Space Cowboys

It's quite a change of fortune for Sonny Charles.

After the death of his longtime singing partner and the Vegas lounge scene as both of them knew it, he now sings to more people than ever.

But Steve Miller claims he is the lucky one.

"A lot of people have said to me, 'Boy what a great thing you did for Sonny,' " says the veteran rocker. "And I say, 'Let me tell you man, Sonny did a great thing for us.' Very rarely can you bring someone new into a band and have them just fit perfectly, right away."

Just call them co-dependent, these two performers of the same era but different backgrounds; one a staple of '70s radio and the other an anchor of the Strip's golden years.

Charles, the 69-year-old Las Vegas fixture long known as half of the Checkmates, has toured with the Steve Miller Band since 2008. And now he's a big part of "Bingo!," Miller's first studio album since 1993.

"I was doing maybe 80 percent of the songs," Charles laughingly recalls of the recording sessions. "(Finally) I said, 'Steve, this is a Steve Miller album. You've got to (sing) some of these songs if you expect any sales.' ''

The Miller Band opens its summer touring season with an outdoor concert today at M Resort, where fans can get an early sample of the album due June 15. They already might have heard some of the tunes done live in the years since Charles joined the classic rockers.

"I have the 14 greatest hits my audience really wants to hear," explains the man behind "Abracadabra" and "Fly Like An Eagle." That leaves room for another seven to 10 songs in each show. Many of those remaining spots have scratched Miller's longtime itch to do a blues album.

Veteran Rolling Stones producer Andy Johns eventually guided sessions remaking tunes that were regional hits when Miller was growing up in Texas.

"Sonny added a whole lot of authentic voice to this stuff," Miller says of semi-obscurities such as "You Got Me Dizzy" and "Ooh Poo Pah Doo."

"With Sonny, now we have this really authentic, wonderful, wonderful voice for our blues tunes, plus all that soul singing and all that great harmony," Miller says. "He's added a whole new element to what we do."

Charles was at a crossroads in late 2007, after Checkmates partner Sweet Louie (Marvin Smith) died of a heart attack at age 68. The two were at sea on a Caribbean cruise ship, their career as the Checkmates already in ebb tide.

"The lounge thing here in Vegas had just dried up. There was nothing to do, and what there was to do didn't pay anything," Charles says.

When Louie died, Charles decided to retire the Checkmates name. "It no longer held any emotional value to me."

The two had sung together for 55 years, since they were teen friends in Fort Wayne, Ind. They even joined the Army together, under "the buddy plan," to keep their fledgling doo-wop group together.

After their hitch was up in 1962, the Checkmates (known some years as Checkmates, Ltd.) auditioned for a job in Las Vegas, but were told they needed an "act." When they saw the Treniers -- trailblazers for Vegas "lounge" as a genre with comedy and attitude -- Charles says they realized, "Whoa, this is what we gotta do."

The Checkmates opened Caesars Palace in 1966 and soon became "the only band doing rhythm and blues on the Strip," Charles says. "Everybody else was afraid of it."

"The funny thing about it," he adds, was that his group packed the lounge doing covers by the likes of Ike & Tina Turner and the Temptations. "But when (the real acts) worked up their Vegas show, they'd come to town doing all these show tunes and didn't do their hits. They didn't think they could do R&B."

The Checkmates also became the rare Las Vegas act to chart a hit single while working the lounges. Famed (and now notorious) producer Phil Spector helmed recording of "Black Pearl," a No. 13 pop hit in 1969.

"It put us on the national market, opened up a lot of doors," Charles says. But he still grits his teeth when he hears the song. He had the flu that day, so Spector "slowed the track down and I sang it a key lower." On playback, "he speeded the track back up, and I sounded like Alvin & The Chipmunks."

Having to sing the song live, "I couldn't duplicate it, couldn't sing in that pitch."

Sweet Louie still was alive when the Checkmates met Miller and occasionally opened shows for him. "Here I was this white guy, teaching these old black guys the blues," Miller says with a laugh. Louie never quite took to the genre, but Charles "approached it with a freshness most blues singers don't have."

After Louie died, Charles joined Miller for a three-night stand at San Francisco's Fillmore Auditorium, then for 11 days of recording at George Lucas' Skywalker Ranch.

"This is a band that's been together forever," Miller says. "At first it was, 'What's Sonny doing here? I thought we were cutting a record.'

"By the second day we were singing in three-part harmony, and by the third day it was, 'We're going to ask Sonny to join the band, right?' "

Contact reporter Mike Weatherford at mweatherford@ reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0288.