Gino Vannelli plays Vegas on his own terms

In the late ’70s, it was easy to foresee a long Vegas future for Gino Vannelli, belter of big, slinky and soulful love songs wrapped in a wild mane of hair and little-used shirt buttons.

Ah, but Vannelli turned out to be an artist more than a showman, and a cult figure more than a nostalgia act.

“An artist is a man, a human being, before he’s an artist,” Vannelli, 62, said back in 2007. “When they forget that, they become some kind of parody, some kind of wound-up, cranked-up toy other people are manipulating.

“Pretty soon,” he added, “you have nothing left to say to people. You mean nothing to people except maybe some kind of nostalgic icon.”

So, no blast-from-the-past tours for the Canadian singer, and likely not enough demand for someone to impersonate him in “Legends in Concert.”

You’ll have to stick to the toned-down, present-tense version of Vannelli on Saturday at Green Valley Ranch Resort if you want to hear hits such as “I Just Wanna Stop,” “Black Cars” and “Living Inside Myself.”

Contact reporter Mike Weatherford at mweatherford@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0288.