May 8, 2024 • 46 mins
With Skip out of town on business, Paul has lunch chat with another dear friend: Frankie Avalon! Their pair reflect on 60 years of rock 'n' roll history, swapping stories from the road with Chuck Berry, Bobby Darin and James Brown, and what it was like coming up as teen idols in the 1950s. Frankie also recalls his nights hanging out at Elvis' house — and the time his future-wife turned down a date with the King of Rock!
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Our Way with yours truly paul Anka and my buddy
Skip Bronson, is a production of iHeartRadio. Hi folks, this
is paul.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Anka and my name is Skip Bronson. We've been friends for.
Speaker 3 (00:16):
Decades and we've decided to let you in on our
late night phone calls by starting a new podcast.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
And welcome to Our Way. We'd like you to meet
some real good friends with us.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Your leaders in enter payment and.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Sports, innovators in business and technology, and even as sitting
president or two.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
Join us as we ask the questions they've not been
asked before, tell it like it is, and even sing
a song or two.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
This is our podcast and we'll be doing it our
way anything.
Speaker 4 (00:48):
The thing is, when we did that, we don't forget.
We would do seventy eighty one nighters in a row.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
We get into a.
Speaker 5 (00:55):
Hotel every other night, you know, sleep on the bus
and express. We loved it. A Dion and the Belmonts, Sam.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Cook and we're making money and having fun with our friends.
Speaker 5 (01:06):
And loved it we were young. It's great, great experience.
Speaker 6 (01:50):
Hey, there you are, no buenos. I've gone like three
days without talking to me. You're on the other side
of the world.
Speaker 7 (01:56):
Man, I came down here to Manila and then I
just y in Hong Kong.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
It.
Speaker 7 (02:01):
How's the connection? Can you hear me pretty good?
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (02:04):
I mean it definitely can tell that you're a long
way off, but I hear you great.
Speaker 7 (02:09):
I meant to tell you because I know we had
a bad reception. I was, and I know I had
the greatest time there. I loved it, loved people went
down there. I'm not going to drop their name, but
the real influential guy is his family, the daughter and
a son, AJ and I don't leave it at that.
They hired me to come down here secretly and sing
(02:30):
for this guy at the house for his eightieth birthday,
and I'll just give you his first name, Oscar. And
I showed up and it was like love her first sight.
You know, we're embracing. Had no idea, and then I
wound up in the house. They had like two hundred
and fifty people. I think, so many ambassadors from everybody,
(02:51):
even not because she was there no shoes because she
can't walk. She's like ninety five, God bless herd. And
I did my thing in the living room. The whole
house was like beautifully done since in the orchestra. Wall
to wall food, just the most gracious people and a
real great time. And I figured it'd stop at Hong Kong.
(03:12):
You'll make the connection home. And it's been great. And
then I'm having a great time and I'm eating my
brains up because the food is so good here. When
were you here last year?
Speaker 6 (03:21):
I was there a couple of years ago. I mean,
I love it over there. It's just it's so special.
But I have to in my next life, I'm coming
back as your travel agent.
Speaker 7 (03:29):
But listen, you're always welcome to come with me anyway.
You know that I keep inviting you.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
But I know I'm living on the hampster wheel. Also,
I'm in New York right now. I came here.
Speaker 6 (03:39):
I've got these three public companies that I'm on the
board of. They're all meeting consecutively. So I'm here for
almost not almost. I'm here for two weeks. Went to
the Hampton for the weekend to visit friends. Just drove
back from East Hampton to New York City three hours
and fifteen minutes in the car.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
EATI and I went on set. Yeah, we went Saturday.
Speaker 6 (04:03):
You know, my friend Rob Weisenthal owns Blade the Helicopter Company.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
We took the Blade helicopter.
Speaker 6 (04:11):
From the West Side Heliport. Instead of three hours and
fifteen minutes, it was forty minutes right to East Hampton
and that was with a head win forty minutes.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
It was great. I mean, I love I.
Speaker 6 (04:23):
Just love helicopters, and it was just awesome flying. You know,
you fly with Jones Beach and Fire Island. You're looking
over across the sound at Connecticut and forty minutes you're there.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
It's like, no must, no fuss. But yeah, it was.
By the way.
Speaker 6 (04:36):
When I was in first got to New York, we
went with our friends the Corasines, John and Sharon Corzine,
you know Johnson, governor from.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
New Jersey and senator from New Jersey. We went to
see the play Patriots.
Speaker 6 (04:50):
You absolutely positively must see it. It's the story of
Vladimir Putin, but more importantly, the guy who created Putin
and then the way Putin turned on him.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
It's a drama. It's just it's a spectacular play. It's
just great. You would love it.
Speaker 7 (05:06):
Wow, I'll check it over there in a few weeks.
Speaker 6 (05:09):
So, because I'm traveling and I've got these three board meetings,
I know you're doing your other brother, Frankie Avalon.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
I'm going to miss it.
Speaker 6 (05:15):
I don't know him, but in the fifties, late fifties,
he performed in Hartford at the State Theater, as did you.
I don't know that you were there in the same bill,
but he used to. You know, all the rock and
roll acts used to go to the State Theater in Hartford.
I used to go with my older sister who used
to sneak me in with her. It was pretty awesome.
(05:36):
I remember that every every hot act wouldn't matter if
it was Frankie Lymon and the teenagers or you or
you know, Buddy Holly or Jerry Lee Lewis. Everybody did
one or a maximum of two songs and that was
it right. It wasn't like the way the way.
Speaker 7 (05:51):
They well travel on the bus together. It's about twelve
to fifteen miss landing there doing that ticket Sonni Air
than to sing a sex you know, maxis two songs.
But I remember it so well, Ken, it was always
very supportive.
Speaker 6 (06:07):
So I can't wait to hear the two of you talking.
I'm sorry I'm not going to be on the call
with you, but it's got to be great. You guys
can reminisce you had the same girlfriend right on that
to the cello.
Speaker 7 (06:17):
I don't know if I can do this solo. I'm
gonna be okay because he's a friend. You've been doing
so well your partner that I'm gonna try to be
the best that can without you. He's going to be cool.
You know, I've known him a lot of years. He's
a he's a good guy. He's done very well. And
we live in the same neighborhood, so you know, we
see each other for dinner, and you don't want to
(06:39):
relate to a lot of stuff.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
He's a golfer too, I think, isn't he. I think
he plays golf.
Speaker 7 (06:44):
Oh yeah, he loves it, except he stopped golfing as
a few months ago. I don't know what's happening with
the alms. You know, all you guys at golf, maybe
fifty percent of out somewhere along the way.
Speaker 6 (06:56):
Oh man, it's tough on the body, violates every principle.
It's tough on the body. But you know, if you're
an addict like me, you got to play it. It's fun.
Well anyway, I'm sorry, I'm not going to be on
the call with you, But I actually I can't wait
to hear it because, you know, listening to the two
of you guys reminiscent.
Speaker 7 (07:14):
We get a lot to talk about.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
We shared a lot of.
Speaker 7 (07:16):
Early stuff, and it would be unlike anything that we've done,
you know. Yeah, if you were all you guys Tod
Goble be talking golf off the time, I don't think
I could take that.
Speaker 6 (07:27):
For non golfers, if there's one thing you don't want
to do, it's like it's like a guy telling you
that he was going fishing and here's what I caught,
and this is what I did. It's just it's painful.
But when I get back, we've got a bunch of
additional people that we want to record for this podcast,
so it'll be great.
Speaker 7 (07:43):
Yeah, we've got some good stuff in the backline.
Speaker 6 (07:46):
And we got some amazing coverage on the Alec Baldwin
Man oh Man that that was picked up everywhere.
Speaker 7 (07:51):
Yeah, I got a lot of calls on that. He
was great. You know, my heart skiped bleach.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
For Yeah, that thing in New Mexico.
Speaker 6 (07:58):
That's insane, but was he was so great to do it,
and he was it was a lot of fun.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
Well, so I know it's the middle of the night
for you over there. So I'm gonna let you go
to bed.
Speaker 7 (08:09):
It's getting there, it's only one in the morning. And
give my love to the eaty girl. I will, I will,
and you travel safe and monsieur and I'll let you
know when I've done with Frankie out and see you
like the week of the night.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
You got it. I love you.
Speaker 7 (08:25):
I love you too, skit sleeping, chill.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
Rank you. What do you think you want to eat?
You want salad or something? The pasta? You're here now, No,
I'll leave with you. If you want to eat something,
we can talk and eat too.
Speaker 5 (08:47):
Maybe a little salad.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
Yeah, I'm gonna do the promenade salad.
Speaker 5 (08:50):
Yeah right, I'll go half Okay, we go half.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
Good.
Speaker 5 (08:53):
Now you're done touring for the year.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
No, I'm gonna leaving for Asia in three weeks and
I'm going my touring Jane in June, and I've got
Europe in the summer, and then I've got my Fountain
Blue and starting a commitment there residency there in Vegas.
Speaker 5 (09:09):
Well, that would be cool, wouldn't it. Oh, we just
to sit down.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
Yeah, I'm only not a lot I'm gonna it's gonna
write a concept wrapped around my history with a hotel
and big band because I opened it with justin Timberlake.
So they saw it, you know, place to do it.
I do what I do, right. So these owners are like, oh,
(09:33):
they constantly to Rediscovery people, right right. So they said,
well you're coming. They said, yeah, I don't want to
sit here, but i'll do about six a year, and
I want to use holograms I want to use. So
we gave him a proposal. So I'm going to start
that in uh November, and I got to start writing
in the midst of all of this.
Speaker 5 (09:54):
God bless you you for something else and I.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
Love what I do.
Speaker 5 (09:57):
Yeah, but that's the important thing.
Speaker 4 (10:00):
I brought my phone, but I don't carry that thing
around him.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
Lucky to get you on it.
Speaker 4 (10:05):
But for some reason when somebody sent me a thing
a poster and maybe you guys can get a.
Speaker 5 (10:13):
Hold of it, take a look at it. I think
it was one of the biggest show of stars of
back in fifty eight. You're on the show, I'm on
the show.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
Daron was on.
Speaker 5 (10:25):
I think that Bobby was on one.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
Sam Cook dollar twenty five for the admission.
Speaker 5 (10:30):
That's what I'm getting to.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
That's what a dollar twenty five on one show and
it's in San Francisco. I got the poster. It could
be the same one you're talking about dollar twenty five.
You know we got paid back then. I got two
hundred bucks a week. So did you?
Speaker 4 (10:47):
No?
Speaker 5 (10:48):
I got more?
Speaker 1 (10:48):
Oh you got two fift you know what, better you
than me?
Speaker 5 (10:52):
I don't know if I got more or not.
Speaker 4 (10:53):
Whatever it was, I was making thirty dollars a week
as a DRUMPI player with Rock.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
That was making three bucks a week. What you started
away before me? You started with the trumpet.
Speaker 5 (11:02):
Right, there's a story I've been trying to think of.
It happened.
Speaker 4 (11:08):
I had just gone to ABC Paramount and I made
a couple of records.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
And is this after Venus?
Speaker 5 (11:16):
No, this is way before. This is before d D DYNA.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
Oh so you were at ABC before that.
Speaker 5 (11:20):
Yeah, that's where our first company.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
Before you went to the You guys in Philly. What
was the name of the chancellors?
Speaker 4 (11:25):
I mean, yeah, they made a distribution deal with ABC
with Sam Cohen, Larry A.
Speaker 5 (11:31):
Newark Clark and Larry Newton, Irwin Gar Irwin Gar.
Speaker 4 (11:37):
But the talk was because I'm a young kid and
you're a younger kid.
Speaker 5 (11:43):
And they talked about you. Who was your guy?
Speaker 1 (11:47):
And another guy, Sid Feller.
Speaker 4 (11:48):
There you go, Sid Feller and Don Costa. We got
this kid. He's fifteen years old. I think I was
about eighteen years I'm.
Speaker 5 (11:55):
Older year older?
Speaker 1 (11:56):
What are you? Three years older?
Speaker 5 (11:58):
I don't know. I don't age. But then again, I
hadn't had a hit.
Speaker 4 (12:06):
I'm still with Rocco in the Saints. See if you
remember this, I'm with Rocco in the Saints. I got
Sonny Troy on guitar, right, Dell Bobby Roydell would.
Speaker 5 (12:15):
Come in and sit and play drums.
Speaker 4 (12:17):
You for some reason, we were playing a place called
Bay Shores.
Speaker 5 (12:22):
In Summer's Point. We lived on top of the joint
and we would do seven days a week, five sets
a night and two jam sessions.
Speaker 4 (12:30):
You came to that place that we were playing, that
joint we were.
Speaker 5 (12:35):
Playing, and you got on the piano.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
Who brought me?
Speaker 5 (12:39):
It must have been promoting something.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
Sixty and it would be Diana.
Speaker 5 (12:45):
Diana was hitting.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
Fifty six, fifty seven.
Speaker 4 (12:49):
Yeah, okay, so my word, d Dina hitting fifty eight.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
So you came after Diana.
Speaker 5 (12:55):
That's right. So I'm still with the band. So that's
when we really first met, right, if you remember.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
I remember all my hang with you guys in Philly.
This one I don't remember.
Speaker 5 (13:05):
This is the very beginning poll and I remember you
came in and sat on the pan. I said it
was Marcucci in your life. Yeah, sure, he's found me.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
So he was in your life even before you record it.
Speaker 5 (13:15):
They found us. We were playing in this joint, right,
and they came in, Bob Marcucci and Pete d'angels.
Speaker 4 (13:22):
They saw the band and they liked RockA in the Saints,
and they signed the band and they made me sing
a couple of songs. But a trumpet got it and
I made a couple of songs. My first record I
did was called Cupid Shot and Arrow went in the toilet.
Speaker 5 (13:35):
He won fifty thousand. I got him somewhere around it,
right in the basement. Then I did a couple.
Speaker 4 (13:41):
Of more, and then I did that one song, Didy
Dinad that Bob wrote.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
I remember that, sure, remember that, right. I helped her
but Dinad it became the hit. Yeah, I remember very well.
Speaker 5 (13:53):
That started and we were on tour again.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
Well, we started, I've been on was on a couple
of tours with you, and in fact, I remember that's
when I I started getting close, even though I knew
him before we toured. Was Bobby Darren. And I've got
to tell you, you know, in doing all of this,
look at us, but you know, I got to tell you,
Frankie separated from us because you're how close all we were,
(14:16):
right sure, I've got to say that Darren was the
one guy that I looked at with a different admiration
because he was so different from all of us, and
the time I spent with him, and like spent with you,
his whole focus was so different. Even though we were saying, hey,
we want to be like the Vegas guys, we want
(14:37):
to be rat back, but he was doing it so
much better and differently than us. You know that he
was a rock and roll guy. He was making demos
with Donnie Kirshner. Yeah, he was playing drums, he was
playing piano. I was so impressed with him early, and
you know, I was with him maybe a few months
before he died. This guy was talented, God, he was.
Speaker 4 (14:58):
You were one step behind him because you had the
same objectives.
Speaker 5 (15:03):
You were songwriters.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
Yeah, and he was too.
Speaker 5 (15:05):
He was too.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
He wrote all those earlier hits. Do you know how
he wrote Splush Splash? Do you know the story sure
with Murray the Kay the Mother.
Speaker 5 (15:13):
No, I don't know that part of it, but I
know he wrote it.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
You know, his energy and how he switched right into
that whole swing thing was amazing. I went through it
with him. You remember Murray the Cape You sure records
him and Alan Freed in a couple of disc jockeys
broke our records right right right. He goes over to
Murray the Kay's house. Murray the Kay's mother was a songwriter.
Speaker 5 (15:31):
I didn't know that.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
And he's on the phone with Murray the Kay's mother
who wanted to talk to him, and she says to him, Bobby,
you should write a song about a bathtub splash splashing.
So Bobby, he looks at Murray and Murray says, yeah,
write a song splush splashing in the bathtub in Murray's house.
He finished the song in a couple of hours.
Speaker 5 (15:53):
Really.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
He goes to Ahmed Erdig in Atlantic, where he was.
They looked at him like he was crazy. He makes
the demo and makes the record. You know the rest
of the story. That was his first hit, Burst Flash,
I was taking a bet and Murray the case mother
is on the record as the writer.
Speaker 5 (16:07):
Is that right?
Speaker 1 (16:08):
With Bobby Darren?
Speaker 5 (16:09):
He was an extremely talented We traveled.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
I love Bobby Fall. We traveled with you and I
don't you remember the childe we'd sleep up on the racks.
Speaker 5 (16:17):
That's because we were little. Some of those giant I
couldn't get up there.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
It was mixed too.
Speaker 5 (16:21):
But the thing is when we did that, we don't forget.
Speaker 4 (16:24):
We would do seventy eighty one nighters in a row,
get into a hotel every other night, you know, sleep
on the bus and experience and we loved it.
Speaker 5 (16:34):
Dianna, the Belmonts, Sam.
Speaker 1 (16:36):
Cook and we're making money and having fun with our
friends and loved it. We're young.
Speaker 5 (16:41):
It's great, great experience.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
But Bobby was with us. It was nuts about this guy, Frankie,
because I just admired you. It was always Frank, Frank, Frank, Frank.
He was better than Frank in this fashion. No, no,
hear me. Frank was not a musician. Bobby Darren was
a piano player. And when you listened to his everything,
when you listened to his phrasing. It was like a drummer.
(17:07):
Frank never swung like that. Frank read the lyric. And
you remember the whole thing that went on. Oh do
you remember the little fight they had where.
Speaker 5 (17:15):
He made a comment in Life magazine. Yeah, I'm bigger
and better. That took a lot of colluns, you know,
and he had colluns.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
But he was something else. Boy, I really admired by.
Speaker 5 (17:29):
I loved him too.
Speaker 4 (17:30):
He was very He lived into Luca Lake, where I
lived when I got married.
Speaker 5 (17:36):
Okay, that's where we raised our eight kids.
Speaker 4 (17:38):
My mother in law's house was right across the street
from Darren when he was married to San Fergie and Charlie.
Speaker 5 (17:46):
Charlie was his uncle, but I think it was his father.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
No. No, the mother, Paulie, who he thought was his mother,
Her name was Paulie. She raised him as the mother.
He never knew till he was told much later, And
that really whacked him when that Nina, his sister was
his mother.
Speaker 5 (18:10):
The sister and the daughter Vanna. Do you know I
still keep in touch with her?
Speaker 2 (18:15):
No?
Speaker 4 (18:15):
Yeah, she calls me now and then we talk about
Bobby and in those days. But now here's how this
story goes, so I'm over seeing my mother in law
and all of a sudden, we're Bobby lived I mean directly.
It was Sinatra's old house into Luca Lake. He's pulling
out with a little b W Van truck whatever.
Speaker 5 (18:38):
It was Bobby. Bobby's Frankie, what are you doing.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
I'm getting out of here, sister, I said, we're doing
a Bob Dylan thing right going up to Melobury.
Speaker 4 (18:50):
He said, I'm getting out of here. No more Tuxsiro's
bow ties.
Speaker 5 (18:54):
I ain't doing that. That's right, this is and he
went to be Bob Darren.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
That's rights.
Speaker 5 (18:59):
So so I saw that very beginning of a change.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
I saw that too. It was all you know, it
was tied into Kennedy, big supporter. He was doing his
whole Dylan stick, with the jacket, with the guito.
Speaker 3 (19:11):
You know.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
They shut him down in Vegas. They wouldn't accept it.
And then he switched. He went back to being the
old Bobby. He tried to pull it off in Vegas.
It didn't work.
Speaker 5 (19:22):
You know what happened that story. He was at the frontier.
Speaker 4 (19:24):
I get a call said, Bobby Darren's not going to
play the date out would you come in and sub
So I called Bobby.
Speaker 5 (19:31):
To he said, I'm and he's pissed. I said, what happened?
Speaker 4 (19:35):
Now he's making it's a million dollar contract, Bobby says,
I told the mayor d and I.
Speaker 5 (19:40):
Told everybody with the hotel.
Speaker 4 (19:42):
If any celebrity ever comes in to see my show,
I want to know because out of respect as a
performer to a performer someone in our business, I want
to introduce them.
Speaker 5 (19:55):
So that was Bobby's thing.
Speaker 4 (19:56):
Well, what had happened one time one show that he
was doing, or the next day Dick Clark goes to
see Bobby after in the day and Dick says, to Bobby,
you were wonderful last night. Bobby says, what do you mean,
I was wonderful. He said, I saw the show. He said,
you were at the show. Dick said yeah, he said
(20:19):
that was it. That's where he went to the staff
there and the management said.
Speaker 5 (20:24):
I'm out of here.
Speaker 4 (20:25):
He blew the contract for a million dollar contract and
walked out.
Speaker 5 (20:30):
That's the kind of guy who was, you know, who
got him started?
Speaker 1 (20:33):
He gave his first instrument was Costello, Frank Costello. Sure
he somehow he gets introduced to Bobby as a kid.
I think he gave his first piano or guitar, so
that when he wound up with the Coopa with Jules Bodell,
which the boys ran, Costello was the guy. So they
(20:55):
supported Bobby in the beginning. Yeah, the Costello was very,
very tight with Bobby because he was he was looking
even when you and I used to talk and the guys,
you know, we want to get the tucks on. We
want to And then I did the Swings for Young
Lovers album. I had this Squeaky Little Boys. My boys
had me to change. No yours was yeah, you changed later.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
You know.
Speaker 5 (21:18):
I sounded like Wayne Newton, no no, no, one sells.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
No no. But I had the Squeaky Boys and we're
swinging because we wanted to write right. But he because
I remember I used to say that, no, I don't
want to do this rock and roll ship. Because he
got Richard West, who I knew.
Speaker 5 (21:34):
He became my conductor.
Speaker 1 (21:35):
He was your conductor. After that.
Speaker 5 (21:37):
After after Bob he.
Speaker 1 (21:38):
Did those records. I know, he did those records for
ATCO and everyone was so against him, and he tested it.
He tested with that, even Dick when he heard it,
you know, Clark was tight with him. Dick Clark was
very tight with Bobby Darren. He liked Bobby. Oh, and
he played him. I think Mac the Knife, you know,
remember how tight we all went used to.
Speaker 5 (21:58):
Play with the Elegant. That's where he was with Dick
Western and doing that version of Mac the Knife exactly.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
But you know who found him. He had a good
woman in his life. Wasserman. What was her name? She
stuck with him like a pr Pt. Wasserman. I think, no, no, no, anyway,
she and Steve Blowner were the two supporters, but she
was there first, and she found Richard West for him.
Speaker 5 (22:26):
You know, with Richard West and Bobby Darren.
Speaker 4 (22:30):
Me when I was first starting out with those records
were bombs.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
You know.
Speaker 4 (22:35):
I would go to New York City and stay with
Bobby and Dick West because they were rooming together too.
Speaker 5 (22:41):
Because Bobby hadn't hit yet. Don't forget, Bobby came after us.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
You can hit so much later. He was like twenty
one or twenty two, way after us. He was writing
songs with Donnie Kershner at different accents. Now he was
he was something boy. I really I love Bobby and
he could move man. I mean we had. We were
still learning, right, but that was remember right they do
(23:07):
the little footstep and all right, right right? And you
and I were looking because when you were kids compared
to him, Wait.
Speaker 5 (23:13):
A minute, what about this talent? How about nominated for
an Academy Award, Captain Newman m D.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
That's right, that's absolutely he was. I'm going to be
an actor.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
I remember that.
Speaker 5 (23:26):
He was complete, he was all around complete.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
And there we were worrying about our hair, right and
what we're gonna do? What we were teen idols and
Bobby he hated us because we had the fucking hair.
Speaker 4 (23:40):
I remembered the two Bay remember.
Speaker 5 (23:43):
And he'd be combing his hair, be coming out. He
saturday back, my goddamn here Jesus great.
Speaker 1 (23:48):
That he had insecurities like that. He never thought he
was a good looking guy. He'd always teases, well, we
were teen idols.
Speaker 5 (23:54):
Yeah, he was never a teen idol.
Speaker 4 (23:57):
We went through that were were the beginning of teen IELs.
After Sinatra, Johnny Ray came.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
Out, that's right. He had his little taste with Dick
Dick Clark and he did dream Lover, Splash Splash. He
did a couple of those shows, you know those girls.
You and I used to talk about the screaming about everybody, right,
the same girl you're gonna, said Santa Claus. Bobby's playing
to the same chicks that we were playing to. It
(24:24):
was hilarious. But he wanted out, man, he wanted to
swing with those tours. How brutal was that? Do you
(24:45):
remember how brutal some of those tours were?
Speaker 5 (24:47):
Are you kidding?
Speaker 1 (24:47):
You? Remember our little black suits. We used to hang
in the shower. We wouldn't afford to get him pressed,
and we'd all be sitting there in a road doing
our hair while the suits were in this in the
steam shower.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
Your washing your.
Speaker 5 (25:00):
Clothes in the shower, you know, on you get the soap,
wash your clothes.
Speaker 1 (25:06):
You know, you think of Frankie, how good it became
for us. Now we're working, you're working the technology the
way we work. Do you remember that one microphone for
everybody and one microphone in front of the band, and
that was all.
Speaker 5 (25:24):
I think about those days? Where did the sound come from?
I had no idea. First of all, you couldn't hear
me anyway. The kids were screaming so much.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
Didn't matter, That couldn't matter.
Speaker 4 (25:35):
But I mean we'd go and no such thing as
a sound check. You got on the microphone.
Speaker 1 (25:42):
You know your life was in your hands. I am
standing in front of the mic.
Speaker 4 (25:48):
Great times though, Well, remember how notorious Chuck Berry used
to be.
Speaker 5 (25:52):
Well, he never got on the bus.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
Was Cadillac?
Speaker 5 (25:54):
You followed us in the pink Cadillac?
Speaker 1 (25:57):
I mean god, I think of those days. There was
another town was a guy Chuck songwriter?
Speaker 5 (26:04):
All those words, are you kidding?
Speaker 4 (26:06):
Yeah, there were a lot of towns. A guy Sam Cook?
Speaker 5 (26:09):
I love Sam Cook. You want to talk about a
class guy? Handsome? And how about Jackie Wilson.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
I was just going to say, Bobby got a lot
of his moves from Jackie.
Speaker 5 (26:21):
You know, I remember how we used to move with this.
Speaker 4 (26:25):
He was the first guy to do the steps and
don't want to get on the floor, and they put
the cape on.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
Him, just like Freeman, Jay Hawkins and James Brown.
Speaker 5 (26:34):
James Brown, remember James.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
Used to sell Were you on those tours when you
set chocolate bars and cokes in the back of the
bus and sell them? No, used to be blue paying
what fifteen cents?
Speaker 5 (26:47):
Can you imagine me following at the Paramount Theater in
New York City.
Speaker 4 (26:54):
I'm headlining big lineup of stars, and I'm headlining your
last I.
Speaker 5 (26:59):
Gotta follow hellow Jackie Wilson, Wait a minute. Daytime was
fine because I walk out.
Speaker 4 (27:05):
Of there and the kids fans and always screaming and
yelling and all that stuff.
Speaker 5 (27:09):
In the daytime. But at night time there were a
lot of guys there.
Speaker 4 (27:13):
So when Jackie Wilson, and he was a showman in
a head when he did his ending and the music
to be playing, they put the cape on them like
this and take them on stage.
Speaker 5 (27:22):
They were on their feet yelling. And now ladies and gentlemen,
here he is Frankie Boo.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
And I'm following them with puppy lovers of the You
know who was cool? Remember Frankie Lyman.
Speaker 5 (27:36):
How talented was he. I'd stand in the wings and
watch Frankie Limon.
Speaker 1 (27:40):
God was he good?
Speaker 5 (27:41):
You want to talk about the moves of Michael Jackson and.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
Then Frankie Limon, big heroin addict. Remember we found out
in the middle of the tour, Yeah, that he was
doing the heroine and he was seeing the girl from
the platters. We never knew that either.
Speaker 5 (27:55):
Zoiela.
Speaker 1 (27:56):
Yes, but Frankie was talented.
Speaker 4 (27:58):
What memories we have, and it's so nice that we're
able to talk about it.
Speaker 5 (28:02):
I mean, you know, when to.
Speaker 1 (28:03):
Be here and talk about it and still doing what
we're doing to do. I say it every night I
go on stage like it's the first one. I always
reflect back. You know when you think about the mileage,
Frank you, Oh, we have to learn before we really
became confident. Remember of the intrepidations we'd have just doing
the two songs and still learning our craft, and then
(28:26):
they'd come to us. You gotta go to Copa, gotta
go to Vegas. We're gonna teach you this stuff. Remember
the guys that lose Spencer does that ring a bell?
Speaker 5 (28:33):
Spencer?
Speaker 1 (28:33):
How about Noel Sherman and Joe Sherman, the Brothers guy
that wrote for me and wrote for me.
Speaker 5 (28:39):
Too, and Nick Castle.
Speaker 1 (28:40):
Nick Castle, yeah he was cool, kidd, he was the best.
Nick was cool.
Speaker 4 (28:44):
My opening show, Casino Royale, that's right, right, And it's
my opening show, and I'm in a commitment. The band plays,
I'll take man, and then I have to another song,
and then I have to say thank you very much.
Speaker 5 (29:00):
Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Okay, I do the opening show.
Speaker 4 (29:04):
Steve Lawrence is there, Edie's there, and Ned Ficello's there,
and I sing my first opening song and I go
like this, imagine, gentlemen, I got so nervous I could
sing good dog.
Speaker 5 (29:22):
I'll never forget that open. Then went to the Kopa.
You had a bondit. Oh, yeah, sure, I had a bondit.
Speaker 1 (29:28):
I was writing the music. Do you remember I was
writing all that music for the Cope. I wrote all
those dancing girls.
Speaker 5 (29:34):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
No dressing rooms. We had to live up in that
stupid hotel. That was a tough place. You didn't fool
around it.
Speaker 5 (29:40):
How about our dressing room?
Speaker 1 (29:41):
What dressing room the hotel fourteen, that little little hotel fourteen.
Speaker 5 (29:46):
Yes, but then the little side.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
Of the girls changed and we changed.
Speaker 5 (29:50):
But you know it's really something the mouth guy that
introduced us.
Speaker 1 (29:52):
How about this guy for Frankie, the Light's gonna.
Speaker 5 (30:00):
Dug County Doug Howdy. He introduced you straight as an arrow.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
Who did you say, the guy that introduced what him?
Speaker 5 (30:07):
I was gonna say, dog.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
You're gonna say Doug, Oh, Doug? Oh, you meant introduced
ladies and gentlemen? Yeah, right, yeah, eye opened just like
you did. Remember they had it all figured out. You
worked the Kopa. But but you had to have a comic.
All of us had a comic. You had a comic
open for you. Yeah, I had a comic cop. We
hired this guy called Jackie Mason, brilliant. So we did
(30:33):
prom night as you as I. Three shows and the
kids are in white all the way around, and.
Speaker 5 (30:39):
We were right in the middle of the floor. We
can't even move.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
You can't even sold out all of us. Jackie Wilson,
after opening night gets a little Hey, we're a hit.
Hey we hit, But you think could you do? We're
gonna go to be a hit like that. So now
we all knew we had to go up to the hotel.
We couldn't go in there. Yeah, you go up to
(31:01):
your dressing room in it. He decides on the second
night with me to go through the front door with
the kids. Oh my god, and he walks and remember Julie,
he used to sit there.
Speaker 5 (31:13):
Yeah, with the ring right right.
Speaker 1 (31:16):
He walks by the kids and Julie and he says, hey,
mister Botel. He says, it's Jackie.
Speaker 5 (31:25):
Get back in line. He didn't know who he was Oh,
he was the most hated guy.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
He ran.
Speaker 4 (31:35):
He ran that place, Like you said, the boys hired
him to keep that place and he did.
Speaker 7 (31:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (31:43):
Yeah, Once in a while you have to say, you
get a call. Hodell would coming you, come up to
the lounge. He'd say, there's a limo out there.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
There a limb out there.
Speaker 4 (31:53):
You gotta go sing Sweet sixteen party and between shows.
Speaker 5 (31:57):
Right, it was one of the boy you're telling you
to go.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
Do you know good?
Speaker 1 (32:01):
We did what we have to do.
Speaker 3 (32:02):
Man.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
Look, you know it got us off those bus tours.
The evolution of all of us that tried to do it,
you know, and though those that couldn't. How about those
short careers, Oh my god, I mean Connie Francis had
a career with the fathers. They remember the love affair
with Bobby and her. Sure he wanted to marry her.
Speaker 5 (32:25):
He wanted to marry her, wanted to.
Speaker 1 (32:27):
Marry and then the father was threatening him. I think
it was George Scheck or one of the managers. I
don't want to misrepresent it. They have to go to
Bobby and say you got a chill, Oh, you wanted
to marry Connie. He was madly in love with her.
Speaker 4 (32:41):
I know she's told me many, many, many times about
her friendship relationship with Bobby.
Speaker 1 (32:46):
She was she was a good artist.
Speaker 5 (32:48):
Oh you want to know she did.
Speaker 4 (32:50):
Connie Francis is the hottest vocalist, female vocalist in this
entire world. I mean hits after hits after hits after hits, made.
Speaker 5 (32:59):
A couple of films too. Yeah, I had a great career.
She's still was great. I don't know if she's still
out there working.
Speaker 6 (33:05):
I've run into her.
Speaker 5 (33:05):
Once in a while and that's about it. She lives
down in Florida.
Speaker 2 (33:08):
Now.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
No, I haven't heard from her a senior in such
a long time.
Speaker 5 (33:13):
Well, I ain't money involves just left.
Speaker 1 (33:17):
Well, I'm goppy, it's you and I. You know who
I was in touch with recently. Another good guy was
Tony Orlando.
Speaker 5 (33:24):
Yes, such a I he retired. I know, it's all
over the place.
Speaker 1 (33:29):
The other night in the Mohicans, son and I surprised
him with one of my my way lyrics. Oh yeah,
and they played went on with the no no no.
I was working.
Speaker 5 (33:39):
I was in Florida, but I oh you sent them
to the.
Speaker 2 (33:44):
Right.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
And Tom Cantone is a great guy. Runs Mohicans. He's brilliant.
So he arranged it with Tom and they showed it.
But he was tight with Bobby too.
Speaker 5 (33:55):
Oh I no, he loved Bobby and he.
Speaker 1 (33:57):
There's another guy. He was a co executive.
Speaker 5 (34:01):
He was a promotion man. I don't know if he
was an executive.
Speaker 1 (34:05):
He was an executive with Clive Davis. I'm telling you
he ran a division. He was a record exec and
then he did some demo record. I think the song
was Condider Oh again, and he put another name. He
was a record executive, Frankie. And then it started to
evolve to they were going Clive said, oh, I knew
(34:25):
it was you, et cetera, et cetera, And that's how
his career started. And then Don and what have you.
But he was running a division of a record company.
Speaker 4 (34:34):
You know the first time I met him with cousin
Brucey Pacific Palisades, remember the.
Speaker 5 (34:41):
And he was just coming up.
Speaker 4 (34:43):
I think he had I forget the first record that
he had, Paradise something.
Speaker 5 (34:48):
Paradise was a Paradise was in there before he came over.
Speaker 4 (34:53):
And he was so because I was already established. Now
I'm after Venus and all this other stuff.
Speaker 5 (34:59):
And I'm making motion picture. He comes to me and.
Speaker 4 (35:02):
Really very sweet, almost like a fan at that time.
So as the years go by, and he becomes more
famous and more famous, and I'm playing Las Vegas and
he's opening for the first time across the street at
the Hilton. I opened the Landmark Hotel, so he was
in the lounge. So I'm in the main showroom, so
I'm able to go see him. I go to see
(35:24):
his show, and ladies and gentlemen Tony Orlando. The lights
are dim and he comes out and he sings his
opening song. Who is the Man? The man they call Chef.
I go back to his dressing room. He said, what
do you think of the show? I said, to me,
(35:45):
let me tell you something.
Speaker 5 (35:46):
First of all, that opening song all wrong. I said,
what are you singing?
Speaker 4 (35:52):
You got to come up on up, You got to
see the lights, you got to see people, you got
to perform.
Speaker 5 (35:58):
He never forgot that. He never ever forgot that.
Speaker 4 (36:02):
Now time goes by, Tony Orlando gets a television show.
Speaker 5 (36:07):
I think it was CBS, NBC. It was NBC. I'm
doing the Dinah Shore Show. She had a talk show.
If you remember that.
Speaker 4 (36:15):
I'm in the makeup chair. I'm getting made up. All
of a sudden, I feel this.
Speaker 5 (36:21):
I turn around.
Speaker 4 (36:22):
He grabs me, hugs me, frank you Tony, congratulations. I
say to him, you got a show. You gotta hit
television show. He says to me, I want you on.
I said, Tony, that's very sweet of you, but I
know this business unless you get an okay from the execs.
Speaker 5 (36:42):
Approval, the approval, you know, thanks for jaking. So I'm
going to have you on. And you know what, he
kept his word, put me on the show. We did
songs together. We sang. It was great.
Speaker 1 (36:57):
He's a nice guy, absolutely performer, really good. He was
doing Darren little of Darren little of you know. No, no,
he was a very good performance, you know.
Speaker 5 (37:07):
And now he's retired. Can you believe that?
Speaker 1 (37:10):
Did you know Elvis at all?
Speaker 2 (37:11):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (37:11):
Did you spend some time with him a little bit? Yeah, yeah,
I spent I spent a good deal. We were on
r C A Victor together. But you know, he was
separate from all of us. You know that he had
his own king. But I said, I did spend some
good time with him, and especially when he came out
started working in Vegas. You know, he'd come over and
see my show. I'd go see him, and then you know,
I saw the whole evolution into that unfortunate health problem is.
(37:35):
But he used to near the end, he used always
say to me.
Speaker 5 (37:38):
I'm gonna do Polly.
Speaker 1 (37:40):
I'm going to do my way that song. You know. Yeah,
I said, it's not really your kindest Polly, you don't understand.
And he'd sit there, have six of his guys and
I'm going to do that song poly Yeah, I'm a songwriter.
Song why not? But he did a great job.
Speaker 4 (38:00):
Hey, what a great artist. I would go to his
house on a friendship level. I mean I saw him
perform once. It was magnificent at the Hill. But I
would go to his house and barbecue, touch football.
Speaker 5 (38:14):
You liked that kind of shu.
Speaker 4 (38:16):
But it was amazing how he presented himself at his house,
because he never went to restaurants or anything.
Speaker 5 (38:24):
You would go to his house.
Speaker 4 (38:26):
He'd have people waiting, and his guys that dressed like him,
and you know, and they would come out of where
his dress, where his bedroom was. El was coming out
and man ellis about man elist man.
Speaker 5 (38:37):
All of a sudden, the doors would open up.
Speaker 4 (38:39):
Bang, and Elvis would come out like an entry, and
everybody went.
Speaker 5 (38:44):
And he was a handsome guy, and and and and
and quiet and nice.
Speaker 4 (38:50):
And the thing I noticed about it most of all
when he sat down, his legs never stopped moving.
Speaker 1 (38:55):
Oh he had one of those.
Speaker 5 (38:57):
Yeah, legs were shaken like this. And he had a
jukebox in his house. Yea with every song record nobody
else but him. All this stuff, all this stuff.
Speaker 4 (39:11):
He was got a guy. First of all, My wife
went with Tuesday. Well they were friends, you know, and
to the house of one time.
Speaker 5 (39:20):
He wanted a date.
Speaker 4 (39:20):
K my wife, you know, she said, no, I don't
think so, I said, what you picked me over?
Speaker 1 (39:30):
She picked the right guy.
Speaker 5 (39:31):
But yeah, they were sixty one years married.
Speaker 1 (39:34):
Wow, you're sixty one years married? Now?
Speaker 4 (39:37):
Yeah, when was the anniversary of Frank January nineteenth?
Speaker 1 (39:41):
Do you have a party or anything?
Speaker 5 (39:42):
We always have a party. I got eight kids, I
got ten grand kids. It's always a party. I got
nine now nine? Yeah, mine, I got the boy. But
that's the only boy, my only boy.
Speaker 1 (39:53):
All girls.
Speaker 5 (39:53):
You got the six girls.
Speaker 1 (39:55):
I got five girls, one boy and nine grandchildren.
Speaker 5 (39:57):
Who ever thought, huh? Now?
Speaker 1 (39:59):
The way we ran a You and I who thought
any woman would ever put up with us? I mean,
were we nuts? Are you kidding me?
Speaker 5 (40:05):
My oldest boy is now.
Speaker 1 (40:07):
Sixty, my daughters like fifty eight.
Speaker 5 (40:09):
We're the same age, my son and I. I don't
know how we know.
Speaker 1 (40:15):
There's a new test now. There is a blood test
now where they will now tell you what your true
body age is.
Speaker 5 (40:22):
Really Yeah, I don't want to know.
Speaker 1 (40:23):
I'm like fifty five, I kept.
Speaker 5 (40:25):
I want to fake everybody out.
Speaker 1 (40:26):
No, no, you gotta get this test because I'm sure
you're hell do you take care of yourself, but you
gotta go and get this test. It's good.
Speaker 5 (40:33):
Oh I'm not going.
Speaker 1 (40:35):
You gotta go.
Speaker 5 (40:36):
Man, how much?
Speaker 1 (40:37):
What do you want? Listen to find out good news?
I'll give you anything, but you know what it is.
We're living not only in a day and age of
where music arts. Everything in life has changed and is
with artificial intelligence, but medicine and what's on the landscape
is unbelievable.
Speaker 5 (40:58):
Frankie, you oh, I know the.
Speaker 1 (41:00):
Next three years they will have inroads to everything. It's
a great time to be living. Get the goddamn politics straight,
then things would be better.
Speaker 5 (41:10):
I always thought getting older would take longer. It comes
you know what I do.
Speaker 1 (41:17):
I never mentioned the world ever. If somebody says to me, oh,
I'm getting old, never mentioned the world older, keep older,
keep the old man out. Don't live by the number.
Speaker 5 (41:28):
Who said that, keep the old man out Eastwood? Maybe
that's why it's out there. Yeah, I worked with him.
Speaker 1 (41:35):
Great guy. He's my neighbor up in Carmel. Another great guy, talented,
nice family. My kids grew up with his kids. Oh
it's a good stuff, isn't it.
Speaker 5 (41:46):
I know what a career and you keep going around
the world.
Speaker 1 (41:50):
You got still throw dirt on you. You know.
Speaker 4 (41:53):
I got to the point I started making film a
lot of forty pictures more. Maybe I don't know, but
I got to the point where I said, you know what,
I don't want to do films anymore.
Speaker 5 (42:02):
And meaning by that, I don't if they want me
or not. But I didn't want any representation to say you,
I can get you this role. I could go with it.
There's a picture coming up, and I don't want to
do it.
Speaker 4 (42:14):
When you make that many pictures. And I had a
lot of fun making with those things, but I just
got tired of the the format of how you have
to make emotional picture on location and was in a baby.
Speaker 1 (42:30):
Supposed No, I mean did a lot of those.
Speaker 5 (42:33):
Yeah, yeah, forget seven of those, but then there's a
lot of good stuff. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (42:38):
Sure wasn't a net adorable. God, I love that girl.
Speaker 5 (42:42):
Yeah, she was a sweetheart.
Speaker 1 (42:43):
She wanted to get married. I know I couldn't do it,
but what a family and what a sweetheart she She
just had that sweetness, that goodness. I don't know where
it came from, but she would never different.
Speaker 5 (42:58):
It was honest, it was you know, she was so sweet.
Speaker 4 (43:03):
She really I think she was really pushed into the business.
She really didn't care about it as much as you
would think. Exactly what she had to do something, she did.
Speaker 1 (43:14):
It any hour. The mother, the teacher, the whole crew.
Speaker 5 (43:18):
We're doing we had made about six or seven of
the beach things and we're doing a halftime at the
super Bowl I think it was super Bowl twenty three.
It's a big deal. You've got a million people, ten
million people, whatever. But she's a nervous wreck. She says,
I don't know. I said you got to do this.
People loved you. Remember that team curtain up out?
Speaker 1 (43:44):
She went, see what I did the album with her? God,
She was nervous with Tuti Camerano and I had to
talk her through every song because she wasn't a singer.
But she get out. She's on tour with us.
Speaker 2 (43:56):
No.
Speaker 1 (43:56):
I love that girl. She was just the sweetest and
married our agent Jack.
Speaker 5 (44:03):
She love you well.
Speaker 1 (44:04):
I loved her. You know, we were really very very close.
I just the marriage thing just scared me. You know,
I wasn't ready. What were we eighteen nineteen something like that.
Remember we used to travel on those planes sometimes to
get the gigs in shirts and ties. Do you know
remember when we dressed? They had us so brainwashed. I
remember going on those airplanes and no time, and I'm
(44:27):
in a shirt and a tie and we're all sitting
in shirt and ties on this God, I don't know, remember, you.
Speaker 5 (44:33):
Don't want That was style everybody. We had style class
and we learned.
Speaker 1 (44:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (44:39):
Yeah, and if you had the capacity to learn it.
Speaker 1 (44:44):
And keep it. That's the difference of you me and
there's other guys you talked about.
Speaker 5 (44:50):
Yeah that went by, you know, that's right.
Speaker 1 (44:52):
Yeah. Difference with Paul Anka and Skip Bronson is a
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 3 (45:04):
The show's executive producer is Jordan Runtogg with supervising producer
and editor Marcy Depina.
Speaker 1 (45:12):
It was engineered by Todd Carlin and Graham Gibson, mixed
and mastered a wonderful Mary Did.
Speaker 2 (45:19):
If you like what you heard, please subscribe and leave
us a review.
Speaker 1 (45:23):
For more podcasts on iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Our Way with yours truly paul Anka and my buddy
Skip Bronson, is a production of iHeartRadio. Hi folks, this
is paul.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Anka and my name is Skip Bronson. We've been friends for.
Speaker 3 (00:16):
Decades and we've decided to let you in on our
late night phone calls by starting a new podcast.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
And welcome to Our Way. We'd like you to meet
some real good friends with us.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Your leaders in enter payment and.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Sports, innovators in business and technology, and even as sitting
president or two.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
Join us as we ask the questions they've not been
asked before, tell it like it is, and even sing
a song or two.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
This is our podcast and we'll be doing it our
way anything.
Speaker 4 (00:48):
The thing is, when we did that, we don't forget.
We would do seventy eighty one nighters in a row.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
We get into a.
Speaker 5 (00:55):
Hotel every other night, you know, sleep on the bus
and express. We loved it. A Dion and the Belmonts, Sam.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Cook and we're making money and having fun with our friends.
Speaker 5 (01:06):
And loved it we were young. It's great, great experience.
Speaker 6 (01:50):
Hey, there you are, no buenos. I've gone like three
days without talking to me. You're on the other side
of the world.
Speaker 7 (01:56):
Man, I came down here to Manila and then I
just y in Hong Kong.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
It.
Speaker 7 (02:01):
How's the connection? Can you hear me pretty good?
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (02:04):
I mean it definitely can tell that you're a long
way off, but I hear you great.
Speaker 7 (02:09):
I meant to tell you because I know we had
a bad reception. I was, and I know I had
the greatest time there. I loved it, loved people went
down there. I'm not going to drop their name, but
the real influential guy is his family, the daughter and
a son, AJ and I don't leave it at that.
They hired me to come down here secretly and sing
(02:30):
for this guy at the house for his eightieth birthday,
and I'll just give you his first name, Oscar. And
I showed up and it was like love her first sight.
You know, we're embracing. Had no idea, and then I
wound up in the house. They had like two hundred
and fifty people. I think, so many ambassadors from everybody,
(02:51):
even not because she was there no shoes because she
can't walk. She's like ninety five, God bless herd. And
I did my thing in the living room. The whole
house was like beautifully done since in the orchestra. Wall
to wall food, just the most gracious people and a
real great time. And I figured it'd stop at Hong Kong.
(03:12):
You'll make the connection home. And it's been great. And
then I'm having a great time and I'm eating my
brains up because the food is so good here. When
were you here last year?
Speaker 6 (03:21):
I was there a couple of years ago. I mean,
I love it over there. It's just it's so special.
But I have to in my next life, I'm coming
back as your travel agent.
Speaker 7 (03:29):
But listen, you're always welcome to come with me anyway.
You know that I keep inviting you.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
But I know I'm living on the hampster wheel. Also,
I'm in New York right now. I came here.
Speaker 6 (03:39):
I've got these three public companies that I'm on the
board of. They're all meeting consecutively. So I'm here for
almost not almost. I'm here for two weeks. Went to
the Hampton for the weekend to visit friends. Just drove
back from East Hampton to New York City three hours
and fifteen minutes in the car.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
EATI and I went on set. Yeah, we went Saturday.
Speaker 6 (04:03):
You know, my friend Rob Weisenthal owns Blade the Helicopter Company.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
We took the Blade helicopter.
Speaker 6 (04:11):
From the West Side Heliport. Instead of three hours and
fifteen minutes, it was forty minutes right to East Hampton
and that was with a head win forty minutes.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
It was great. I mean, I love I.
Speaker 6 (04:23):
Just love helicopters, and it was just awesome flying. You know,
you fly with Jones Beach and Fire Island. You're looking
over across the sound at Connecticut and forty minutes you're there.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
It's like, no must, no fuss. But yeah, it was.
By the way.
Speaker 6 (04:36):
When I was in first got to New York, we
went with our friends the Corasines, John and Sharon Corzine,
you know Johnson, governor from.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
New Jersey and senator from New Jersey. We went to
see the play Patriots.
Speaker 6 (04:50):
You absolutely positively must see it. It's the story of
Vladimir Putin, but more importantly, the guy who created Putin
and then the way Putin turned on him.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
It's a drama. It's just it's a spectacular play. It's
just great. You would love it.
Speaker 7 (05:06):
Wow, I'll check it over there in a few weeks.
Speaker 6 (05:09):
So, because I'm traveling and I've got these three board meetings,
I know you're doing your other brother, Frankie Avalon.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
I'm going to miss it.
Speaker 6 (05:15):
I don't know him, but in the fifties, late fifties,
he performed in Hartford at the State Theater, as did you.
I don't know that you were there in the same bill,
but he used to. You know, all the rock and
roll acts used to go to the State Theater in Hartford.
I used to go with my older sister who used
to sneak me in with her. It was pretty awesome.
(05:36):
I remember that every every hot act wouldn't matter if
it was Frankie Lymon and the teenagers or you or
you know, Buddy Holly or Jerry Lee Lewis. Everybody did
one or a maximum of two songs and that was
it right. It wasn't like the way the way.
Speaker 7 (05:51):
They well travel on the bus together. It's about twelve
to fifteen miss landing there doing that ticket Sonni Air
than to sing a sex you know, maxis two songs.
But I remember it so well, Ken, it was always
very supportive.
Speaker 6 (06:07):
So I can't wait to hear the two of you talking.
I'm sorry I'm not going to be on the call
with you, but it's got to be great. You guys
can reminisce you had the same girlfriend right on that
to the cello.
Speaker 7 (06:17):
I don't know if I can do this solo. I'm
gonna be okay because he's a friend. You've been doing
so well your partner that I'm gonna try to be
the best that can without you. He's going to be cool.
You know, I've known him a lot of years. He's
a he's a good guy. He's done very well. And
we live in the same neighborhood, so you know, we
see each other for dinner, and you don't want to
(06:39):
relate to a lot of stuff.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
He's a golfer too, I think, isn't he. I think
he plays golf.
Speaker 7 (06:44):
Oh yeah, he loves it, except he stopped golfing as
a few months ago. I don't know what's happening with
the alms. You know, all you guys at golf, maybe
fifty percent of out somewhere along the way.
Speaker 6 (06:56):
Oh man, it's tough on the body, violates every principle.
It's tough on the body. But you know, if you're
an addict like me, you got to play it. It's fun.
Well anyway, I'm sorry, I'm not going to be on
the call with you, But I actually I can't wait
to hear it because, you know, listening to the two
of you guys reminiscent.
Speaker 7 (07:14):
We get a lot to talk about.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
We shared a lot of.
Speaker 7 (07:16):
Early stuff, and it would be unlike anything that we've done,
you know. Yeah, if you were all you guys Tod
Goble be talking golf off the time, I don't think
I could take that.
Speaker 6 (07:27):
For non golfers, if there's one thing you don't want
to do, it's like it's like a guy telling you
that he was going fishing and here's what I caught,
and this is what I did. It's just it's painful.
But when I get back, we've got a bunch of
additional people that we want to record for this podcast,
so it'll be great.
Speaker 7 (07:43):
Yeah, we've got some good stuff in the backline.
Speaker 6 (07:46):
And we got some amazing coverage on the Alec Baldwin
Man oh Man that that was picked up everywhere.
Speaker 7 (07:51):
Yeah, I got a lot of calls on that. He
was great. You know, my heart skiped bleach.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
For Yeah, that thing in New Mexico.
Speaker 6 (07:58):
That's insane, but was he was so great to do it,
and he was it was a lot of fun.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
Well, so I know it's the middle of the night
for you over there. So I'm gonna let you go
to bed.
Speaker 7 (08:09):
It's getting there, it's only one in the morning. And
give my love to the eaty girl. I will, I will,
and you travel safe and monsieur and I'll let you
know when I've done with Frankie out and see you
like the week of the night.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
You got it. I love you.
Speaker 7 (08:25):
I love you too, skit sleeping, chill.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
Rank you. What do you think you want to eat?
You want salad or something? The pasta? You're here now, No,
I'll leave with you. If you want to eat something,
we can talk and eat too.
Speaker 5 (08:47):
Maybe a little salad.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
Yeah, I'm gonna do the promenade salad.
Speaker 5 (08:50):
Yeah right, I'll go half Okay, we go half.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
Good.
Speaker 5 (08:53):
Now you're done touring for the year.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
No, I'm gonna leaving for Asia in three weeks and
I'm going my touring Jane in June, and I've got
Europe in the summer, and then I've got my Fountain
Blue and starting a commitment there residency there in Vegas.
Speaker 5 (09:09):
Well, that would be cool, wouldn't it. Oh, we just
to sit down.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
Yeah, I'm only not a lot I'm gonna it's gonna
write a concept wrapped around my history with a hotel
and big band because I opened it with justin Timberlake.
So they saw it, you know, place to do it.
I do what I do, right. So these owners are like, oh,
(09:33):
they constantly to Rediscovery people, right right. So they said,
well you're coming. They said, yeah, I don't want to
sit here, but i'll do about six a year, and
I want to use holograms I want to use. So
we gave him a proposal. So I'm going to start
that in uh November, and I got to start writing
in the midst of all of this.
Speaker 5 (09:54):
God bless you you for something else and I.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
Love what I do.
Speaker 5 (09:57):
Yeah, but that's the important thing.
Speaker 4 (10:00):
I brought my phone, but I don't carry that thing
around him.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
Lucky to get you on it.
Speaker 4 (10:05):
But for some reason when somebody sent me a thing
a poster and maybe you guys can get a.
Speaker 5 (10:13):
Hold of it, take a look at it. I think
it was one of the biggest show of stars of
back in fifty eight. You're on the show, I'm on
the show.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
Daron was on.
Speaker 5 (10:25):
I think that Bobby was on one.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
Sam Cook dollar twenty five for the admission.
Speaker 5 (10:30):
That's what I'm getting to.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
That's what a dollar twenty five on one show and
it's in San Francisco. I got the poster. It could
be the same one you're talking about dollar twenty five.
You know we got paid back then. I got two
hundred bucks a week. So did you?
Speaker 4 (10:47):
No?
Speaker 5 (10:48):
I got more?
Speaker 1 (10:48):
Oh you got two fift you know what, better you
than me?
Speaker 5 (10:52):
I don't know if I got more or not.
Speaker 4 (10:53):
Whatever it was, I was making thirty dollars a week
as a DRUMPI player with Rock.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
That was making three bucks a week. What you started
away before me? You started with the trumpet.
Speaker 5 (11:02):
Right, there's a story I've been trying to think of.
It happened.
Speaker 4 (11:08):
I had just gone to ABC Paramount and I made
a couple of records.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
And is this after Venus?
Speaker 5 (11:16):
No, this is way before. This is before d D DYNA.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
Oh so you were at ABC before that.
Speaker 5 (11:20):
Yeah, that's where our first company.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
Before you went to the You guys in Philly. What
was the name of the chancellors?
Speaker 4 (11:25):
I mean, yeah, they made a distribution deal with ABC
with Sam Cohen, Larry A.
Speaker 5 (11:31):
Newark Clark and Larry Newton, Irwin Gar Irwin Gar.
Speaker 4 (11:37):
But the talk was because I'm a young kid and
you're a younger kid.
Speaker 5 (11:43):
And they talked about you. Who was your guy?
Speaker 1 (11:47):
And another guy, Sid Feller.
Speaker 4 (11:48):
There you go, Sid Feller and Don Costa. We got
this kid. He's fifteen years old. I think I was
about eighteen years I'm.
Speaker 5 (11:55):
Older year older?
Speaker 1 (11:56):
What are you? Three years older?
Speaker 5 (11:58):
I don't know. I don't age. But then again, I
hadn't had a hit.
Speaker 4 (12:06):
I'm still with Rocco in the Saints. See if you
remember this, I'm with Rocco in the Saints. I got
Sonny Troy on guitar, right, Dell Bobby Roydell would.
Speaker 5 (12:15):
Come in and sit and play drums.
Speaker 4 (12:17):
You for some reason, we were playing a place called
Bay Shores.
Speaker 5 (12:22):
In Summer's Point. We lived on top of the joint
and we would do seven days a week, five sets
a night and two jam sessions.
Speaker 4 (12:30):
You came to that place that we were playing, that
joint we were.
Speaker 5 (12:35):
Playing, and you got on the piano.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
Who brought me?
Speaker 5 (12:39):
It must have been promoting something.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
Sixty and it would be Diana.
Speaker 5 (12:45):
Diana was hitting.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
Fifty six, fifty seven.
Speaker 4 (12:49):
Yeah, okay, so my word, d Dina hitting fifty eight.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
So you came after Diana.
Speaker 5 (12:55):
That's right. So I'm still with the band. So that's
when we really first met, right, if you remember.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
I remember all my hang with you guys in Philly.
This one I don't remember.
Speaker 5 (13:05):
This is the very beginning poll and I remember you
came in and sat on the pan. I said it
was Marcucci in your life. Yeah, sure, he's found me.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
So he was in your life even before you record it.
Speaker 5 (13:15):
They found us. We were playing in this joint, right,
and they came in, Bob Marcucci and Pete d'angels.
Speaker 4 (13:22):
They saw the band and they liked RockA in the Saints,
and they signed the band and they made me sing
a couple of songs. But a trumpet got it and
I made a couple of songs. My first record I
did was called Cupid Shot and Arrow went in the toilet.
Speaker 5 (13:35):
He won fifty thousand. I got him somewhere around it,
right in the basement. Then I did a couple.
Speaker 4 (13:41):
Of more, and then I did that one song, Didy
Dinad that Bob wrote.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
I remember that, sure, remember that, right. I helped her
but Dinad it became the hit. Yeah, I remember very well.
Speaker 5 (13:53):
That started and we were on tour again.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
Well, we started, I've been on was on a couple
of tours with you, and in fact, I remember that's
when I I started getting close, even though I knew
him before we toured. Was Bobby Darren. And I've got
to tell you, you know, in doing all of this,
look at us, but you know, I got to tell you,
Frankie separated from us because you're how close all we were,
(14:16):
right sure, I've got to say that Darren was the
one guy that I looked at with a different admiration
because he was so different from all of us, and
the time I spent with him, and like spent with you,
his whole focus was so different. Even though we were saying, hey,
we want to be like the Vegas guys, we want
(14:37):
to be rat back, but he was doing it so
much better and differently than us. You know that he
was a rock and roll guy. He was making demos
with Donnie Kirshner. Yeah, he was playing drums, he was
playing piano. I was so impressed with him early, and
you know, I was with him maybe a few months
before he died. This guy was talented, God, he was.
Speaker 4 (14:58):
You were one step behind him because you had the
same objectives.
Speaker 5 (15:03):
You were songwriters.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
Yeah, and he was too.
Speaker 5 (15:05):
He was too.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
He wrote all those earlier hits. Do you know how
he wrote Splush Splash? Do you know the story sure
with Murray the Kay the Mother.
Speaker 5 (15:13):
No, I don't know that part of it, but I
know he wrote it.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
You know, his energy and how he switched right into
that whole swing thing was amazing. I went through it
with him. You remember Murray the Cape You sure records
him and Alan Freed in a couple of disc jockeys
broke our records right right right. He goes over to
Murray the Kay's house. Murray the Kay's mother was a songwriter.
Speaker 5 (15:31):
I didn't know that.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
And he's on the phone with Murray the Kay's mother
who wanted to talk to him, and she says to him, Bobby,
you should write a song about a bathtub splash splashing.
So Bobby, he looks at Murray and Murray says, yeah,
write a song splush splashing in the bathtub in Murray's house.
He finished the song in a couple of hours.
Speaker 5 (15:53):
Really.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
He goes to Ahmed Erdig in Atlantic, where he was.
They looked at him like he was crazy. He makes
the demo and makes the record. You know the rest
of the story. That was his first hit, Burst Flash,
I was taking a bet and Murray the case mother
is on the record as the writer.
Speaker 5 (16:07):
Is that right?
Speaker 1 (16:08):
With Bobby Darren?
Speaker 5 (16:09):
He was an extremely talented We traveled.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
I love Bobby Fall. We traveled with you and I
don't you remember the childe we'd sleep up on the racks.
Speaker 5 (16:17):
That's because we were little. Some of those giant I
couldn't get up there.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
It was mixed too.
Speaker 5 (16:21):
But the thing is when we did that, we don't forget.
Speaker 4 (16:24):
We would do seventy eighty one nighters in a row,
get into a hotel every other night, you know, sleep
on the bus and experience and we loved it.
Speaker 5 (16:34):
Dianna, the Belmonts, Sam.
Speaker 1 (16:36):
Cook and we're making money and having fun with our
friends and loved it. We're young.
Speaker 5 (16:41):
It's great, great experience.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
But Bobby was with us. It was nuts about this guy, Frankie,
because I just admired you. It was always Frank, Frank, Frank, Frank.
He was better than Frank in this fashion. No, no,
hear me. Frank was not a musician. Bobby Darren was
a piano player. And when you listened to his everything,
when you listened to his phrasing. It was like a drummer.
(17:07):
Frank never swung like that. Frank read the lyric. And
you remember the whole thing that went on. Oh do
you remember the little fight they had where.
Speaker 5 (17:15):
He made a comment in Life magazine. Yeah, I'm bigger
and better. That took a lot of colluns, you know,
and he had colluns.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
But he was something else. Boy, I really admired by.
Speaker 5 (17:29):
I loved him too.
Speaker 4 (17:30):
He was very He lived into Luca Lake, where I
lived when I got married.
Speaker 5 (17:36):
Okay, that's where we raised our eight kids.
Speaker 4 (17:38):
My mother in law's house was right across the street
from Darren when he was married to San Fergie and Charlie.
Speaker 5 (17:46):
Charlie was his uncle, but I think it was his father.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
No. No, the mother, Paulie, who he thought was his mother,
Her name was Paulie. She raised him as the mother.
He never knew till he was told much later, And
that really whacked him when that Nina, his sister was
his mother.
Speaker 5 (18:10):
The sister and the daughter Vanna. Do you know I
still keep in touch with her?
Speaker 2 (18:15):
No?
Speaker 4 (18:15):
Yeah, she calls me now and then we talk about
Bobby and in those days. But now here's how this
story goes, so I'm over seeing my mother in law
and all of a sudden, we're Bobby lived I mean directly.
It was Sinatra's old house into Luca Lake. He's pulling
out with a little b W Van truck whatever.
Speaker 5 (18:38):
It was Bobby. Bobby's Frankie, what are you doing.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
I'm getting out of here, sister, I said, we're doing
a Bob Dylan thing right going up to Melobury.
Speaker 4 (18:50):
He said, I'm getting out of here. No more Tuxsiro's
bow ties.
Speaker 5 (18:54):
I ain't doing that. That's right, this is and he
went to be Bob Darren.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
That's rights.
Speaker 5 (18:59):
So so I saw that very beginning of a change.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
I saw that too. It was all you know, it
was tied into Kennedy, big supporter. He was doing his
whole Dylan stick, with the jacket, with the guito.
Speaker 3 (19:11):
You know.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
They shut him down in Vegas. They wouldn't accept it.
And then he switched. He went back to being the
old Bobby. He tried to pull it off in Vegas.
It didn't work.
Speaker 5 (19:22):
You know what happened that story. He was at the frontier.
Speaker 4 (19:24):
I get a call said, Bobby Darren's not going to
play the date out would you come in and sub
So I called Bobby.
Speaker 5 (19:31):
To he said, I'm and he's pissed. I said, what happened?
Speaker 4 (19:35):
Now he's making it's a million dollar contract, Bobby says,
I told the mayor d and I.
Speaker 5 (19:40):
Told everybody with the hotel.
Speaker 4 (19:42):
If any celebrity ever comes in to see my show,
I want to know because out of respect as a
performer to a performer someone in our business, I want
to introduce them.
Speaker 5 (19:55):
So that was Bobby's thing.
Speaker 4 (19:56):
Well, what had happened one time one show that he
was doing, or the next day Dick Clark goes to
see Bobby after in the day and Dick says, to Bobby,
you were wonderful last night. Bobby says, what do you mean,
I was wonderful. He said, I saw the show. He said,
you were at the show. Dick said yeah, he said
(20:19):
that was it. That's where he went to the staff
there and the management said.
Speaker 5 (20:24):
I'm out of here.
Speaker 4 (20:25):
He blew the contract for a million dollar contract and
walked out.
Speaker 5 (20:30):
That's the kind of guy who was, you know, who
got him started?
Speaker 1 (20:33):
He gave his first instrument was Costello, Frank Costello. Sure
he somehow he gets introduced to Bobby as a kid.
I think he gave his first piano or guitar, so
that when he wound up with the Coopa with Jules Bodell,
which the boys ran, Costello was the guy. So they
(20:55):
supported Bobby in the beginning. Yeah, the Costello was very,
very tight with Bobby because he was he was looking
even when you and I used to talk and the guys,
you know, we want to get the tucks on. We
want to And then I did the Swings for Young
Lovers album. I had this Squeaky Little Boys. My boys
had me to change. No yours was yeah, you changed later.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
You know.
Speaker 5 (21:18):
I sounded like Wayne Newton, no no, no, one sells.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
No no. But I had the Squeaky Boys and we're
swinging because we wanted to write right. But he because
I remember I used to say that, no, I don't
want to do this rock and roll ship. Because he
got Richard West, who I knew.
Speaker 5 (21:34):
He became my conductor.
Speaker 1 (21:35):
He was your conductor. After that.
Speaker 5 (21:37):
After after Bob he.
Speaker 1 (21:38):
Did those records. I know, he did those records for
ATCO and everyone was so against him, and he tested it.
He tested with that, even Dick when he heard it,
you know, Clark was tight with him. Dick Clark was
very tight with Bobby Darren. He liked Bobby. Oh, and
he played him. I think Mac the Knife, you know,
remember how tight we all went used to.
Speaker 5 (21:58):
Play with the Elegant. That's where he was with Dick
Western and doing that version of Mac the Knife exactly.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
But you know who found him. He had a good
woman in his life. Wasserman. What was her name? She
stuck with him like a pr Pt. Wasserman. I think, no, no, no, anyway,
she and Steve Blowner were the two supporters, but she
was there first, and she found Richard West for him.
Speaker 5 (22:26):
You know, with Richard West and Bobby Darren.
Speaker 4 (22:30):
Me when I was first starting out with those records
were bombs.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
You know.
Speaker 4 (22:35):
I would go to New York City and stay with
Bobby and Dick West because they were rooming together too.
Speaker 5 (22:41):
Because Bobby hadn't hit yet. Don't forget, Bobby came after us.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
You can hit so much later. He was like twenty
one or twenty two, way after us. He was writing
songs with Donnie Kershner at different accents. Now he was
he was something boy. I really I love Bobby and
he could move man. I mean we had. We were
still learning, right, but that was remember right they do
(23:07):
the little footstep and all right, right right? And you
and I were looking because when you were kids compared
to him, Wait.
Speaker 5 (23:13):
A minute, what about this talent? How about nominated for
an Academy Award, Captain Newman m D.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
That's right, that's absolutely he was. I'm going to be
an actor.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
I remember that.
Speaker 5 (23:26):
He was complete, he was all around complete.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
And there we were worrying about our hair, right and
what we're gonna do? What we were teen idols and
Bobby he hated us because we had the fucking hair.
Speaker 4 (23:40):
I remembered the two Bay remember.
Speaker 5 (23:43):
And he'd be combing his hair, be coming out. He
saturday back, my goddamn here Jesus great.
Speaker 1 (23:48):
That he had insecurities like that. He never thought he
was a good looking guy. He'd always teases, well, we
were teen idols.
Speaker 5 (23:54):
Yeah, he was never a teen idol.
Speaker 4 (23:57):
We went through that were were the beginning of teen IELs.
After Sinatra, Johnny Ray came.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
Out, that's right. He had his little taste with Dick
Dick Clark and he did dream Lover, Splash Splash. He
did a couple of those shows, you know those girls.
You and I used to talk about the screaming about everybody, right,
the same girl you're gonna, said Santa Claus. Bobby's playing
to the same chicks that we were playing to. It
(24:24):
was hilarious. But he wanted out, man, he wanted to
swing with those tours. How brutal was that? Do you
(24:45):
remember how brutal some of those tours were?
Speaker 5 (24:47):
Are you kidding?
Speaker 1 (24:47):
You? Remember our little black suits. We used to hang
in the shower. We wouldn't afford to get him pressed,
and we'd all be sitting there in a road doing
our hair while the suits were in this in the
steam shower.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
Your washing your.
Speaker 5 (25:00):
Clothes in the shower, you know, on you get the soap,
wash your clothes.
Speaker 1 (25:06):
You know, you think of Frankie, how good it became
for us. Now we're working, you're working the technology the
way we work. Do you remember that one microphone for
everybody and one microphone in front of the band, and
that was all.
Speaker 5 (25:24):
I think about those days? Where did the sound come from?
I had no idea. First of all, you couldn't hear
me anyway. The kids were screaming so much.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
Didn't matter, That couldn't matter.
Speaker 4 (25:35):
But I mean we'd go and no such thing as
a sound check. You got on the microphone.
Speaker 1 (25:42):
You know your life was in your hands. I am
standing in front of the mic.
Speaker 4 (25:48):
Great times though, Well, remember how notorious Chuck Berry used
to be.
Speaker 5 (25:52):
Well, he never got on the bus.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
Was Cadillac?
Speaker 5 (25:54):
You followed us in the pink Cadillac?
Speaker 1 (25:57):
I mean god, I think of those days. There was
another town was a guy Chuck songwriter?
Speaker 5 (26:04):
All those words, are you kidding?
Speaker 4 (26:06):
Yeah, there were a lot of towns. A guy Sam Cook?
Speaker 5 (26:09):
I love Sam Cook. You want to talk about a
class guy? Handsome? And how about Jackie Wilson.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
I was just going to say, Bobby got a lot
of his moves from Jackie.
Speaker 5 (26:21):
You know, I remember how we used to move with this.
Speaker 4 (26:25):
He was the first guy to do the steps and
don't want to get on the floor, and they put
the cape on.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
Him, just like Freeman, Jay Hawkins and James Brown.
Speaker 5 (26:34):
James Brown, remember James.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
Used to sell Were you on those tours when you
set chocolate bars and cokes in the back of the
bus and sell them? No, used to be blue paying
what fifteen cents?
Speaker 5 (26:47):
Can you imagine me following at the Paramount Theater in
New York City.
Speaker 4 (26:54):
I'm headlining big lineup of stars, and I'm headlining your
last I.
Speaker 5 (26:59):
Gotta follow hellow Jackie Wilson, Wait a minute. Daytime was
fine because I walk out.
Speaker 4 (27:05):
Of there and the kids fans and always screaming and
yelling and all that stuff.
Speaker 5 (27:09):
In the daytime. But at night time there were a
lot of guys there.
Speaker 4 (27:13):
So when Jackie Wilson, and he was a showman in
a head when he did his ending and the music
to be playing, they put the cape on them like
this and take them on stage.
Speaker 5 (27:22):
They were on their feet yelling. And now ladies and gentlemen,
here he is Frankie Boo.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
And I'm following them with puppy lovers of the You
know who was cool? Remember Frankie Lyman.
Speaker 5 (27:36):
How talented was he. I'd stand in the wings and
watch Frankie Limon.
Speaker 1 (27:40):
God was he good?
Speaker 5 (27:41):
You want to talk about the moves of Michael Jackson and.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
Then Frankie Limon, big heroin addict. Remember we found out
in the middle of the tour, Yeah, that he was
doing the heroine and he was seeing the girl from
the platters. We never knew that either.
Speaker 5 (27:55):
Zoiela.
Speaker 1 (27:56):
Yes, but Frankie was talented.
Speaker 4 (27:58):
What memories we have, and it's so nice that we're
able to talk about it.
Speaker 5 (28:02):
I mean, you know, when to.
Speaker 1 (28:03):
Be here and talk about it and still doing what
we're doing to do. I say it every night I
go on stage like it's the first one. I always
reflect back. You know when you think about the mileage,
Frank you, Oh, we have to learn before we really
became confident. Remember of the intrepidations we'd have just doing
the two songs and still learning our craft, and then
(28:26):
they'd come to us. You gotta go to Copa, gotta
go to Vegas. We're gonna teach you this stuff. Remember
the guys that lose Spencer does that ring a bell?
Speaker 5 (28:33):
Spencer?
Speaker 1 (28:33):
How about Noel Sherman and Joe Sherman, the Brothers guy
that wrote for me and wrote for me.
Speaker 5 (28:39):
Too, and Nick Castle.
Speaker 1 (28:40):
Nick Castle, yeah he was cool, kidd, he was the best.
Nick was cool.
Speaker 4 (28:44):
My opening show, Casino Royale, that's right, right, And it's
my opening show, and I'm in a commitment. The band plays,
I'll take man, and then I have to another song,
and then I have to say thank you very much.
Speaker 5 (29:00):
Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Okay, I do the opening show.
Speaker 4 (29:04):
Steve Lawrence is there, Edie's there, and Ned Ficello's there,
and I sing my first opening song and I go
like this, imagine, gentlemen, I got so nervous I could
sing good dog.
Speaker 5 (29:22):
I'll never forget that open. Then went to the Kopa.
You had a bondit. Oh, yeah, sure, I had a bondit.
Speaker 1 (29:28):
I was writing the music. Do you remember I was
writing all that music for the Cope. I wrote all
those dancing girls.
Speaker 5 (29:34):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
No dressing rooms. We had to live up in that
stupid hotel. That was a tough place. You didn't fool
around it.
Speaker 5 (29:40):
How about our dressing room?
Speaker 1 (29:41):
What dressing room the hotel fourteen, that little little hotel fourteen.
Speaker 5 (29:46):
Yes, but then the little side.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
Of the girls changed and we changed.
Speaker 5 (29:50):
But you know it's really something the mouth guy that
introduced us.
Speaker 1 (29:52):
How about this guy for Frankie, the Light's gonna.
Speaker 5 (30:00):
Dug County Doug Howdy. He introduced you straight as an arrow.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
Who did you say, the guy that introduced what him?
Speaker 5 (30:07):
I was gonna say, dog.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
You're gonna say Doug, Oh, Doug? Oh, you meant introduced
ladies and gentlemen? Yeah, right, yeah, eye opened just like
you did. Remember they had it all figured out. You
worked the Kopa. But but you had to have a comic.
All of us had a comic. You had a comic
open for you. Yeah, I had a comic cop. We
hired this guy called Jackie Mason, brilliant. So we did
(30:33):
prom night as you as I. Three shows and the
kids are in white all the way around, and.
Speaker 5 (30:39):
We were right in the middle of the floor. We
can't even move.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
You can't even sold out all of us. Jackie Wilson,
after opening night gets a little Hey, we're a hit.
Hey we hit, But you think could you do? We're
gonna go to be a hit like that. So now
we all knew we had to go up to the hotel.
We couldn't go in there. Yeah, you go up to
(31:01):
your dressing room in it. He decides on the second
night with me to go through the front door with
the kids. Oh my god, and he walks and remember Julie,
he used to sit there.
Speaker 5 (31:13):
Yeah, with the ring right right.
Speaker 1 (31:16):
He walks by the kids and Julie and he says, hey,
mister Botel. He says, it's Jackie.
Speaker 5 (31:25):
Get back in line. He didn't know who he was Oh,
he was the most hated guy.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
He ran.
Speaker 4 (31:35):
He ran that place, Like you said, the boys hired
him to keep that place and he did.
Speaker 7 (31:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (31:43):
Yeah, Once in a while you have to say, you
get a call. Hodell would coming you, come up to
the lounge. He'd say, there's a limo out there.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
There a limb out there.
Speaker 4 (31:53):
You gotta go sing Sweet sixteen party and between shows.
Speaker 5 (31:57):
Right, it was one of the boy you're telling you
to go.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
Do you know good?
Speaker 1 (32:01):
We did what we have to do.
Speaker 3 (32:02):
Man.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
Look, you know it got us off those bus tours.
The evolution of all of us that tried to do it,
you know, and though those that couldn't. How about those
short careers, Oh my god, I mean Connie Francis had
a career with the fathers. They remember the love affair
with Bobby and her. Sure he wanted to marry her.
Speaker 5 (32:25):
He wanted to marry her, wanted to.
Speaker 1 (32:27):
Marry and then the father was threatening him. I think
it was George Scheck or one of the managers. I
don't want to misrepresent it. They have to go to
Bobby and say you got a chill, Oh, you wanted
to marry Connie. He was madly in love with her.
Speaker 4 (32:41):
I know she's told me many, many, many times about
her friendship relationship with Bobby.
Speaker 1 (32:46):
She was she was a good artist.
Speaker 5 (32:48):
Oh you want to know she did.
Speaker 4 (32:50):
Connie Francis is the hottest vocalist, female vocalist in this
entire world. I mean hits after hits after hits after hits, made.
Speaker 5 (32:59):
A couple of films too. Yeah, I had a great career.
She's still was great. I don't know if she's still
out there working.
Speaker 6 (33:05):
I've run into her.
Speaker 5 (33:05):
Once in a while and that's about it. She lives
down in Florida.
Speaker 2 (33:08):
Now.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
No, I haven't heard from her a senior in such
a long time.
Speaker 5 (33:13):
Well, I ain't money involves just left.
Speaker 1 (33:17):
Well, I'm goppy, it's you and I. You know who
I was in touch with recently. Another good guy was
Tony Orlando.
Speaker 5 (33:24):
Yes, such a I he retired. I know, it's all
over the place.
Speaker 1 (33:29):
The other night in the Mohicans, son and I surprised
him with one of my my way lyrics. Oh yeah,
and they played went on with the no no no.
I was working.
Speaker 5 (33:39):
I was in Florida, but I oh you sent them
to the.
Speaker 2 (33:44):
Right.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
And Tom Cantone is a great guy. Runs Mohicans. He's brilliant.
So he arranged it with Tom and they showed it.
But he was tight with Bobby too.
Speaker 5 (33:55):
Oh I no, he loved Bobby and he.
Speaker 1 (33:57):
There's another guy. He was a co executive.
Speaker 5 (34:01):
He was a promotion man. I don't know if he
was an executive.
Speaker 1 (34:05):
He was an executive with Clive Davis. I'm telling you
he ran a division. He was a record exec and
then he did some demo record. I think the song
was Condider Oh again, and he put another name. He
was a record executive, Frankie. And then it started to
evolve to they were going Clive said, oh, I knew
(34:25):
it was you, et cetera, et cetera, And that's how
his career started. And then Don and what have you.
But he was running a division of a record company.
Speaker 4 (34:34):
You know the first time I met him with cousin
Brucey Pacific Palisades, remember the.
Speaker 5 (34:41):
And he was just coming up.
Speaker 4 (34:43):
I think he had I forget the first record that
he had, Paradise something.
Speaker 5 (34:48):
Paradise was a Paradise was in there before he came over.
Speaker 4 (34:53):
And he was so because I was already established. Now
I'm after Venus and all this other stuff.
Speaker 5 (34:59):
And I'm making motion picture. He comes to me and.
Speaker 4 (35:02):
Really very sweet, almost like a fan at that time.
So as the years go by, and he becomes more
famous and more famous, and I'm playing Las Vegas and
he's opening for the first time across the street at
the Hilton. I opened the Landmark Hotel, so he was
in the lounge. So I'm in the main showroom, so
I'm able to go see him. I go to see
(35:24):
his show, and ladies and gentlemen Tony Orlando. The lights
are dim and he comes out and he sings his
opening song. Who is the Man? The man they call Chef.
I go back to his dressing room. He said, what
do you think of the show? I said, to me,
(35:45):
let me tell you something.
Speaker 5 (35:46):
First of all, that opening song all wrong. I said,
what are you singing?
Speaker 4 (35:52):
You got to come up on up, You got to
see the lights, you got to see people, you got
to perform.
Speaker 5 (35:58):
He never forgot that. He never ever forgot that.
Speaker 4 (36:02):
Now time goes by, Tony Orlando gets a television show.
Speaker 5 (36:07):
I think it was CBS, NBC. It was NBC. I'm
doing the Dinah Shore Show. She had a talk show.
If you remember that.
Speaker 4 (36:15):
I'm in the makeup chair. I'm getting made up. All
of a sudden, I feel this.
Speaker 5 (36:21):
I turn around.
Speaker 4 (36:22):
He grabs me, hugs me, frank you Tony, congratulations. I
say to him, you got a show. You gotta hit
television show. He says to me, I want you on.
I said, Tony, that's very sweet of you, but I
know this business unless you get an okay from the execs.
Speaker 5 (36:42):
Approval, the approval, you know, thanks for jaking. So I'm
going to have you on. And you know what, he
kept his word, put me on the show. We did
songs together. We sang. It was great.
Speaker 1 (36:57):
He's a nice guy, absolutely performer, really good. He was
doing Darren little of Darren little of you know. No, no,
he was a very good performance, you know.
Speaker 5 (37:07):
And now he's retired. Can you believe that?
Speaker 1 (37:10):
Did you know Elvis at all?
Speaker 2 (37:11):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (37:11):
Did you spend some time with him a little bit? Yeah, yeah,
I spent I spent a good deal. We were on
r C A Victor together. But you know, he was
separate from all of us. You know that he had
his own king. But I said, I did spend some
good time with him, and especially when he came out
started working in Vegas. You know, he'd come over and
see my show. I'd go see him, and then you know,
I saw the whole evolution into that unfortunate health problem is.
(37:35):
But he used to near the end, he used always
say to me.
Speaker 5 (37:38):
I'm gonna do Polly.
Speaker 1 (37:40):
I'm going to do my way that song. You know. Yeah,
I said, it's not really your kindest Polly, you don't understand.
And he'd sit there, have six of his guys and
I'm going to do that song poly Yeah, I'm a songwriter.
Song why not? But he did a great job.
Speaker 4 (38:00):
Hey, what a great artist. I would go to his
house on a friendship level. I mean I saw him
perform once. It was magnificent at the Hill. But I
would go to his house and barbecue, touch football.
Speaker 5 (38:14):
You liked that kind of shu.
Speaker 4 (38:16):
But it was amazing how he presented himself at his house,
because he never went to restaurants or anything.
Speaker 5 (38:24):
You would go to his house.
Speaker 4 (38:26):
He'd have people waiting, and his guys that dressed like him,
and you know, and they would come out of where
his dress, where his bedroom was. El was coming out
and man ellis about man elist man.
Speaker 5 (38:37):
All of a sudden, the doors would open up.
Speaker 4 (38:39):
Bang, and Elvis would come out like an entry, and
everybody went.
Speaker 5 (38:44):
And he was a handsome guy, and and and and
and quiet and nice.
Speaker 4 (38:50):
And the thing I noticed about it most of all
when he sat down, his legs never stopped moving.
Speaker 1 (38:55):
Oh he had one of those.
Speaker 5 (38:57):
Yeah, legs were shaken like this. And he had a
jukebox in his house. Yea with every song record nobody
else but him. All this stuff, all this stuff.
Speaker 4 (39:11):
He was got a guy. First of all, My wife
went with Tuesday. Well they were friends, you know, and
to the house of one time.
Speaker 5 (39:20):
He wanted a date.
Speaker 4 (39:20):
K my wife, you know, she said, no, I don't
think so, I said, what you picked me over?
Speaker 1 (39:30):
She picked the right guy.
Speaker 5 (39:31):
But yeah, they were sixty one years married.
Speaker 1 (39:34):
Wow, you're sixty one years married? Now?
Speaker 4 (39:37):
Yeah, when was the anniversary of Frank January nineteenth?
Speaker 1 (39:41):
Do you have a party or anything?
Speaker 5 (39:42):
We always have a party. I got eight kids, I
got ten grand kids. It's always a party. I got
nine now nine? Yeah, mine, I got the boy. But
that's the only boy, my only boy.
Speaker 1 (39:53):
All girls.
Speaker 5 (39:53):
You got the six girls.
Speaker 1 (39:55):
I got five girls, one boy and nine grandchildren.
Speaker 5 (39:57):
Who ever thought, huh? Now?
Speaker 1 (39:59):
The way we ran a You and I who thought
any woman would ever put up with us? I mean,
were we nuts? Are you kidding me?
Speaker 5 (40:05):
My oldest boy is now.
Speaker 1 (40:07):
Sixty, my daughters like fifty eight.
Speaker 5 (40:09):
We're the same age, my son and I. I don't
know how we know.
Speaker 1 (40:15):
There's a new test now. There is a blood test
now where they will now tell you what your true
body age is.
Speaker 5 (40:22):
Really Yeah, I don't want to know.
Speaker 1 (40:23):
I'm like fifty five, I kept.
Speaker 5 (40:25):
I want to fake everybody out.
Speaker 1 (40:26):
No, no, you gotta get this test because I'm sure
you're hell do you take care of yourself, but you
gotta go and get this test. It's good.
Speaker 5 (40:33):
Oh I'm not going.
Speaker 1 (40:35):
You gotta go.
Speaker 5 (40:36):
Man, how much?
Speaker 1 (40:37):
What do you want? Listen to find out good news?
I'll give you anything, but you know what it is.
We're living not only in a day and age of
where music arts. Everything in life has changed and is
with artificial intelligence, but medicine and what's on the landscape
is unbelievable.
Speaker 5 (40:58):
Frankie, you oh, I know the.
Speaker 1 (41:00):
Next three years they will have inroads to everything. It's
a great time to be living. Get the goddamn politics straight,
then things would be better.
Speaker 5 (41:10):
I always thought getting older would take longer. It comes
you know what I do.
Speaker 1 (41:17):
I never mentioned the world ever. If somebody says to me, oh,
I'm getting old, never mentioned the world older, keep older,
keep the old man out. Don't live by the number.
Speaker 5 (41:28):
Who said that, keep the old man out Eastwood? Maybe
that's why it's out there. Yeah, I worked with him.
Speaker 1 (41:35):
Great guy. He's my neighbor up in Carmel. Another great guy, talented,
nice family. My kids grew up with his kids. Oh
it's a good stuff, isn't it.
Speaker 5 (41:46):
I know what a career and you keep going around
the world.
Speaker 1 (41:50):
You got still throw dirt on you. You know.
Speaker 4 (41:53):
I got to the point I started making film a
lot of forty pictures more. Maybe I don't know, but
I got to the point where I said, you know what,
I don't want to do films anymore.
Speaker 5 (42:02):
And meaning by that, I don't if they want me
or not. But I didn't want any representation to say you,
I can get you this role. I could go with it.
There's a picture coming up, and I don't want to
do it.
Speaker 4 (42:14):
When you make that many pictures. And I had a
lot of fun making with those things, but I just
got tired of the the format of how you have
to make emotional picture on location and was in a baby.
Speaker 1 (42:30):
Supposed No, I mean did a lot of those.
Speaker 5 (42:33):
Yeah, yeah, forget seven of those, but then there's a
lot of good stuff. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (42:38):
Sure wasn't a net adorable. God, I love that girl.
Speaker 5 (42:42):
Yeah, she was a sweetheart.
Speaker 1 (42:43):
She wanted to get married. I know I couldn't do it,
but what a family and what a sweetheart she She
just had that sweetness, that goodness. I don't know where
it came from, but she would never different.
Speaker 5 (42:58):
It was honest, it was you know, she was so sweet.
Speaker 4 (43:03):
She really I think she was really pushed into the business.
She really didn't care about it as much as you
would think. Exactly what she had to do something, she did.
Speaker 1 (43:14):
It any hour. The mother, the teacher, the whole crew.
Speaker 5 (43:18):
We're doing we had made about six or seven of
the beach things and we're doing a halftime at the
super Bowl I think it was super Bowl twenty three.
It's a big deal. You've got a million people, ten
million people, whatever. But she's a nervous wreck. She says,
I don't know. I said you got to do this.
People loved you. Remember that team curtain up out?
Speaker 1 (43:44):
She went, see what I did the album with her? God,
She was nervous with Tuti Camerano and I had to
talk her through every song because she wasn't a singer.
But she get out. She's on tour with us.
Speaker 2 (43:56):
No.
Speaker 1 (43:56):
I love that girl. She was just the sweetest and
married our agent Jack.
Speaker 5 (44:03):
She love you well.
Speaker 1 (44:04):
I loved her. You know, we were really very very close.
I just the marriage thing just scared me. You know,
I wasn't ready. What were we eighteen nineteen something like that.
Remember we used to travel on those planes sometimes to
get the gigs in shirts and ties. Do you know
remember when we dressed? They had us so brainwashed. I
remember going on those airplanes and no time, and I'm
(44:27):
in a shirt and a tie and we're all sitting
in shirt and ties on this God, I don't know, remember, you.
Speaker 5 (44:33):
Don't want That was style everybody. We had style class
and we learned.
Speaker 1 (44:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (44:39):
Yeah, and if you had the capacity to learn it.
Speaker 1 (44:44):
And keep it. That's the difference of you me and
there's other guys you talked about.
Speaker 5 (44:50):
Yeah that went by, you know, that's right.
Speaker 1 (44:52):
Yeah. Difference with Paul Anka and Skip Bronson is a
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 3 (45:04):
The show's executive producer is Jordan Runtogg with supervising producer
and editor Marcy Depina.
Speaker 1 (45:12):
It was engineered by Todd Carlin and Graham Gibson, mixed
and mastered a wonderful Mary Did.
Speaker 2 (45:19):
If you like what you heard, please subscribe and leave
us a review.
Speaker 1 (45:23):
For more podcasts on iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Host
Paul Anka
Popular Podcasts
Monster: BTK
'Monster: BTK', the newest installment in the 'Monster' franchise, reveals the true story of the Wichita, Kansas serial killer who murdered at least 10 people between 1974 and 1991. Known by the moniker, BTK – Bind Torture Kill, his notoriety was bolstered by the taunting letters he sent to police, and the chilling phone calls he made to media outlets. BTK's identity was finally revealed in 2005 to the shock of his family, his community, and the world. He was the serial killer next door. From Tenderfoot TV & iHeartPodcasts, this is 'Monster: BTK'.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.