If you’ve never met Sergio Lopez, you may want to know something before discussing music with him at a cocktail party.
“At the end of the day, if you’re not a Frank Sinatra fan, than there’s something wrong with you,” says the executive producer at Storyville, a film production and post-production facility downtown.
Lopez says he was introduced to the iconic performer at a young age. “My mother was a huge frank Sinatra fan and I grew up listening to that stuff., just running through the house in and out and she’s enjoying that music back in the day.”
Ol’ Blue Eyes would turn 100 in December, and Lopez decided to throw his passion for the singer into a hundredth birthday celebration. He assembled a star-studded lineup of New Orleans performers to sing some of Sinatra’s catalog Friday night, October 23 at 8 p.m. at the Orpheum Theater.
Jeremy Davenport, Kermit Ruffins, Phillip Manuel, Clint Johnson, Leif Pedersen and John Boutte will each sing two or three Sinatra songs.
“These people pretty much fill up a venue on their own right. Jeremy does his act every weekend at the Ritz, Phillip can fill up any singular venue,” says Lopez. These are “iconic new Orleans singers that beat the streets day in and day out in this city and are tremendous fans of Frank as well as crooners in their own right.”
Lopez brought in David Torkanowski to conduct and arrange, and the whole evening will be emceed by Harry Shearer, “so there you go.”
The icing on the cake will be having the event in the just reopened, refurbished Orpheum, Lopez says. “It’s beautiful, so we put a great show in a great place.”
Tickets are available at the Orpheum box office, www.orpheum.com. A portion of the proceeds will benefit the Ronald McDonald House on Canal Street.