Carnell Johnson. Golden Knights’ fan favorite. Photo: Courtesy

By Norm Clarke

Carnell Johnson, the Vegas Golden Knights’ popular national anthem singer, knows something about skating on thin ice.

Before the Covid-19 pandemic, his main job for the past eight years was as supervisor of ushers at the Smith Center for the Performing Arts. For the last three years his voice has made him a fan favorite at Golden Knights’ games.

All that was put on pause when the virus hit in mid-March. The Smith Center job vanished and the National Hockey League may not start until February.

Like most everyone else in town, he’s worried about his future and desperate to find new ways to pay the bills.

Seven months into the pandemic, he’s working on a backup plan.

‘I’m studying to be a personal trainer,” said Johnson, a 2000 graduate of Green Valley High School and UNLV.

“I’m a very avid gym goer. After going five days a week, it was really hard personally for me until they opened back up.”

His main income for now comes from belting out classic Italian songs three to five hours a day as one of the now-stationery gondoliers at The Venetian’s Grand Canal. 

He was part of a weekly trio that performed at a Downtown Henderson restaurant. But that disappeared, too.

"It’s a whole new ballgame,” he said.

One of his oddest jobs in recent months: A Spanish couple booked Johnson and two other performers to sing at their zany wedding at a downtown chapel.

The couple, in their 60s, wanted the full Las Vegas wedding experience. The groom dressed as Elvis and the bride as Marilyn Monroe. Their wedding party included a man dressed as Dorothy in the “Wizard of Oz” and others wore “crazy blue and green wigs and crazy outfits,” Johnson said.

“We had a five-song set, most of them Elvis standards. The only English spoken was the songs,” he added.

He’s been pursued to host a virtual Zoom Happy Hour but declined because “I had no clue how to do it. I just got an offer to sing for a virtual conference.’.

“It’s definitely going to be hard to bounce back from this,” he said. “The other struggles we had didn’t affect the economy as long as this. Maybe a couple of months. Some people aren’t even back to work yet. Me being one of them!”

Some fast facts:

-- He grew up in Las Vegas and found himself involved in music early. “My mom had cassette tapes and would sing along to Cyndy Lauper and Wham. I would sing along with her. I was five or six years old.

-- “In the seventh grade, my middle school teacher was a friend of my mom’s and he kept nudging me toward music. I got into choir.”

--Johnson’s stocky build got the attention of a football coach and “he tried to get me to go out every single year,” said Johnson, now nearly six foot and 220 pounds. “I wanted to sing.”

-- Once he started singing in choir, he was recruited by one of better middle school choirs in the state. Once I got into high school I started getting solos.”

-- “People started likening me to Pavarotti,” the famed Italian operatic tenor, he said. When Johnson discovered he shared the same birth date with Pavarotti (Oct. 12), “people said that’s got to be a sign.”

--His big break? “I was auditioning here and there, not getting anywhere. I was a community performance singer: Super Summer Theater, the Summerlin library. Nothing big until 2018 when Fox 5 TV sent out a social media release with information about a Golden Knights audition. Thousands sent in submissions. They chose over 600 for the live audition. He was among several who were picked to sing for home games. “They kept asking me back and they kept winning. And the crowd responded positively to the way I sing.”

-- A funny thing happened after his big voice impressed Golden Knights fans. “I started to become the most requested gondolier. I don’t row anymore. I have a standard list of 10 songs; and every six months we’re supposed to learn two more. I’m probably at 25 to 30 now.”

--His most memorable gondola occupant? Actress Jennifer Love Hewitt. “It was her birthday. Me and another guy played rock, paper, scissors to see who was going to give her a ride.” 

--The best day during the pandemic? “My daughter, Kyree, turned eight in early may and we obviously couldn’t have a birthday party so we wanted to do something special. I asked my friend, a retired New York firefighter, if he could bring by a fire truck or a police squad car, with the siren running. They closed off the street and here comes five or six fire trucks, the same amount of squad cars and three ambulances. My daughter was overwhelmed. She kept saying, ‘I love it, I love it.’”

— One of the biggest celebrities he has met? Broadway star Norm Lewis “is a big favorite of mine, a big hero. I met him at the Smith Center and got to pick his brain. I was getting ready to play Javert in 'Les Miz' at Hamm Hall right after I got out of college. He was really nice and helped me get into the mindset of who Jevert is. He was Javert in the 25th anniversary of the concert version."