“Vegas throat” is a term to describe the sore throats singers and entertainers used to get here all the time. When the Sands opened in the 50s, we were a small desert town. Sand and heat everywhere. Only a few hotels on the highway and desert all around them. Outside the Sands, when I started there, it was all desert. No buildings or roads or anything. Hot, hot heat and no moisture at all. Very, very dry. Only a few hotels had a swimming pool. A very dry and hot place to be.

The entertainers would come here from New York or Miami and have a hard time doing two shows a night. Some would last a week or so, some developed Vegas throat the night they opened. No moisture in the air all day and then working in a air conditioned room at night.

Sinatra did have trouble with this at times. It could get so bad that there would be no show. Many singers could not do the show and we had to bring in a replacement.

He told me that he always wanted to do a great show and do all the numbers that people wanted, but he needed to see if the voice was there. He talked like his "voice" sometimes had a mind of it's own. Sometimes there and sometimes not.

If you saw Sinatra in those days you might have seen times when the band would just start something and he would go over to Bill Miller and change it. A bit later ask for another song and Miller would realize it was going to be a "easy on the throat" show. Sinatra did many of them at the Sands.

There were times he couldn't go on at all.

Very tough for us in the casino. Replacing some entertainers is easy. Get someone who is good and in town and they can do the show. The audience usually goes along. Now replacing Sinatra is almost impossible.

Sinatra (my observation) seemed to have a lot of throat problems. We talked a lot about it. He seemed to almost study it in some way.

Frank felt he should always have something to drink on stage. He felt that even in other cities he needed something to keep his throat moist. He told me he had lost his voice a few times. I don't know when and and one time he thought he would never sing again. Again I never asked when this was.

He learned from doctors who specialize in throat stuff that he must never go onstage unless he warmed up and had some liquid to drink. He experimented with all kinds of things to drink. Tea, water, Jack Daniels, honey and warm water.

He talked with opera singers and stage actors a lot. He was fascinated with those that could speak from a stage to a full room without any mikes. He liked the strength of their voices but didn't want to sing like them. "I don't shout."

In the 60s he actually thought Jack Daniels was good for him. In the 70s he told me that was a mistake. He didn't like the different tea's he was trying either.

He told me a story of stopping in a "tiny little health food store" in Palm Springs and talking to a "strange guy" who gave him some tablets to suck on that "worked better" than anything he ever tried. "A few months later, I drive by to get some more and he is out of business. Go figure."

In the 60s Frank like to sweat in the steamroom in the afternoon. This is the steamroom at the Sands next to the pool that you hear so many stories about. Mainly because all the entertainers like to come over and sit and talk. Became a meeting place. Many comics would try out new jokes and routines there.

It was open to all hotel guests. So the entertainers would love trying out new stuff on them.

If Sinatra is in town, we would put the steamroom and the whole health club on hold each day till we would see what he would do. It was nothing like the HBO movie you saw. It was actually a small place. Had a room with a stationary bike and some weights and two massage tables and the steamroom.

Frank loved the steam and getting a massage. He would get one everyday if he could.

As he would say "I ain't going out in that dry air and burn up."

Frank had an interesting thought on some of the singers who got Vegas throat on opening nights. He felt it was really from them being nervous. He said the doctors taught him that if your scared or nervous that it constricted the blood flow in the throat. He said the doctors showed him proof of this.

The doctors also told him he shouldn't smoke. But Frank did it his way.

That's why Frank only did a few weeks here at a time. People always ask me if Sinatra was such a strong draw, why didn't we in the casino business book him longer. Well, now you know one of the reasons.

The other?
Well I'll give you a casino secret. You see when we bring Frank in, all the best gamblers come into town. They come to town and gamble day and night. In a week or two most of them are tapped out. And we don't want our top draw who gets paid a ton to be playing to people who are out of money. Let them go home and make some more.

So we didn't want Frank in for long engagements.

It's all about timing.