LIFE IS A CABARET ONE MORE TIME

In 1952 Dolores Finch took her first job as a cabaret entertainer, playing the piano and singing at The Prime Rib in St. Louis, a supper club where professional wrestler George "K.O." Koverly greeted guests at the door.

Her name was Dolores Drewes then, and she was playing the piano to help support her three small children. In 1961, she was divorced and the mother of five when noted Cape Girardeau attorney Lehman Finch asked the gregarious Drewes to marry him and move to Cape Girardeau.

Lehman Finch died in 1991, just as they were preparing for their 30th anniversary. During all these years, she has never played professionally again, though occasionally sitting in at the piano bar on Friday nights at "The Petit," the long-ago nickname for the restaurant now called the Royal N'Orleans.

With a big personality and a laugh that throws her head back, you imagine Finch being entertaining whatever she's doing. Now the cabaret singer is coming out of retirement May 13 in a fund raiser for the River Heritage Museum.

She has missed being an entertainer. "When (they) asked me, (they) didn't have to ask twice," she said, laughing.

Finch will perform at 8 p.m. May 13 at the Cape Girardeau Country Club. She will be accompanied by bassist Joe Blackwell and percussionist Steve Williams.

Admission is $20 per person. Reservations can be made by phoning 334-3802.

Finch grew up in St. Louis and was giving piano lessons when she realized she could make more money performing. She joined the musicians union and was sent to her first job -- a tavern. "I didn't even stay there," she said. "I told them (the union) I didn't even go into those kind of places."

Despite the wrestler greeter, The Prime Rib was a big improvement. So were the other clubs she played at in Gaslight Square, the city's primary entertainment district then.

In the piano bars of fine supper clubs like Mr. D's, the Victorian Club or the Crystal Palace she'd play popular tunes from the '30s, '40's and '50s. In the beginning she only played piano but soon found herself singing.

All those clubs have been razed by now.

She met Lehman Finch while playing one of the clubs.

"Everybody hands you a line," she says. "He was very gentlemanly." When they married he adopted her children.

She liked the atmosphere of the St. Louis supper clubs. "It was very invigorating," she said. Liberace and Julius LaRosa were among the performers who came in.

People didn't act up often in such nice clubs. When they did she had a technique for handling them.

"I'd stand up and say, I'm singing to you," she said, throwing her head back and laughing one more time.