Garth Goes Vegas

The man I took banjo lessons from when I was a young teenager was a prophet. I don't remember his name, but he was. He revealed to me way back when that artists of the day like Michael McDonald would eventually become mainstays in Las Vegas.

OK, maybe he was wrong about McDonald, who as far as I know has never settled into a lengthy run at Caesar's Palace or Harrah's, but he was right about the concept of contemporary stars inhabiting the place like Steve & Eydie did not that long ago.

As you probably know by now — although I did talk to someone in the music business the other day that didn't know — Garth Brooks is the latest artist in residence in Sin City. For fifteen weekends a year, four times a weekend, for the next five years if all goes as planned, G-Daddy will do shows at the Wynn Encore and then jet back to Oklahoma to be with his daughters and wife, Trisha Yearwood.

It's not a bad deal for Garth, who admitted that he underestimated casino owner Steve Wynn. "I told him he couldn't afford me," Brooks said of Wynn. "I was wrong." In addition to whatever Wynn is paying the Garthmeister, he gave him a jet to fly back and forth between OK and BETTERTHANOK.

All that to say, even if I had stuck with the banjo lessons, I wouldn't be playing Vegas. Garth is doing a one man show.