Angel D'Antona is always telling her staff on show nights to dim the restaurant's lights. Gary Richman and Kevin Muldrow deserve a little mood lighting for their floor show in the main room at Franco Zeppi's. The only room, actually.
Richman sings Frank Sinatra. Muldrow sings Nat "King" Cole. Richman is a stockbroker in Baltimore. Muldrow is a cab driver in Baltimore. They met at the intersection of Interstate 83 and Fayette Street. True story.
They became partners in music. Their act inspires couples to rise from vinyl booths and dance around carryout customers who must think they have entered a parallel universe headlined by crooning, middle-aged guys in tuxedos who sing "Unforgettable" three times a night if the requests move them.
Little does most of Baltimore know, but Richman and Muldrow have formed for Charm City their own version of a mini-Rat Pack.
"They are a trip, aren't they?" says D'Antona, as Richman winds up a recent show with "High Hopes." Muldrow is having his complimentary meal of orange roughy, but there's some question whether his partner will ever stop singing and eat. The microphone appears affixed to Richman's hand.
"He'll be singing until the stock market goes up," as Muldrow says during the show.
Well, the market is way closed by 9:30 p.m. Richman sings to people as they leave the restaurant. "Fly Me to the Moon," "I Got You Under My Skin," "For Once in My Life," "The Way You Look Tonight" and "New York, New York" (of course, of course) - and, yes, drop the ironic quotation marks because these aren't just song titles to these guys. They believe in this stuff.
Welcome to the surreal nights at Franco Zeppi's "No Frills" Italian restaurant in Canton - or similar evenings at Avanti Restaurant in Jessup or Cantina Mamma Lucia in Hanover. Since hooking up last summer, the stockbroker and cabbie have expanded their venues, singing at weddings, country clubs and a shopping mall in Finksburg. But they always go back to Franco Zeppi's, where on one recent Friday night, a 90-year-old Italian man danced with just about every woman in the joint. Elvis came back, too.
It was wild, perfectly wild, and so novel you don't know whether going a second time will spoil the novelty of "The Singing Stockbroker," as Richman bills himself.
There is nothing like your first time.
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