Danke Schoen<\/a>” for a picture or autograph from the singer, but he said he expects a large contingent of teacher friends from Elizabeth Forward High School, where Thomas is instrumental music director.<\/p>\nThomas and bassist Bob Patterson, both Duquesne University alums, landed the gig through Rick Purcell, a veteran of the Pittsburgh music scene, who works with Hershey-based booking agent BRP Entertainment.<\/p>\n
Saturday will mark the third time Purcell has worked with the Newton crew: He assembled Newton\u2019s backing band for a show in the mid-2000s at Mountaineer Casino Resort in West Virginia and performed as part of the band when Newton made a tour stop at Carnegie Library of Homestead in 2024.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe and Bobby Vinton were two of the nicest people I\u2019ve ever worked for,\u201d said Purcell, of Mt. Lebanon, who will fill the role of second piano.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome of the stars are nice, and some of them aren’t nice,” he added. “But this guy is a peach.\u201d<\/p>\n
Purcell called Thomas on June 11 about playing for the concert \u2014 exactly one month before the show. That left 30 days to learn 90 minutes of material.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey sent us charts from a Google Drive via email. And I was able to print out all those charts, and through the marvels of modern internet technology, I went to YouTube and I thought, \u2018Well, I wonder if anybody’s got a bootleg of him doing the show,\u2019 and there is,\u201d Thomas explained.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo I’ve actually spent a little time just studying these charts and just knowing what the feel is, so that I can just have a much more comfortable idea of what’s going to go on whenever I actually do get with him on stage.\u201d<\/p>\n
Exactly when Thomas and cohorts will, in fact, get on stage with Newton is unknown.<\/p>\n
But Thomas said if his experience with working with nationally touring artists is any indication, the answer may be surprising to those who haven\u2019t played with famous acts.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is a real good chance that I may not even rehearse with him, and I will get to see him for the first time when he comes on stage,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Thomas\u2019 r\u00e9sum\u00e9 of performances with national acts includes the Shirelles, the late Joe Negri of Pittsburgh, and Jim \u201cGomer Pyle\u201d Nabors.<\/p>\n
\u201c[Nabors] was touring as a Christmas show. I did a two-hour rehearsal with a big band, and then when we were done, he’d come out on stage and talk to us a little bit, and it wasn’t even about the show or anything like that,\u201d Thomas said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was just, \u2018Hey guys, how you doing? How’s it going?\u2019 And then when the show was ready to go, that’s the first time I actually heard him play with us,” he added.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo I’m going to assume it’s probably going to be very similar [with Newton]. There\u2019s a little bit of apprehension to that because I’d like to have as much of a full rehearsal as possible but, when you’re a sideman, you just have to go with the flow.\u201d<\/p>\n
They may be playing sidemen to the 84-year-old Newton, but Purcell said his presence and that of Thomas and Patterson\u2019 presence will likely still be acknowledged.<\/p>\n
\u201cLast time I played with him, in Homestead, he made a big fuss over the three musicians from Pittsburgh. He didn’t have to do that, and he did,” Purcell said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe’s just a class guy. I can see why he’s lasted so long.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When “Mr. Las Vegas” brings his lounge act to Washington County on Saturday night, there will be a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":240082,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[73,75,74],"class_list":["post-240081","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240081","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=240081"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240081\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/240082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=240081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=240081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=240081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}