Tonight at Feinstein’s at the Regency, the Smothers Brothers take the stage for their first extended gig in a New York cabaret-style nightclub since – well, since Trini Lopez hit it big with “If I Had a Hammer” in 1963.
Both Tom and Dick remember that last time well. Dick, because of the extreme intimacy and freedom the Basin Street East nightclub provided; Tom, because between the time they signed the deal as an acoustic folk-comedy duo (Tom on guitar, Dick on upright bass) and played the club, their then-unknown opening act scored a Top 10 record and became a sensation.
“Trini Lopez opened for us with two drummers and a horn section, and Sammy Davis Jr. introduced him the first night,” Tom recalls, his voice still registering disbelief after all these years.
“It was June – prom time – and all these kids in their white coats were there, and they just went crazy for him.
“I was wandering around Central Park at night, saying, ‘I’m going to give up this business.
‘ It was so depressing.
”
Time passed. Instead of giving up the business, the Smothers Brothers rose to the top of it, as stars of the popular, seminal, controversial CBS variety series “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour” from 1967 until they were fired by the network in 1969.
Now they’re back in New York, playing at an intimate club again, with most of their run (tonight through June 9) taking place in that dreaded month of June. This time, though, there’s no opening act. The brothers are decades older and wiser, and more polished; Tom is 64, Dick 61.
Though the audience at the Regency will be as close to the stage as when the brothers developed their act at the Purple Onion and other under-150-seat venues, the atmosphere and costs will be slightly more upscale. “It’s good to be back,” Tom says excitedly. “You know, they’re even going to be serving our wine there [from his award-winning Smothers Remick Ridge winery]. We’re serving the ’97 Cabernet Savignon and the ’97 Chardonnay, so that’s kind of neat.
”
TAKING IT DOWN A NOTCH
Though Tom and Dick have played Carnegie Hall and other major New York venues over the years, their two-week run at the Regency is an intentional return to their roots.
Accompanied only by Marty Tryon and his “band in a box” contraption, the Smothers Brothers are looking forward to scaling down their Las Vegas act – which is built for audiences 10 times that of the Regency club – to fit the room and the mood.
“The whole genesis of the Smothers Brothers,” Dick explains, “was at the Purple Onion, which held less than 140 people. The stage there might have been 8 feet square.
” Fitting into Feinstein’s at the Regency, he says, is a matter of recalling that setting and rhythm.
“Tommy and I,” he says, “we really have to work on talking down. Not in an intellectual sense, but more intimately. The gestures are more subtle.
”
In a separate conversation, Tom echoes the sentiment: “You have to bring it down; it’s much more conversational. We learned that process a long time ago.
”
“You can’t lie,” Tom adds. You can’t use exaggeration, or broad strokes that you can use in a 1,500-seat house. They’ll catch you lying. They’re only 2 feet away from you. It’s a more intimate and more creative way of working.
”
A HOMETOWN GIG
It’s the creativity of the smaller setting, and the return to the city (both brothers were born here, though brought up elsewhere), that have them in a state of eager anticipation.
Tom says he imagines some people might come to see the show out of simple curiosity. “My imagination,” he admits, “has them asking, ‘I wonder if they’re really old now. I wonder if there’s any sparkle left.
‘ ”
They aren’t. There is.
“I sort of think we’re like the [Dave] Brubeck Quartet,” Dick says of the veteran jazz foursome. “We know our material so well, we can go in and out of it and always know where we are. You have to be confident enough to play.
”
Speaking of play, the Smothers Brothers are bringing their families along for the New York experience, and have lots of typicalvisitor plans for their downtime.
Tom and his wife, Marcy, plan to take their two young children “across the Brooklyn Bridge and show them where I was born,” take in the Statue of Liberty, a carriage ride in the park and lots of Broadway musicals. Dick and his wife, Denby, are doing touristy things, too (her teen son is seeing New York for the first time), and Dick plans to check out New York’s yoga and vegetarian establishments.
The Smothers’ sibling rivalry exists offstage as well as on, at least in terms of snagging tickets for the hottest show on Broadway. Tom, thanks to some connections in California with “one of the Nederlander boys,” managed to snare a pair of tickets to “The Producers,” which he’s seeing this week.
“Dickie can’t get ’em,” Tom says, chuckling a little.
But if anyone connected with “The Producers” always liked Dick best, and wants to even the score, he can be reached at the Regency.
