Bob Anderson

It is one thing to be called “The Best” by all the entertainment critics, but it is the ultimate to be called “The Best” by your peers. Such is the case for Bob Anderson, the personable entertainer that People Magazine named, “The Best Singing Impressionist in America.” Bob is not just an impressionist, he is a singer, a comic, a consummate entertainer. His appearances have taken him to the top venues around the world; Monte Carlo, Paris, Rome, London, Helsinki, Athens, Stockholm, Geneva, Zurich, Barcelona, Sydney, Dubai, as well as the elegant Plaza Hotel in New York City, and every major resort in Vegas, Reno,Tahoe, and Atlantic City. Bob has appeared on over 200 national television shows from Johnny Carson to David Letterman and all the rest. His foreign television appearances have allowed him to perform at the finest venues all over the world.

Anderson grew up in Warren Michigan, a suburb of Detroit with five brothers, two sisters and a mother and father who were all good singers and loved music as much as he himself. At the age of 14 Bob was one of four brothers singing harmony at all the local weddings and USO shows they could find. The Anderson brothers managed to get on a number of radio and television shows in the Detroit area. Many of his relatives on his mother’s side were accomplished musicians who worked the local bars and supper clubs around Detroit. By his senior year of high school, Bob started sitting in with his cousins on the week-ends in a few local clubs.

After graduating from High School, Anderson was drafted into the Vietnam War. He spent 14 months with the 4th Infantry Division as a Platoon Leader in the jungles of South Vietnam. The Vietnam experience left him a little confused and undecided about his future. But shortly after his return, Bob was offered a job to front a show band called "The Bobby Charles Show." Bob toured with the band from Alabama to New York in many of the supper clubs along the east coast. Shortly after that tour, Bob decided to leave the band and go it alone.

Anderson was a Vietnam veteran with long hair, open shirts and one huge peace-sign for a belt buckle. His exterior wasn’t so much a reflection of protest as it was inner turmoil over what to do with his future. Bob decided to get away for a while and took a drive out west. After 3 days of driving and sleeping in his old Volkswagon Bug, he wound up in Las Vegas. After being in Las Vegas for just a few days, he was in the right place at the right time. Bob met a journalist named Mark Tan who was a close friend of Nancy Sinatra. Mark took Bob to the Sahara Hotel to attend one of Nancy's rehearsals. As it turned out Nancy was looking for a singer to join the show. Bob asked if he could sing a song for Nancy. He sang and was offered the spot in her show. “It all happened so fast. I opened with Nancy at the Sahara Hotel, the very same evening I met her. I didn’t even have any charts. That same afternoon, Billy Strange, Nancy’s conductor and a producer for a number of her father’s works, wrote a couple charts for me to sing for that evenings show. Nancy introduced me as a Vietnam Veteran who she had just met. The audience response was overwhelming! After a week at the Sahara, she took me on tour with her and I got the feeling that I was actually in show business.”

A couple of weeks later, Nancy took the young singer with her for his first appearance on The Merv Griffin Show. She told the story of how they met and Bob sang a song. One week later, Paul Anka brought Bob back on Griffin’s show and told Merv he was going to work with Bob and help develop his career. "After my second appearance on his show, Merv took me aside and told me I needed an act before returning to the show.” Griffin told the young singer, “We like you, but you have to have a reason for being on the show. You have to have a hit record, or be in the movies, or write a book, or something!” That was his last appearance on Merv’s show for about 2 years.

Following his stint with Nancy Sinatra, Bob moved back to Detroit for a short time and then east to New York where he lived in Manhattan, studied voice, and hung out in the local jazz clubs before moving to Los Angeles. While in Los Angeles, Joan Rivers offered Bob a job opening for her at the top spot in Beverly Hills, a small nightclub called, "The Ye’ Little Club." After that engagement Bob moved to "The Plaza Four" in Century City for a 6 month run. One evening Merv Griffin stopped by to catch Bob’s performance. The talk show host invited Bob to his home for a party. “This was when Merv Griffin was Mr. Hollywood. There had to be 300 people at his home. It was a who’s who of show biz giants.”

“At one point, Merv sat down at the piano and asked me to sing a couple of songs with him. Not many people were paying attention. It was just a huge party and there were a lot of things going on. I started singing and out of nowhere I started singing the songs like the people who made them famous. That was very easy to me because that is how I learned to sing. Growing up I would listen to the best singers of the day and sing along with them day after day. I thought if I could sound close to anyone of them it would be great. I never did impressions of anyone in my life. Within 10 minutes you could hear a pin drop on the carpet and I was taking requests. You see at the time all the impressionists in show business were doing actors and politicians, no one was doing singing impressions of the greats. Bobby Darin and Sammy Davis Jr. performed a short bit of singing impressions in their shows that were caricatures of their friends.” Merv turned to me and said, "We found your act! You're gonna be The Singing Impressionist!"

The next day, Merv Griffin wrote a 6 minute piece for Bob and brought the newly labeled impressionist back to Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas for his next taping. Merv introduced the young man as “The Singing Impressionist.” On that show, Bob performed his impressions of Andy Williams, Steve Lawrence, Sammy Davis Jr., Tom Jones and Johnny Mathis. The audience gave the new young impressionist a standing ovation and his career was off and running.

After seeing that performance, Johnny Carson requested an appearance on his late night show. His first time on The Tonight Show, Bob did a record 15 minute spot and received one of the few standing ovations in the history of the show. That first appearance was on a Monday. Johnny was so impressed he invited Bob back for another appearance on Thursday, just three days latter. Bob is the only entertainer to appear as a guest twice in the same week on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. This made Bob a regular on the TV talk show circuit.

With all this television exposure, the Dune’s Hotel in Las Vegas offered Anderson a 2 week contract at The Top of the Dunes. That engagement turned into 156 weeks of sold out performances. Bob added a late night show at 2 in the morning that became a hangout for the Vegas stars. Nightly, the biggest names in show business would drop by to enjoy each others company and most evenings join Bob on stage. Bob performed at the Dune's Hotel 40 weeks a year for the next 12 years and it became the “In” spot in Vegas.

After the Dunes, Bob started working with all the major stars in Las Vegas like; Johnny Carson, Bill Cosby, George Burns, Don Rickles, Joan Rivers, Jerry Lewis, Dom DeLuise, Sammy Davis Jr., Shirley Bassey, Shirley MacLaine, Lola Falana and many others. With all his acclaim, it is no surprise, when in January of the new Millennium, the Las Vegas Review Journal (Nevada’s largest daily newspaper) asked its readers to name their all-time favorite performers of the last 50 years. Anderson came in at number 12, smack in between Barbra Streisand and Ray Charles. Here is the list of the top 20:

1. Frank Sinatra, 2. Sammy Davis Jr., 3. Dean Martin, 4. Tom Jones, 5. Elvis Presley, 6. Paul Anka, 7. Johnny Mathis, 8. Andy Williams, 9. Wayne Newton, 10. Tony Bennett, 11. Barbra Streisand, 12. Bob Anderson, 13. Ray Charles, 14.Liberace, 15. Jimmy Durante, 16. Tony Orlando, 17. Judy Garland, 18. Robert Goulet, 19. Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme, 20. Shecky Green. 

In 2002, Bob was inducted into the Casino Legends Hall of Fame in Las Vegas.

Throughout his carrier, Bob has been asked to perform at many of the most elegant Black Tie events in show business; the Friar’s Club Roasts for Kirk Douglas, Jimmy Stewart, Gregory Peck, President Ford, Tony Bennett, Milton Berle and others. Bob headlined the Friars Club’s 50th Anniversary in Beverly Hills. Other performances included the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York for an audience of world leaders and dignitaries in a special dinner for Henry Kissinger, a number of engagements at New York’s favorite hangout, The Tavern On The Green, a performance for the Kennedy Center Awards in Washington D.C., and 6 Holiday seasons from Thanksgiving to Christmas Eve, at the world famous Plaza Hotel in New York City.

Bob has a thousand family members and friends back in Michigan where he married his high school sweetheart, Karen. They have two children, Carrie and Matt. In 2004, Bob and Karen relocated to Branson Missouri where he appears 6 months of the year at The Dick Clark American Bandstand Theatre in “Club 57" Branson’s only supper club. Four other months of the year he is on tour. Carrie and Matt moved on to South Carolina.

Bob Anderson is one of a handful of nightclub entertainers left in show business. His show is a tribute to the composers, arrangers, musicians and singers of "The Golden Age of Music." Catch him at one of the top night spots around the world. And don’t be surprised when the lights come up, if you’re sitting next to Tony Bennett or Tom Jones.