By Joel Langton
830 Times
One of the top Prince tribute acts will perform at 8 p.m. Friday night at the Paul Poag theatre.
Marshall Charloff has built a one-person tribute to Prince that is patterned after the mega star’s last tour, ‘Piano and Microphone’ featuring Prince solo on a piano.
“I created this show to take up the mantle of ensuring that more people saw this intimate side of Prince that is faithful to him,” Charloff said from Rock Island, Illinois where he was preparing for a show at Jumer’s Casino.
“This is the only show in the world of its kind. A one-man tribute to the greatest artist of our time,” Charloff said.
The Purple Piano, a 2 and a half hour show, includes hits “Purple Rain,” “Raspberry Beret,” “Little Red Corvette,” “Kiss,” “1999,” “Let’s Go Crazy,” “Darling Nikki,” “Most Beautiful Girl” for a total of 35 Prince classics .“That only scratches the surface of what he did,” Charloff said. “You could do 135 of his songs, and still leave a lot of his catalog out!”
Charloff played on the album 94 East with Prince, where he played bass guitar and keyboard.
However, there is a lot more to Charloff than Prince tribute artist.
He’s fronted symphonies throughout the country and has released three jazz albums. He produced, wrote and recorded for the Commodores and Little Anthony (Little Anthony and the Imperials).
For Paul Poag management, it was an easy decision to book him.
“Every now and then we have the chance to bring in shows that we would normally not see in Del Rio,” said Leno Hernandez, Paul Poag Theatre Director. “Because Marshall has a show about 3 hours away the next day, this ended up being a show we couldn’t pass up to bring here.”
Tickets are $20 and $30 through Eventbrite, https://www.eventbrite.com/e/purple-piano-tickets-168820601965?fbclid=IwAR290ZsEC6P6b4TtDCaTHMqVn3KzLx2ZRPcoGaR41yMH8c7fODqvs2Q01EA
Tickets will also be available at the Paul Poag Friday or at the Civic Center between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m.
You can contact the writer at Joelalangton@gmail.com.
