hall after he won a music contest sponsored by Look magazine.

When Butera died Wednesday at age 81, it was as if someone turned out the spotlight on the legendary Las Vegas lounge scene that was defined by Sam and his more famous partners, Louis Prima and Keely Smith. Prima was a master at the art of making every performance feel special to an audience, which couldn't help but get caught up in his seemingly boundless energy. It was that tradition Butera carried on 48 weeks a year across the country until his retirement in 2004.

"When I joined Louis and Keely, that's when the ball started rolling," Butera told an interviewer in 1984.

But the fact is, Sam distinguished himself well before Dec. 26, 1954, when he became the leader of Prima's Witnesses band at the Sahara's Casbar Lounge. He worked for Tommy Dorsey in the late 1940s and was offered an opportunity to tour with Louis Armstrong.

Maybe Sam was a Vegas guy at heart. I'd like to think so.

With Prima came opportunities, such as making an appearance in "Hey Boy! Hey Girl!" and playing his horn on several hits, including "That Old Black Magic" and "Just a Gigolo/I Ain't Got Nobody." Butera also had a chance to own a home and raise his family in one place.

The Witnesses set the musical scene at a time the Las Vegas experience for most tourists began in the lounges, where the entertainment was high-energy and low-priced. The group was so popular it attracted big-name stars to the lounges, which juiced the electricity for all in attendance.

Back before the Las Vegas advertising budget exceeded the gross national product of France, lively lounges enabled Bud and Bertha from Dubuque to party for pennies and return to the farm with endless tales of dancing all night and rubbing shoulders with celebrities.

When Prima died in 1978, Butera missed his friend but didn't miss a shuffle, double-time beat, emerging with The Wildest band and keeping up a relentless road schedule. He traveled more than long-haul truckers, played more shows in Atlantic City than the famous diving horse. He was Lou Gehrig with a tenor and didn't hesitate to tell an audience he was the luckiest man alive.

In 1985, Butera the booster predicted Las Vegas lounge scene might make a comeback. But the fact is, Butera and a few others were the scene.

About that time, David Lee Roth emerged with a copycat tribute of the Louis-and-Sam hit "Just a Gigolo/I Ain't Got Nobody." Rock reviewers called Roth inspired, but the arrangement was blushingly close to the original. Although Butera received no royalties for the lifting of his arrangement, he called Roth's hit a "blessing in disguise" because it sparked interest in the music in a new generation.

Las Vegas gets little credit for creating a uniquely American music scene, but snazzy sax man Butera deserves plenty of plaudits for his role in developing the Strip's jumping, jiving lounge sound.

Times and tastes change, but Sam and his sax had work from here to Sarasota until his big heart developed a funky rhythm of its own that prevented him from spending so much time traveling.

All good gigs must come to an end, but his beat will go on in many hearts. Somewhere in the Midwest, a generation of Buds and Berthas are remembering the time in Vegas when they cut a rug all night to Sam Butera's swingin' saxophone.

"I tell you," he said after retiring in 2004, "I wish I could do it again."

So do we, Sam. So do we.

John L. Smith's column appears Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. E-mail him at Smith@reviewjournal.com or call (702) 383-0295. He also blogs at lvrj.com/blogs/smith/.