Toronto jazz crooner Matt Dusk was all set to hit the big-time in 2004 when he was co-starring in the Mark Burnett-produced FOX-TV reality series, The Casino, set in The Golden Nugget in downtown Las Vegas.
But then the show fizzled out, and the hotel owners had sold the casino within the year.
Dusk's 2004 debut disc, Two Shots, still reached gold status on the success of the hit single, Two Shots of Happy, One Shot of Sad (written by Bono and The Edge of U2), and he continued to play gigs on and off in Sin City over the next three years until he released a follow-up album, 2006's Back In Town.
He eventually sold his Las Vegas condo and only returned home full-time earlier this year when he bought a west-end home with his girlfriend, Julita, just down the street from his parent's house.
"I'm glad to be back here," said Dusk, 30, an admitted gambler who liked to play craps. "It's fun (in Vegas) but it gets tiring. It's like being at a party all the time. It's a blur because when you're thrown into it, it's blinding."
Two albums later -- Back In Town's title track also became a No. 1 pop hit in Japan -- Dusk has decided to mix things up a bit on his third studio album, Good News (in stores next Tuesday).
The new disc features a more contemporary take on the production, Dusk's involvement as co-writer of three songs, and about half of the tunes are previous No. 1 hits from other countries.
Dusk said he was motivated to make the overall change, the bonus track is still the standard, One For My Baby, after getting more positive feedback on the original songs as opposed to the jazz standards from his previous albums. "I always wanted to make a whole record of that," said Dusk.
