TONI BRAXTON INTERVIEW

[JumpinJack AJ]

Toni Braxton hasn't gotten the promotion and shine that she deserves. She's one of the most talented artists ever in R-N-B and a beautiful person. It's good 2 hear she's still doin' big things even tho' her last 2 albums didn't do big numbers. I got this from AOL...

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Las Vegas Celebrity Gossip - Luxe Life with Robin Leach - AOL Vegas

With a $1-million diamond-studded microphone and a hand-sewn, next-to-nothing mini-gown of 11,000 crystals, Toni Braxton shines, sparkles and sizzles as the Strip's next superstar singer. Vegas has desperately needed an affordable, high-energy, all-action song and dance spectacular and Toni delivers it in spades -- plus diamonds, hearts and clubs! Her brand-new 'Revealed' show at the Flamingo, which opens tomorrow, is the royal full-house of entertainment!

On New Years Eve I had the privilege of hosting a private, high-rollers show at The Venetian and before the curtain went up I joined Toni’s family and performing group for their prayer-circle blessing. I got to ask her why she didn’t think of moving to Vegas full-time to do a nightly headlining show on the Strip. I told her there was a home here for her dynamic talents and that amazing voice. "You got us thinking," she laughed backstage at the Flamingo recently. "And now look at this -- just eight months later we’ve taken your advice and this is our new home."

Toni gave Luxe Life a sneak preview of the show. It’s a non-stop, 90-minute musical love affair of the senses with 21 hit soul songs and 10 amazing costume changes. She’s got 11 dancers, 2 backup-singers and 9 band-members, including a harpist -- all in perfect harmony for the sweet sounds sure to spark romance. Her rendition of "Seven Whole Days" is a show-stopper! Her treatment of "Spanish Guitar" makes you want to leap from your seat, click your castanet fingers and kick up your flamenco heels. Her rendition of "Take This Ring" from the new album 'Libra' would make this born-again bachelor break down and propose! I guarantee critics will be raving in the next few days saying it’s the best new song and dance show on the Strip and that Toni is a superstar all over again!

Now, about that Million-Dollar Microphone. It is adorned with 6,500 clarity diamonds with a total weight of 550 carats. It’s the only microphone in the world that has its own security guard! It was first used by Jamie Foxx and overhyped rapper #1 for this years Grammy Awards and Snoop Dogg performed with it at the Radio Music Awards. Carlos Santana also used it in his new music video, but now it's all Toni’s and when she’s not singing into it, the bejeweled bling will be on display at her new Flamingo retail store. And that eye-popping mini? It took two seamstresses 120 hours apiece to sew the nude netting with 11,000 Swarovski crystals and 25,000 sequin-stones. It just looks like she’s become her own disco ball with the diamonds dripping off her. Nobody on the Strip or at the Oscars has ever looked so spectacularly radiant.

She invited me to her lucky-green decorated backstage dressing room for her first Vegas interview. "You just ain’t a star till you’ve played Vegas" she giggled, "and now I’m about to prove it. All that hard work, the ups, the downs, was preparation for this very moment. This is it!" Here’s our candid conversation.

RL: So Toni, what does 'Revealed' actually reveal?

TB: First -- it's all music ,dance and non-stop hit songs. It is sexy, a little adult. It does not mean topless, but it is very tastefully sexy.

RL: And very high energy? The dancers look just like MTV video girls, right?

TB: A lot of eye candy, great dancers up there which is really good for me. They lead me into the same energy and we all shine together.

RL: Talking about eye candy you are 5’1, yet your portrait is the size of a football field on the front of this hotel. How does that feel?

TB: I was so excited. No one told me, so when I saw it, I just couldn’t believe it. I was a little overwhelmed. I’m driving on I-15 and I suddenly see parts of my head and body being slowly revealed across the building. I was behind the wheel of my car and sort of did a double-take. It is a great feeling.

RL: You have become a Vegas resident and have been here for 8 months, not touring. How do you feel about a home base in Vegas and not having to go on the road for a while?

TB: Well, first of all, I was a little nervous at first because I never knew Vegas. Then I discovered it was so suburban. Touring is great but I can’t bring my kids on the road all the time. This was the perfect thing for me. It enables me to sing and be a mom. My day consists of waking up at seven to get my son ready for school, we eat breakfast, talk about what he dreamt about, then my husband and I take him to school. By day I am a mom, and by night I put on some red lipstick, turn into a stage performer and do my thing.

RL: You have two kids right? Is the second one is school yet?

TB: No, he is 3 years old. We’ve got him into a school already for when he's four. I am acclimated and ready to do Vegas. We found a house in the Southern Highlands area. It's very quiet and I love it. Vegas is quiet sometimes -- can you believe it?

Dancers in Toni Braxton's 'Revealed' rehearse for its debut.

RL: You looked at all the different shows around town to see what was happening and one of the shows you went to see was Celine. You got into a conversation with her and asked her about living in Vegas?

TB: She said to me I absolutely had to live and perform here. She told me I had to drink plenty of water, and I've taken her advice. She said it’s great. It's a new Vegas and an exciting Vegas. I just go wow; I can't believe I am here. I see all the street signs with the stars’ names on them and I am like I have to go here.

RL: They may give you a Toni Braxton Drive.

TB: Oh that would be great.

RL: Other than when I saw you at the Venetian on New Years, how often have you preformed in Vegas and where were you?

TB: I preformed here eight years ago at the Aladdin for two nights and that was it. Now, suddenly, I’m living here, performing here and with my own theater! Now that’s incredible.

RL: What is it like to be on the road all of your life and then suddenly settle down. What’s the emotional feeling of that?

TB: It brings normalcy and security to your life. I did Broadway and that was great but that wasn’t a Toni show and I want to do my thing. So, for me it is just time to have a normal life, put down roots and yet still be a performer at night. I feel like Batgirl jumping between the two roles!

RL: What are we going to know about Toni Braxton that we didn’t know before?

TB: What kind of a performer I am, why I am in the business, why I do what I do. I am going to reveal a few things that maybe only a few people have seen or know about. I am bringing out old video footage from when I signed my first record deal. So you will see me with all my flaws. When you get older, you are not afraid to show these things. I’ve been through so much that I don’t care now that everybody knows my whole story.

Toni rehearses with her dancers for 'Revealed,' which begins August 3 at The Flamingo.

RL: Is it safe to say that you have had a pretty rocky up and down with people in the recording business not being good people? Is everything alright now?

TB: It is getting much better now. There was a point when I was considering leaving the business. I wanted out. I wanted to call it quits, then run and hide. It was just so public for me with the bankruptcy and all the other things that I have gone through. Unfortunately for me, a lot of people think I’d just blown all my money on wasteful stuff, but the truth was that my royalty income check, after I sold my second album, came to less than two-thousand dollars. So, that is what people don’t know.

RL: Ten million copies and $2,000 dollars in royalties? Why? Is that the all-time screwing?

TB: When you are an artist it sounds really good that you get thirty-four cents a record, but out of that they took away the costs of recording, marketing and all that, so my portion was less than two thousand dollars. That is why I had to file for bankruptcy. I had to get out of all the contracts. I had to break away to do it myself and start all over again properly. But that is why no one really talks about it because all they know is that I went bankrupt, but they never knew why. They just didn’t really know how bad it all happened.

RL: So now is it like a giant weight has been lifted off of your shoulders?

TB: I am free again. I got a really big paycheck, I get to do my music again and I took time off to be a mom and get married and all that stuff. When you take time off it is hard to get back into the business sometimes. I have been very blessed and fortunate. It has been baby steps, but coming to Vegas I realize the people still like me, they still remember me and I am now in a very good place again. The light is shining and the darkness has gone.

RL: You’ve appeared in arenas in front of thousands of people so why would opening in Vegas make you nervous? We’re 24 hours before the opening. Is your stomach going to be in knots, are you going to have butterflies as you walk on stage?

TB: I think that I need time to get the kinks out and get comfortable with the stage. Every show I have ever done, I am always nervous the first two minutes. Then it starts to go away within ten minutes, and then I am good and I think, "this is what I can do and do it well." And then the nerves vanish. It takes two minutes every time to breathe properly again and flow into the show. Then everything is fine.

RL: Have your kids been to see you performing yet?

TB: They have been here while I’ve been doing rehearsal. That’s the fantastic part about working where you live. They are a part of everything I do. I am able to be a part of everything they do.

RL: Your costume designer is wildly outrageous with his creativity.

TB: His name is Anthony Franco. He did Christina Aguilera’s video. He's dressed Eva Longoria, Tyra Banks, Avril Lavigne and the Victoria's Secret's angels. He’s done the costumes for the much-anticipated OutKast film, 'Idlewild' coming out this fall…

RL: So everything is top end with the show from start to finish; the choreography, the costumes, the music, the million-dollar mic and sound system?

TB: Oh yes we have done it all. It has all added up to a lot of pressure but I am ready for it. I’m feeling very good about Vegas and I hope it feels the same way about me after tomorrow!!!

The crew of 'Revealed' prepare the stage for curtain-up, which is Thusday, August 3.

Harrah’s president Don Marrandino, who made the decision to give Toni her own starring Strip showroom, also talked candidly with Luxe Life about hiring her for his Flamingo property and how he’s changing the resort with a top-to-bottom new look.

RL: Toni Braxton! Explain why you hired her, and what you want her to achieve for the Flamingo.

DM: I got a call about three or four months ago from her manager asking if I would meet with her. I immediately remembered one thing -- the dress she wore at the Grammy awards in the 2000. Then I remember 'Unbreak My Heart' and a few of those songs. The way the Flamingo is going is a little sexier, a little more fun, a little more hip, so she would be one of the most interesting entertainers on the Strip, she is still current. I mean, Celine is a superstar, but besides that there isn’t any entertainer that, at the peak of their career, has sat down and played in Las Vegas. I thought that would be interesting. I think from a fashion perspective she is one of the most amazingly photographed women in the world. She has sold 40 million records and has a very interesting fan base. She has the R&B, the young fans, and the hip-hop culture loves her. Multimillionaire NBA players love her. It is an amazing opportunity. She wants to sit in Vegas for all the right reasons -- to be a mom. We have done a lot of things in the showroom, so, we think she will be an unbelievable success.

RL: The $1 million dollar diamond studded microphone is pretty outrageous.

DM: We are going to have a lot of fun with it. It is going to reside on show in Toni’s retail store. It’ll be locked up under guard, but people will be able to see it. It will be brought to the stage by security every night. At a million dollars, it’s the most expensive mike ever made. Liberace didn’t even have one.

LEFT: The micro mini Toni will where in 'Revealed.' RIGHT: The famous Million-Dollar-Microphone.

RL: Have you had a say in the show at all, since you are the industry's only true rock and roll honcho?

DM: No, in fact, I’ve been kicked out of the theater, because they have been doing rehearsals and I’ve gotten to know Toni and her husband Carey, the musical director, and their group and the only thing I said to them was "go look at every single show in Vegas." They did that, they did their homework. They looked at all the dancing going on in Vegas. Now, I’ve seen the dancing troupe and their routines in rehearsals and I can assure you it is different from anything you’ve seen on stage before. This is very hot, very sexy. It is certainly not a Cirque type of thing. This is very street, classical, Flamenco.

RL: Have you been put in a little bit of a torn loyalty since Celine Dion works for your same company? The two girls are basically 50-yards across from each other on the Strip. How do you think they deal with the competition?

DM: It is funny, Toni came and talked to Celine and asked if she was cool with it. I think the 'Unbreak My Heart' song, which was a multi-platinum selling record, Celine had actually turned down that song. It's actually funny that Toni’s biggest hit was turned down because Celine picked one about a sinking boat and passed on the other!! Not many women have pipes like these two women so I think they will compliment each other.

RL: Don, explain how you had Wayne Newton in this 7.30PM spot in this showroom yet moved him to Harrah’s to take over Clint Holmes' space so you could put Toni in here. It begs the question of what does Toni do for the overall re-branding of the Flamingo?

DM: Harrah’s is the best slot place in Vegas and we think that Wayne has that appeal to those players from around the country five or six times a year. So he is going to work a total of six months each year there for us. Toni fits the brand of what we are looking for at the Flamingo --young, hot, sexy, unexpected. She fits our niche right down the middle and she is just one of the few people at the peak of her career that is going to sit here for eight months a year for sure.

RL: So is she the first part of the re-branding of the Flamingo, and if so what is coming next?

DM: We have started to do a room renovation 700 rooms where we have ripped everything out and they are going to be the hippest rooms in the city. They will be complete with a great sound system, iPod docking station, auto-drape openers, great TV’s, unbelievable lighting, it is just going to be an off-the-hook room. So that, along with Toni, will really emphasize the changes. We are starting to make changes already. If you look around you can already see the changes. This place is going to swing a little bit younger and I think having Toni in here is a real bold statement and if you see the picture on the side of the building, which is the largest billboard in the history of the world, so we put this woman who is 5’1" and stretched her 100 ft. by 100 ft. It is a football field.

Harrah's President Don Marrandino interviews yours truly with the Million-Dollar-Microphone.

RL: Does it go quite as young and hip as the Hard Rock and does this mean competition for the Palms?

DM: They are not who we are going after, we are going after some other people but, we want to do something for the people that are young at heart, the Gen X kind of person, so I think the Toni fan base is 20 something to 60 something and that is what we are going for. One of our internal things is that it is not your grandfather’s Flamingo. It was and did great, but it didn’t have a lot of personality so we are trying to put personality into it.

RL: The next thing that you have your hands in is with Sammy Hagar’s Cabo Wabo projects. Not only are you a friend of his, but you also brought him into your properties in Tahoe and last weekend’s open air beach-village festival and concert across the street at Caesars. Is that something you are going to add to the Flamingo and the Imperial Palace?

DM: Our master plan for this group of hotels is still months away and obviously Sammy has done well in Tahoe and his Tequila brand is one of the biggest sellers, we aren’t talking about it yet specifically but we would like to do something.

RL: The next immediate addition is Beacher’s Rockhouse so it becomes New Years Eve every night of the week. What are you expecting Beacher to do for you next door at Imperial Palace?

DM: It is on Las Vegas Boulevard. It is on real estate that wasn’t hugely used and I think that if the IP remains open for another year or so Beacher will definitely add something to it -- anywhere from a million profit a year to who knows how much. It is a great location and it is an expensive test and if it works maybe we have another brand that we will move to any one of our six or seven properties.

RL: So, the IP will eventually get blown up and rebuilt at some point, but does that mean thatBeacher would be moved to another property?

DM: We are going to see how it does. People love it and I’m sure we will find another place for it, but we had a piece of real estate that was under utilized and he was looking for a home and it was logical to try it.

RL: For the moment though, the focus is all about tomorrow night’s opening with Toni?

DM: In Toni Braxton’s show the dancers and the band are going to be off the hook, I mean how many singers have a harp up there, and dancers that you want to get on stage with? It is going to be a little MTV: very sexy, and with brilliant choreography.