The jaunty gent we came to know as Las Vegas’ oldest headliner has died.
Don “Pops” Friend, who played a nifty piano and sang a seemingly endless stream of classics, passed away Sunday at 96. Friend had been in hospice care at his Las Vegas home, suffering from effects of dementia, according to his son and veteran rock-music writer, Lonn Friend. “No pain. At peace,” Friend said in a text message. “He was ready to go.”
Dubbed the Sinatra of the Senior Set in a column from August 2024, Friend had for 30 years performed at senior living centers across Southern Nevada.
Pops’ final show would be that August ’24 performance, when he played for a couple dozen residents at Atria Seville senior living community. The venerable showman unfurled “Over The Rainbow,” “Fly Me to the Moon,” “New York, New York,” and “Straighten Up and Fly Right” in his hourlong set.
We were introduced to the elder friend on social media during the pandemic, as “Pop The Pandemic Piano Man.” The Instagram posts recorded by his son from December 2020 through June 2021 live on @popthepandemicpianoman.
Friend learned to play at age 4½, self-taught, in his hometown of Chicago. He attended Chicago Musical College, playing private parties. He earned a music degree with a major in piano from the private Roosevelt University, also in Chicago.
In the early ’50s, he moved to California, where his mother lived, and met up with Mike Riley, who had a hit with the novelty song “The Music Goes Round and Round.” One of their road gigs was at Golden Nugget, in those days just a casino with no hotel rooms.
Pops moved to Las Vegas in 1959 for ongoing gigs at El Cortez and the Fremont Hotel as a member of Tepper and Friend alongside comic Herbie Tepper. That act toggled with the Newton Brothers — Wayne Newton and his brother, Jerry — at the Fremont’s Carnival Lounge.
Pops formed his next band, The Five Chords, which played the Mint’s Merri-Mint Lounge. Pops was emcee and pianist for the four vocalists, who were inspired by the Lettermen.
Pops’ original run as a showman paused in the late 1960s, when he met one Sherry Jackson from Richmond, Virginia. They formed their own duo and moved to Sherry’s hometown. While living in Richmond, Pops worked as a salesman for Lawson Products hardware company and also gigged at local clubs at night up until retirement in 1994.
He and Sherry moved back to Las Vegas, where they lived in The Lakes and he starred in shows at such senior facilities as Grand Court on West Flamingo Road, Mira Loma Assisted Living Center on Wigwam, Silver Ridge Healthcare Center on Torrey Pines, Las Ventanas in Summerlin, The Cottages in Henderson, and finally Atria Seville.
“When I came back to Las Vegas, they were just starting to build all of these senior citizens homes, and that’s how I got hired,” said Pops, who first played piano interlude for the Happy Hoofers dance troupe of former showgirls. “I would play the intermission while they changed costumes. That’s how all this started.”
The generation-spanning piano man was a true natural.
“I found that other than lessons, I could play by ear,” Pops said. “So it has always come naturally to me.”
John Katsilometes’ column runs daily in the A section. Contact him at [email protected]. Follow @johnnykats on X, @JohnnyKats1 on Instagram.