Meet the Real Louie Patrizi & the Lovely Yer Veloz

Meet the Real LOUIE PATRIZI

MUSICIAN: DRUMMER AND SINGER &

THE LOVELY YER VELOZ

By Candice Wiener

Louie Patrizi was born in Chicago Heights, Illinois. Raised by his single mother, his journey began when she bought him his first drum set. Louie is impressively a self-taught drummer and vocalist and would play along to the top 40 rock and roll vinyls.

In an effort to make a career in music, his journey took him from Chicago to Los Angeles. His trio band opened the Playboy club and worked there for over a year. The Chicago scene offers a variety of clubs to work in addition to fairs and events throughout the

Midwest.

The Comedy Store on Sunset Strip was home to many artists where Louie shared the stage with Robin Williams, Jimmy Walker, Jay Leno, Sam Kenison and many others. Specific L.A. Clubs such as Club Lingerie, The Music Machine, Madame Wong’s East, and Madame Wong’s West were just a few places musicians would flock to to try to get their originals heard. The original scene was in Los Angeles where Louie was Tiny Tim’s drummer. Louie has a gold record to his credits, working with such greats as Jerry

Marcelino and the Merv Griffin band. Los Angeles is also where he did Liverpool on Tour, a Beatles tribute band, which took him to the Red River X show in Winnipeg Canada.

In Las Vegas, Louie played drums with 1 of the top Elvis shows at the Rivera for 4 years. Working at many of the casinos on the Las Vegas strip for over 20 years, also put him into contact with doing production shows for Kimberly Clark, Chorus Line, and Annie get your gun. In July of 2011, Louie was inducted into the Las Vegas Rock n Roll Hall of Fame. Vegas is also where he met Denny Lane helping him work on his originals.

had completely changed. Gone were the days of round the clock shifts in lounges. Louie says, “Back in the day you could work a day shift and a night shift where all casinos had lounges with live entertainment. My current performances have been as a single working with tracks. It’s afforded me the opportunity to sing Crooner songs, Oldies, Pop, Pop Rock by the Greats! Like Frank Sinatra, Englebert, Johnnie Mathis, Gene Pitney, and Mel Carter to name a few. With well over 100 songs singing a wide range of vocal styles. I am often asked if I am an impressionist or impersonator. I don’t consider myself either, just enjoy singing the tunes as the original artist did.”

Louie’s goals are to keep working doing what he loves to do. As a single, duo, or working with his 5-piece variety band, The Naturals, as a drummer and singer. “Having worked with many professionals here in Vegas, I have the ability to perform and put out the best for the listening audience.” Louie now performs live with a talented female singer named Z Veloz and they perform live at the German American Club.

Z’s full name is Yer Vue Veloz, but she goes by Z, which is short for “Zismus”, which means “Honey” in Hmong. Z was born in Laos and her nationality is Hmong. Her parents brought their family to the United States in 1980, when she was just 6 years old. She grew up in Spokane, WA. Z went on to tell us “Music has always been in my life. My father used to sing and play an instrument called “qeej”, it’s an instrument made of bamboo. My three brothers

all play guitars and two of them sing as well. I used to watch them play back in my younger days. I wished I had learned how to play the guitar, but I didn’t. I wanted to sing instead.”

In school Z loved and flourished in her music class. In the summer of 1992, Z recorded my first cassette of Hmong songs with her brother and cousin. She continues, “it was very cool! But sadly, that would be my last as well. Nevertheless, music has always been with me throughout my happy and sad days.”

“In 1997, I got married to an amazing man named John Veloz. He was also a musician. We have 4 beautiful children together; Aurora, Yanni, Ariella and James.” Z has never stopped singing even though she didn’t do any more recordings. “I sing whenever I can. It just so happened that about 7 months ago, I was hanging out with my girlfriends at Salud Mexican Bistro, and I met Louie Patrizi. It was Salud’s 1st karaoke night. I was there to support my friend Summer Rich and her restaurant. I got up to sing a few songs. When the song was over, I walked to my table and a man approached me and ask if I would like to sing a duet with him and I said sure. So, we sang a duet together and afterwards we introduced ourselves and I ask for his business card. His name is Louie Patrizi. Before the night was over Louie had asked me if I would like to perform some songs with him for the following Saturday at Salud. I said yes. I was beyond excited to be once again doing what I love and singing live music. From then on, we have been performing together and it’s been awesome singing songs that we both love and bringing memories back to everyone.