According to local entertainment scribe Mike Weatherford, the new ownership at the Sahara is trying to re-up with promoter Larry Marshak‘s ersatz Platters/Coasters/Marvelettes act. Thanks to the byzantine histories of these groups and their ever-rotating membership, sufficient loopholes have existed for Marshak to peddle a variety of impostor bands hither and yon.
The groups whose identities Marshak counterfeits have the common root of being ones whose members were largely anonymous to the public and were comprised of African Americans and a time when the latter were second-class citizens, with little means of recourse. The impostor act at the Sahara perpetuates a shameful history of exploitation. Current casino owner Sam Nazarian has a chance to either break with this sharecropper business or become complicit in it. Deplorably, it looks like he’s opting for Door #2.
Chip off the old block. If you go to www.billyung.com, you’ll find the son of Columbia Sussex CEO William J. Yung III striking out on his own, starting with an Osage Beach, Missouri resort. My favorite page is this one. No, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, does it? Maybe the Web site designers were too busy puffing around Columbia Sussex HQ on the elder Yung’s miniature choo-choo train (see end of story).
