“It’s an art unto itself,” he says. “The people are there to see the star, and you never, ever try to upstage him or her. You get 22 minutes, though Don Rickles, Jackie Mason, Bob Hope and Joan Rivers all generously gave me 35. You come out and you have no more than three minutes to grab them. Three minutes, max.

“I like to surprise people. I open with a ballad, not the usual up-tempo number. I’ll joke around in a self-effacing way: ‘They needed somebody to kill some time before the big spenders get here.’ Then I proceed to show them how well I can sing.”

Gene says his show is ‘a musical conversation between me and the audience.’

“I don’t insult their taste by giving them clichés. You’ll never hear me sing ‘Feelings.’ Ten songs doesn’t make it a show. You have to establish rapport, a mutual liking of each other, and sustain it.”

His repertoire is vast – when he is the headliner, he does two hours easily – and highly eclectic. He has a two and a half octave range and, thanks to his world travels, is fluent in several languages. On any given night, he might range from Bon Jovi to Nat ‘King’ Cole. Or he might segue from an Italian standard like “Il Mondo” to a less familiar song from a Broadway show.

Musical mastery coupled with European charisma and old-fashioned dignity have earned Gene a loyal following and a reputation for excellence that endures into his third decade as an American singer.

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