Frankie Laine

Frankie Laine (born Francesco Paolo LoVecchio; March 30, 1913 – February 6, 2007) was an American singer and songwriter whose career spanned nearly 75 years, from his first concerts in 1930 with a marathon dance company to his final performance of "That's My Desire" in 2005. Often billed as "America's Number One Song Stylist", Laine's other nicknames include "Mr. Rhythm", "Old Leather Lungs", and "Mr. Steel Tonsils". His hits included "That's My Desire", "That Lucky Old Sun", "Mule Train", "Jezebel", "High Noon", "I Believe", "Hey Joe!", "The Kid's Last Fight", "Cool Water", "Rawhide", and "You Gave Me a Mountain".

Laine sang well known theme songs for many Western film soundtracks, including 3:10 To Yuma, Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, and Blazing Saddles, although his recordings were not charted as country and western. Laine sang an eclectic variety of song styles and genres, stretching from big band crooning to pop, western-themed songs, gospel, rock, folk, jazz, and blues. He did not sing the soundtrack song for High Noon, which was sung by Tex Ritter, but his own version (with somewhat altered lyrics, omitting the name of the antagonist, Frank Miller) was the one that became a bigger hit. Laine also did not sing the theme to another show he is commonly associated with—Champion the Wonder Horse (sung by Mike Stewart)—but released his own, subsequently more popular, version.

Laine's enduring popularity was illustrated in June 2011 when a TV-advertised compilation called Hits reached No. 16 on the UK Albums Chart. The accomplishment was achieved nearly 60 years after his debut on the U.K. chart, 64 years after his first major U.S. hit and four years after his death.

Frankie Laine was born Francesco Paolo LoVecchio on March 30, 1913, to Giovanni and Crescenzia LoVecchio (née Salerno). His Cook County, Illinois, birth certificate (No. 14436) was already Americanized at the time of his birth, with his name written as "Frank Lovecchio", his mother as "Anna Salerno", and his father as "John Lovecchio", with the "V" lower case in each instance, except in the "Reported by" section with "John Lo Vecchio (father)" written in. His parents had emigrated from Monreale, Sicily, to Chicago's Near West Side, in "Little Italy", where his father worked at one time as the personal barber for gangster Al Capone. Laine's family appears to have had several organized crime connections, and young Francesco was living with his grandfather when the latter was killed by rival gangsters.

The eldest of eight children, Laine grew up in the Old Town neighborhood (first at 1446 N. North Park Avenue and later at 331 W. Schiller Street) and had his first taste of singing as a member of the choir in the Church of the Immaculate Conception's elementary school across the street from the North Park Avenue home. Laine later attended Lane Technical High School, where he helped to develop his lung power and breath control by joining the track and field and basketball teams. Laine realized he wanted to be a singer when he missed time in school to see Al Jolson's current talking picture, The Singing Fool. Jolson would later visit Laine when both were filming pictures in 1949, and around this time, Jolson remarked that Laine was going to put all the other singers out of business.

Biography summary from English Wikipedia, photograph via Wikimedia Commons.