One of the last great Italian crooners of the 50s has died at 83. His big hit was You Don’t Know Me, but he was a prolific love song lounge singer.
I’m old enough to remember when Jerry Vale’s recording of the national anthem was played at every Yankee game (he was replaced by opera singer Robert Merrill in the mid Seventies).
I couldn’t name any of his songs without google, but I know the name. We’re losing too many people this year.
My mother thought Jerry Vale was God. She had all his albums.
I had probably heard him on a pop station growing up, but he didn’t impress me. I never actually knew who he was until I got to Vietnam. I was listening to Hendrix, Arthur Brown, and Cream at the time. My buddy came over and asked if he could play a new record he got from the PX. Sure, why not. He put on a Jerry Vale album and I nearly puked. “What the FUCK is THAT?!” I couldn’t believe anybody listened to that sort of music. Then, when I got married the first time, I found out that my wife was a big fan of his stuff, along with Mantovani and other bland genres. Later on in life, I came to appreciate the man’s voice, if not his choice of songs.
I think I saw him on TV only once. He was on Merv Griffin’s talk show in the late 1970s or early 1980s singing Lovers Roulette.
I remember him for his Mama Leone’s commercials (celebrating their “mamaversary”) circa 1980.
No surprise that a lot of people never heard of Jerry Vale- he was an entertainer of another generation who, even in his prime, was most popular within Italian-American circles. Anyone who’s under 60 and didn’t grow up in a city with a large Italian population probably never saw or heard the guy perform.
I’m 53 and grew up in New York City. As I said, I heard Jerry Vale’s recording of the national anthem before every Yankees game when I was a kid (it was replaced by opera singer Robert Merrill’s version in the mid-Seventies), and my Italian neighbors used to play Jerry Vale’s records (and Sinatra’s and Al Martino’s and Mario Lanza’s…) at all their parties.
But younger people, or people who grew up in the South or Midwest, would never have heard of him. Hey, my elderly Italian neighbors probably never heard of Amy Grant or NWA or Leonard Cohen or Lou Reed or Robert Johnson or John Cage. That doesn’t mean those folks didn’t have their admirers.
I came late to appreciate most of the crooners. I knew who Sinatra and Martino and other crooners were, of course, but I was a solid rock and roll fan in the 50s-60s. Later on, I disliked Sinatra because of his arrogance, attitude and the people he hung with. Now, of course, I realize what a genius he was, and what incredible timing, control and musicality he had. The man’s voice was a jazz instrument.