Kurt Decker: From NBC Cameraman to Sinatra Showman

Kurt Decker spent 25 years behind the camera at NBC capturing some of television’s most iconic moments—but one spontaneous performance of “That’s Life” changed everything. In this episode of The Progress Report, Kurt shares how a dare at a New York bar led to a Las Vegas performance and eventually a thriving second career performing the music of Frank Sinatra in Times Square. It’s a story about reinvention, creative risk, and discovering that sometimes the spotlight is exactly where you’re meant to be. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

I'm Jessica Curtis, and this is the Progress Report, a show about real people making real change across America. Today's guest has lived two incredible creative lives, one behind the camera and one center stage. For 25 years, Kurt Decker was camera one at NBC, working on some of the most iconic late night shows in television. But his story doesn't stop there. These days, Kurt is bringing timeless music back to life in New York City with his songs of Sinatra performances, sharing the classics of Frank Sinatra and other legendary artists with packed rooms in Times Square and beyond. Kurt, thank you so much for joining us today on the Progress Report. So happy to have you here.

SPEAKER_03 0:44

My pleasure. Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_00 0:45

Absolutely. So you you spent 25 years behind the camera on some of the biggest television shows in history. What was the moment you realized you didn't just want to capture performers? You wanted to become one.

SPEAKER_03 1:01

Uh, well, you know, I before I ever had a camera in my hand, I was, I I guess I was brought up in an entertainment family. My father played the piano multiple instruments. Mom was a dancer. We, you know, I grew up going to playing in the church choir, in the school choirs, uh, learned to play piano at a very early age, and um was involved in the school musicals and the and the church had its own uh uh musicals and shows, so I was involved with those and uh really enjoyed it thoroughly. I I never really, you know, I I didn't think I was gonna ever make it a career, um, but it was certainly fun and I I it was part of my upbringing, so it wasn't too far fetched. Right. Um but yeah, I I got I got a camera in my hand at a very early age. My father was a f uh amateur photographer, and then if you're from Port Jervis, you know that Rich Tarbell was the like the local photographer, and I was sort of he took me under his wing and taught me everything about photography, and he had uh quite a portfolio between his local stuff, but he was also a Vietnam War photographer, so he had some really amazing uh experiences and photographs from that. And um, yeah, I really enjoyed being behind the camera. It was fun in school, you know, everybody wanted to have their picture taken, whether they were uh sports or musical or just anybody. You have somebody taking a picture of you, oh maybe I'll get in the yearbook or maybe I'll get on the the the paper for the day. And so I enjoyed it. It was fun to cover it. The technical aspect was fun to learn because nowadays everybody just picks up their phone and click and you have a picture. You can immediately take it over again. Back then we used to have to roll our own film, develop our own film, print our own film, and so it was a it was a whole different uh different experience.

SPEAKER_00 3:00

Absolutely. Well, and it it's it it's an art because you're talking you're talking about cameras. My you know, I I got into doing producing on the radio side because I love the behind the scenes stuff. But when I started in radio in in Manhattan, we were still cut and tape. So I yeah, it's it's a a lost art now because everybody is so easy to just type a few buttons and tell the computer what to do and it's come a long way for sure. It has, it has. So take us back to that night in New York when you were dared to sing That's Life and eventually ended up performing it in Las Vegas. Did did you have any idea that that one moment would really change your trajectory?

SPEAKER_03 3:50

Yeah, so um just to be clear, like there's a bunch of moments that are saying that's life. Yeah, how how how when I would go to karaoke with friends, I found that I loved That's Life. I I remember David Lee Ross doing a version of it, and then of course it's a Frank Sinatra song, and I enjoyed it. I think it's a funny, it's a great song. It brings p people to a moment in their life, and it really is about the saying that's life. So when I I I would sing it at karaoke, and then I would sing it at my when I was working at NBC, there was a local bar that I was a patron in called the Playwright Tavern. That's where I sing now. But back when I was just a patron there, I would go there, I would have lunch, have drinks after the show, and then I would be sitting in the corner, and then I would just stand up, and the bartenders knew me, they would turn the music down, and I would start singing That's Life to the Bar. And I would, by the end of it, you people were like, uh pick myself up and get back in the race. You know, the whole bar was screwed. So I was known to do that. I was known to do that from patrons and um Frank who also owned the bar. So cut to uh 2017, I I my career at NBC was over. I was at the bar in 2018 with my with uh my brother, and uh we were just having drinks, and one of the women who's a regular at at Playwright said, Come down here and meet my friend Lee. So I went down and said, Hey Lee. Uh she goes, they worked together in the same field. It was like a corporate housing group, and they were having their big annual meeting out in Vegas. He goes, I hear you sing Frank Sinatra. I said, Yeah, he goes, Can you sing something for me? I said, Sure, what do you want to hear? And he said, That's life. Of course, that's the easiest song for me to sing. Um, considering Frank sang like 1200 songs for him to pick the one. Um, but I sang, I sang an a cappella to him and he goes, What are you doing next week? I said, Why? He goes, You want to fly to Vegas, sing at our corporate conference? I'm like, Absolutely. And at that point, my trajectory uh significantly changed. I I had to think about what I was doing. What how how was I gonna pull this off? How was I gonna get you know the backing tracks and the music and and know enough because this wasn't just about going to sing one song, this was doing a show, basically. And so I I I pulled it off. I went out to Vegas. It was an interesting experience, to say the least. There was a guy who was Dean Martin impersonated there, too, that I was like hanging out with a little bit, and then uh did my show. And that that company actually has booked me for years and years since then. I mean, for different corporate gigs, online events when during the pandemic, I would show up on their on their feed, their weekly like corporate feed. They'd have all the people, you know how they everybody was doing Zoom meetings back then, nobody was actually getting together. And I was like the little entertainment portion of their Zoom meeting. It was fun making a cocktail, singing a song, sitting, playing the piano. Um, so that that moment was was the moment that really shifted because I when I was a kid and I had like in high school, I had a stage band, and we we did some gigs, local gigs, for like I don't know whether it was the BPW or the Lions or whatever it was. But they would pay us to play at their gig. And but since then I had never had it, and that was you know, their kids maybe they throw us a hundred bucks or whatever. But to have a guy come up and say, Listen, I'm gonna pay you and fly you out to Las Vegas to sing, that was a whole new can of worms. And and it and I didn't I because I had taken a little bit of time to think about what I was doing, and I wasn't sure. Uh and so that that sort of presented itself as a whole new offering for me of what I could possibly do down the road. Because I still at that point, even that point, I wasn't sure I was gonna be doing it as a regular. It was okay, this is a one-off kind of thing, fun. Let me see. It went really well, it was received very well, and so I I was luckily I was able to uh parlay it into what became a but like a second career. Which is amazing. Yeah, um that's really I mean the guy who owned the bar, Frank, who still owns the bar, him and I had been friends for 30 years. The playwright's been there for 31 years, I think. And I went, I started going there just a little after it opened. And so he knew me as the guy who would sit in the corner and stand up and sing that's life. And so I was sitting with him uh in 2021, and I had, you know, I I did that gig in Vegas, I did a couple of gigs, I I was like just trying to sit around and figure out where I was going with my what direction I was going in. And then he said to me, he says, Why don't you come in here and do your Frank Sinatra act? Uh and I'm like, you know, it's I didn't really consider it an act, but I was like, okay, you know what? Give me like six weeks to learn enough material to put a show on. And I did, and it I went in there on a Sunday. It was uh extremely well received, and he called me up that Monday and said, Hey, let when can you get together this week? Let's sit down and talk about you doing this on the regular. And I met him on that Wednesday and we chatted about what I needed because it was about getting gear and what's he paying me and what benefits, blah, blah, blah, and what days, and and then we sort of hammered it all out, and now I'm going into my fifth year singing at the playwright. And it really has it really has um transformed me and transformed my my what what I what I used to do as far as a show and what I'm doing now are very different. I mean, I feel like if you take the basketball to the court enough, you're eventually gonna you're eventually gonna become a decent player. Uh maybe shoot a few three-point shots, you know?

SPEAKER_02 10:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 10:01

And so doing it for three, four days a week for five years, it's really I I've gotten, I've honed my skill, so to speak. Um and even like my online presence from whether it be my in my Instagram post and how I I've how I've tried to figure out how to get more dru basically drum up more business through that. It's really not, you know, a lot of people are like, oh, you you do you you've got a cool Instagram. Yeah, but the whole point of that was just to drive people into the bar to come see me, giving the bar more business, giving me more business. It's like I do a I do an Eventbrite for my show as well. That's something I had sort of had to navigate that I hadn't really figured out, but it brings quite a quite a few people in. They they people come to New York or they're gonna plan to come to New York and they go on Eventbrite and they're looking for things to do. And when you when you're looking for music acts and you click the free category, because I I don't my tickets are there's you get tickets for the show, but they're not they don't cost you anything. But it's just bringing people in and the awareness of of a show because there are other people that do Frank Sinatra, but you know, you're gonna spend fifty or a hundred dollars just on tickets, and yeah, they have bands, and that's nice, but you know, not everybody has that budget, and it's and and it and there's different, you know, there's a different way of doing everything. I mean, I could say give a guitar to six different musicians and say play the song, and they're all gonna do it a little differently. Absolutely. Absolutely. So I think we're all you we're all unique in our in in whether whether it be our shows, our presentation, uh, our audience, our delivery. I mean so it's uh it's a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_01 11:45

Every week we find the stories worth sharing and remind you that America is still moving forward. Thanks for listening to the progress report.