Cabaret singer Jimmy Damon takes a kind of perverse pride in being the model for comedian Bill Murray’s famous “Saturday Night Live” lounge lizard character.
“You know,” Damon says, “the one where he’s got the microphone in his hand, talking to everyone in the audience-that’s me. That’s his parody of my act.”
By the time Murray saw him perform in the late ’60s at a Chicago nightclub, Damon had already gone through several showbiz phases.
He got his start in Memphis during the early ’50s as an 8-year-old boy-wonder soprano, singing at ladies’ luncheons and Kiwanis Club affairs. “Things like `Oh My Papa,’ Eddie Fisher songs, `Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing,’ ” he says.
In his early teens, Damon moved into country music, touring with Dusty Rhodes. Then came the rock ‘n’ roll era, led by Damon’s pal Elvis Presley. He was signed to the same label, recorded in the same studio with the same musicians and performed at the same festivals as Presley, whom Damon remembers as a struggling musician.
“Before he made it, Elvis used to come by the restaurant my father owned, and my dad would give him free food,” Damon says.
“Then when Elvis made it in Hollywood, he’d call us up when he’d come back to town with all these new movies that hadn’t been released yet. We’d take over these theaters after the regular show got out and watch movies until 4 in the morning. Elvis was a lot of fun to be around.”
During his teen-idol phase, Damon scored a hit in 1959 with “If I Had My Way” and appeared on the Arthur Godfrey show. Then he was drafted. When he got out of the service he joined “The Don McNeil Breakfast Hour,” a popular Chicago radio show.
Exposure there eventually led to a record deal with MCA, where Damon learned some hard lessons.
“I played this song I had found for the guy who was supposed to produce my record, but then I got sick and flew home to Chicago,” Damon says. “The next thing I know, the producer had taken the song to B.J. Thomas, and it became a big hit for him. I couldn’t believe it.”
It was just the beginning of Damon’s troubles. He had some financial problems with his lawyer, and after a change of leadership at the record company, Damon’s records were no longer promoted.
“That’s when I learned about politics,” he says. “Success in this business is who you know, timing, and who you know. Talent, you have to have some, but it’s not the most important thing.”
In the mid-’70s, Damon finally found his niche as a Chicago-based ballad singer. “Music changed,” he says. “Broadway petered out and you had bands like Kiss, all that wild stuff, and my world is like melting away from me. Chicago was the best one-nighter town because of the conventions, so I settled here.”
Damon is philosophical about the twists and turns in his career. “Out of all the stuff I’ve learned, the most important is, you gotta love what you do,” he says. “You can’t be a weekend warrior. You take the dice, throw it in the water, and for good or bad, that’s how you live your life.”
Damon will sing vintage tunes from the ’40s, ’50s and ’60s at Tuxedo Junction, 276 E. Irving Park Rd., Wood Dale, on Sunday as part of a dinner show package that begins at 7 p.m. Tickets are $38 and $41. The music begins at 8:30 p.m. Call 708-616-1505.
