COMEDY : SINGING SONGS AND BEING SILLY : Finis Henderson Thinks Variety Is the Wave of the Future

Close your eyes during a Finis (rhymes with “highness”) Henderson show and you’ll swear you’re listening to Sammy Davis, or Nat King Cole or Johnny Mathis, or any of nearly two dozen singers from Michael Jackson to Frank Sinatra to Tom Jones.

Actually, though his act comes “under the auspices of comedy,” Henderson says that he’s a singer first (he had a recording contract with Motown in the early ‘80s) and that his show is “primarily a musical evening.”

He thinks that putting more variety into comedy club bills--interspersing the stand-up with musical acts, even jugglers--is the wave of the future. “People like the variety instead of just three guys talking.”

Henderson gets laughs by setting up personalities (such as Elvis: “Uh, uh, ladies and gentlemen, I’d like to sing a song for you. Here’s one I did when I was alive”) and by exaggerating the silliness of Sammy Davis or Tom Jones-type physical gestures (his impression of Jones even includes the splits).

He’ll do Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, singing “That’s Amore” as a duet. He even throws in Arnold Schwarzenegger singing “You Can’t Touch This” and Pee-wee Herman singing “Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag.”

But when it comes to doing Nat King Cole, one of his best impressions, Henderson is all seriousness.

“I don’t play with him,” Henderson says. “When I do ‘Unforgettable,’ I do do a line where Natalie’s singing. It takes the audience by surprise. But when Nat starts singing, the folks are holding hands and kissing at the tables.”

For a real change of pace, he’ll do a song or two in his own voice, such as “Music of the Night” from “The Phantom of the Opera.”

Born in Chicago, Henderson was in a pop-rock band after he got out of high school but has “always been clowning around with impressions. I come from a show business family. People I know, like George Kirby--the first major black artist who did impressions of white characters--he was like an uncle.

“And, of course, Sammy.” Henderson’s father (who went to school with Nat Cole) was a song-and-dance man who got into show business management and served as vice president of Sammy Davis Enterprises. Davis was “a dear friend of the family,” Henderson says. “I was very impressed by him. He was definitely an example of how one should carry oneself.”

Who: Finis Henderson.

When: Thursday, Sept. 3, and Sunday, Sept. 6, at 8:30 p.m.; Friday, Sept. 4, at 8:30 and 10:30 p.m.; Saturday, Sept. 5, at 8 and 10:30 p.m.

Where: The Improv, 945 E. Birch St., Brea.

Whereabouts: Take the Lambert Road exit from the Orange (57) Freeway and go west. Turn left onto State College Boulevard and right onto Birch Street. The Improv is in the Brea Marketplace, across from the Brea Mall.

Wherewithal: $7 to $10.

Where to call: (714) 529-7878.