Frankie Laine
b. Francesco Paolo LoVecchio, 30 March 1913, Chicago, Illinois, USA, d. 6 February 2007, San Diego, California, USA. Laine had been a chorister at the Immaculate Conception Church in his city's Sicilian quarter before entering showbusiness proper on leaving school. For nearly a decade he travelled as a singing waiter, dancing instructor (with a victory in a 1932 dance marathon as his principal qualification) and other lowly jobs, but it was as a member of a New Jersey nightclub quartet that he was given his first big break, replacing Perry Como in Freddie Carlone's touring band in 1937. This was a springboard to a post as house vocalist with a New York radio station until migration to Los Angeles, where he was "discovered" entertaining in a Hollywood spa by Hoagy Carmichael. The songwriter persuaded him to adopt an Anglicized nom de theatre, and funded the 1947 Mercury Records session that resulted in a version of Hadda Brooks' "That's My Desire", Laine's first smash. This was followed by "Shine" (written in 1924) and a revival again in Louis Armstrong's "When You're Smiling". This was the title song to a 1950 movie starring Laine, the Mills Brothers, Kay Starr and other contributors of musical interludes to its "backstage" plot.
Listen to Frankie Laine
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Albums
- (2005) Old Man Jazz
- (1991) The Frankie Laine Collection: The Mercury Years
- (1961) 16 Most Requested Songs
- (1951) Frankie Laine'S Greatest Hits
Top Tracks
- Moonlight Gambler
- I Believe
- Mule Train
- High Noon (Do Not Forsake Me)
- That Lucky Old Sun
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