‘His energy was unmatched’: Al Latta, longtime Kansas City nightclub singer, dies at 73

For more than two decades, Al Latta put on a sequined jacket, shiny shoes, and an immodest amount of jewelry and made his way to the Crossroads bar The Cigar Box, where five nights a week he was the star of the show.

Latta was old school. His smoky voice piped out Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Neil Diamond, Elvis. He did impressions of Porky Pig and James Cagney. He drove Corvettes. He was constantly flirting with and serenading the female customers, often at the same time. He wrote a screenplay based on his life called “When Everything Is Not Enough.”

The man whose business cards said “Al Latta, The King of K.C.” died on Monday. The cause was a pulmonary embolism, his son Michael Mohfanz said. He was 73.

“He’d had triple bypass surgery last month and was recovering at home, then was rushed to the emergency room last week after being unable to breathe,” Mohfanz said. “He had a blood clot, and it went to his heart, and that’s what ended up killing him.”

Latta grew up in Manhattan, sang in New Jersey nightclubs and eventually joined the Marines, Mohfanz said. In 1981 Latta became a member of a late-era lineup of the doo-wop band The Duprees. He left the group in the mid-1980s and struck out on his own as a singer.

“I had enough of doing backup,” he told The Pitch in 2005. “I wanted to be known for myself.”

He toured the country, performing Rat Pack standards in smoke-filled clubs and lounges. Latta eventually met a singer from Kansas and settled down in Topeka, where he took a job laying carpet. He continued to sing here and there at private parties and corporate events. Danny Accurso, owner of the Overland Park nightclub Touche, booked Latta to perform a couple times a week starting in 1998.

“He was a showman, a great entertainer, and an old soul,” Accurso said. “The type of guy who should have been living back in the ’50s.”

Cigar Box owner John Pisciotta poached Latta from Touche in 2000, offering him a full-time singing gig every Tuesday through Saturday night. Latta soon married a waitress from the bar, Darlene Leto. They had a son and divorced four years later. (Al had another son, Kristopher, from a previous relationship.)

“I’ve been going to the Cigar Box since before I could walk,” Mohfanz said. “My dad would have me memorize songs and perform them. He created this electric world for himself there. His energy was unmatched. The women couldn’t get enough of him. He was a guy who was always making you laugh, always had the spotlight on him, but he could also make you feel like the most important person in the world.”

Latta had scaled back his schedule in recent years, but he was still performing several nights a week until July, when he visited the doctor with heart pains and was told he’d need to undergo the triple bypass. Mohfanz said the nurse who put Latta under anesthesia for the procedure told him that Latta serenaded her until he drifted off.

A celebration of Latta’s life is planned for next week at the Cigar Box, but a firm date hasn’t yet been set. On Wednesday evening, the place was quiet and nearly pitch-black, with just a few customers seated at the bar drinking in the darkness. The bartender on duty, Natalie, a 12-year veteran of the Cigar Box, said she wasn’t sure what they’d do now without Latta singing the hits to their customers. (Pisciotta, the owner, did not respond to messages from The Star.)

“It’s weird, him being gone,” she said, pausing for several seconds to catch her breath. “It’s just weird.”

Opposite the bar, in the shadows, Latta’s stage sat eerily empty — just a table, a tall Crown Royal throne, his sound system, and a few chairs on which he’d sometimes stand while belting out “Brown Eyed Girl,” say, or “Fly Me to the Moon.” For more than 20 years, downtown bargoers came to see Latta put on a show, and for more than 20 years, he delivered. Now the show was over.

“I’m a singer, and I live alone,” Latta told The Star in 2004. “I gotta get out at night.”