Rejuvenated Vereen tops SuperPops
Ben Vereen’s pops performance with the Spokane Symphony will be a tribute, in some ways, to two legendary performers.
One is his mentor and role model, Sammy Davis Jr.
“It’s important that we wave the flags of our heroes,” said Vereen, by phone from Boston.
The other legend: Vereen himself. After what happened to him in 1992, every show he does is like a tribute to his own show-biz tenacity.
In the space of one night in 1992, Vereen hit a tree with his car, suffered a stroke, walked away in a daze and was hit by another vehicle and thrown 90 feet. His entire right side was numb.
One doctor told him he would never be able to go onstage again. Vereen called Chita Rivera, a Broadway star who had also recovered from an accident, and asked her, “Will I ever dance again?”
“And she said, ‘You’ll dance, but you’ll dance differently. Vive la difference!’ ” said Vereen. “So, vive la difference. I’m dancing differently and wonderfully.”
Within a year, he was back onstage doing “Jelly’s Last Jam.”
“I have come back, with prayers and hard work and wonderful therapists and wonderful doctors,” said Vereen.
The first half of Saturday’s show will be a retrospective of Vereen’s Broadway career – and what a career. He landed his first New York stage role as a teenager and was appearing in a road version of “Sweet Charity” by the time he was 20.
He was in two of the hottest rock musicals of the late 1960s and early 1970s, “Hair” and “Jesus Christ Superstar” (as Judas Iscariot).
Then he got his big break in 1972 as the lead in “Pippin!” Vereen won a Tony and started a long and fruitful collaboration with the legendary director and choreographer Bob Fosse.
Since then, he has also appeared in “Fosse” and “Wicked,” to name just two. He also had a distinguished acting career, earning an Emmy nomination as Chicken George in “Roots.”
He’ll sing songs from most of those musicals Saturday, as well as a medley of Frank Sinatra songs.
Vereen’s Sammy Davis Jr. tribute will include a number of hits such as “That Old Black Magic” and “I’ve Gotta Be Me.” But don’t expect a Sammy impression.
“I don’t want people to come here thinking I’ll do Sammy Davis Jr.,” said Vereen. “I can’t. I couldn’t fit into his clothes.
“But what I do is take his music and lift it note for note, and tell stories of our time together.”
He came up with the idea of a Sammy tribute because he believes that artists need to respect the people who blazed the trail.
“Young people need to understand those who paved the way before them … so that our young people can say, ‘Oh, we see what went before us and we see our responsibility to our heritage,’ ” Vereen said.
He will be backed by the symphony, under the direction of resident conductor Morihiko Nakahara. Vereen does many of these symphony pop shows, in between solo concerts and acting gigs.
He’s also in demand as an inspirational speaker. Naturally, the topic is: overcoming adversity.