By ALAN SNEL
LVSportsBiz.com
His rich, classical-opera bass voice fills T-Mobile Arena, with anthem purists appreciating his no-nonsense, traditional style of delivering the Canadian and American national anthems before Vegas Golden Knights games when the rookie NHL team hosts clubs from north of the border.
In a town where nobody bats an eye when Paul Shaffer with a keyboard or an electric guitar player performs the national anthem at VGK games, Las Vegas-born and LV-raised Carnell Johnson has won the hearts of anthem traditionalists who are curious if the first-year team will have a go-to anthem singer for the playoffs like some other NHL clubs.
The 36-year-old Johnson has performed the American anthem four times (and the Canadian one three times) at Golden Knights game, and he keeps a Golden Knights lapel pin on his VGK scarf for each of the four on-ice appearances.
He’s now known as the “Golden Pipes” thanks to a Golden Knights jersey with the moniker on the back courtesy of the Vegas Knights Click fan group. LVSportsBiz.com’s pick as the Knights’ go-to anthem performer is the humble Sin City native, who even knows not to sing a particular word in the American anthem at T-Mobile Arena: “I usually let the crowd call out, ‘night.’ ”
Boom! Johnson is your playoff man.
Check out Johnson singing both Canadian and American anthems here.
National anthem singers have a special niche in the National Hockey League, which has seen some teams adopt go-to performers to belt out the Star-Spangled Banner (or God Bless America, and you know who I’m talking about). Rene Rancourt, a 78-year-old icon, is a Boston Bruins mainstay, while Philadelphia’s Kate Smith and her God Bless America were part of Flyers’ lore when Philly won back-to-back Cups in the mid-1970s. In Chicago, the go-to singer is Jim Cornelison.
The Golden Pipes brings Golden Knights wins most of the time. The team’s record is three wins and one loss when Johnson belts out the anthem.
Johnson, a classically-trained opera singer with a music education degree from UNLV, said he submitted a video showing him singing the national anthem to the Golden Knights and was called for tryouts with hundreds of other prospects in September.
“It shows my school training has paid off, especially in a town where people are geared for pop,” Johnson said.
Johnson said he receives notice from the Golden Knights to perform the anthem less than 24 hours before he sings it, including the day of games sometimes. He’s available just about for every home game (except Saturday night when the Knights play their last regular season home game.)
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His Golden Knights anthem fans like his direct rendition — and Johnson said that’s by design.
“I’m not there to entertain. I’m there to pay respect to the nation. I’m not there to make it drawn out,” Johnson said. “I’m there to pay homage the best I can. I know people are there because they want to see hockey and I don’t want to take anything away from that.”
There are hundreds of talented voices up and down the Strip, and Johnson’s can be counted among them. He sings as a gondola crooner at the Venetian.
He also works as an usher supervisor and audio descriptive technician at the Smith Center for the Performing Arts, while also giving private voice lessons.
The aspiring Broadway musical performer with his bass baritone quality said the national anthem lives up to its reputation as a challenging song to perform.
“Our national anthem is notorious for being difficult to sing. The first two stanzas are so similar. It almost sounds the same and it’s easy to mess up. You also need a decent range to sing it in key,” Johnson said.
Johnson, who also does community theater, said he receives two free tickets from the Golden Knights for performing, sitting about 20 rows off the ice behind one of the goals.
“I was not a hockey fan until we got our own NHL team. I’ve become a hockey fan overnight,” said Johnson, likely speaking for many Golden Knights fans.
Three of his four anthem performances include renditions of “O Canada” because the Golden Knights were hosting Canadian teams that day. And at the season start, Johnson said he did some serious Canadian anthem cramming with a Canadian friend.
“I really had to learn the Canadian one,” he said. “She talked me through it. I had to practice to sing it right and say it right. Now I sing it through muscle memory.”
He enjoys singing the anthem at Golden Knights games, and he hopes the big-league exposure might lead to a gig in the musical big leagues of Broadway in New York one day.
“Hopefully I can create something out of it,” he said.
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