Marianne Phoenix Finds a Lifetime of Stories in Singin’ From My Soul
By Debbie Hall
For Marianne Phoenix, Singin’ From My Soul is a chance to turn a lifetime of music, memories, and experience into one intimate evening onstage.
After decades of performing in Las Vegas, Marianne has built the show around 15 songs that speak to love, life, and the experiences that have shaped her. The selections are personal, but she hopes the emotions behind them will resonate beyond her own story.
"Feels like I’m alive again!” Marianne says. “Once a performer, always a performer!”
Marianne is producing the show herself, giving her the freedom to make musical choices and shape the evening around her vision.
Asked why now was the right time to create the production, she answers with characteristic honesty. “I am going to give you a straight answer here!” she says. “Because I had enough money to produce my show and that’s a first!”
The result is a program carefully considered rather than quickly assembled. Marianne spent a year choosing the 15 songs she felt could best communicate what she wanted to say.
"It took me a year to decide which ones will be the very best to deliver my message of what life means to me,” she says.
The title Singin' From My Soul describes Marianne’s approach to music. Singing, she says, has always been another language for her—a way to communicate what words alone cannot.
"Singin' from my soul… singing is my second language and I have so much to say from everything that I’ve learned and loved in my life,” she explains.
Marianne has been performing since 1971 and remains especially drawn to the lush, sophisticated sounds of 1970s soft pop and cabaret.
"My heart lies in the lush, love songs of days gone by,” she says.
That musical sensibility began at home. Her parents loved music and dancing, while her mother was a singer during the World War II era.
"I was exposed to gorgeous music through my parents who loved music, loved dancing,” Marianne says. “My mother was a fine singer back in the World War II days.”
More than five decades of life have changed the way Marianne hears those songs. Material she has performed for years now carries meanings shaped by relationships, love and experience.
"With so much experience of life these days and the depths of love in my life, there are many songs that I sang forever in a day and was very inspired by them,” she says.
She adds, “I could’ve never imagined love growing so much deeper and more meaningful. And now the songs are truly vital messages that I want to be remembered by.”
Rather than simply reproducing songs from another era, Marianne brings them forward through her own experiences and perspective.
Las Vegas has been an important part of that journey.
"Las Vegas is home,” she says. “I met the love of my life here. My grandchildren were born here, my friends and fellow performers from my era, most are still around, and they mean the absolute world to me!”
Her connection to music is shared with her husband, Whitney Phoenix, who is celebrating 28 years as a pianist at Bellagio. Whitney serves as the musical director and arranger for Singin’ From My Soul, making the production a collaboration between two performers whose lives have long revolved around music.
"It has been my complete honor and remains to be the wife of the Las Vegas Piano man!” Marianne says. “He plays those 88 keys straight from his heart and out his fingers! Bellagio is home for us.”
She describes Whitney as “this extraordinary, loving, and talented man,” adding that his work as musical director and arranger brings his creativity into every aspect of the show.
For Marianne and Whitney Phoenix, the occasion feels like a double rainbow for two Las Vegas performers. As Marianne presents Singin' From My Soul, Whitney celebrates his 28th year performing beneath Bellagio’s iconic Chihuly glass ceiling.
Asked whether being onstage again has reminded her of anything she had forgotten about herself, Marianne offers a characteristically direct response.
"My honest answer is no,” she says. “I have always known who I am and it sure is good to be back!”
That confidence comes through in the material. Marianne isn't attempting to recreate an earlier version of herself. She is presenting songs that have remained meaningful while allowing their significance to reflect who she is today.
“I am absolutely grateful for the opportunity to shine again,” Marianne says.
“Seriously, it’s my story,” she says. “And I am certain that it is also the story of every member in my audience.”
That connection is ultimately what Marianne hopes to create: a space where familiar songs can evoke personal memories and where her experiences become a point of connection with the people listening.
“It’s going to be a show like no other,” she says.
After more than five decades as a performer, Marianne has spent a lifetime collecting songs and stories. With Singin’ From My Soul, she brings them together in an evening that is unmistakably her own.
And, as the title promises, she is singing it from her soul.
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