Steve Alaimo

Stephen Charles Alaimo (December 6, 1939 – November 30, 2024) was an American singer who was a teen idol in the early 1960s. He later became a record producer and label owner, but he is perhaps best known for hosting and co-producing Dick Clark's Where the Action Is in the late 1960s. He had nine singles appear on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart without once reaching the Top 40, the most by any artist not reaching the Top 40.

Alaimo was born on December 6, 1939, in Omaha, Nebraska, and moved to Rochester, New York, at the age of five. He entered the music business during his time as a pre-med student at the University of Miami, joining his cousin's instrumental rock band the Redcoats, becoming the guitarist, and eventually, the singer. The Redcoats consisted of Jim Alaimo on rhythm guitar, Brad Shapiro on bass, and Jim "Chris" Christy on drums. After playing a sock hop held by local disc jockey Bob Green and label owner Henry Stone, the band earned a record deal with Stone's Marlin Records. In 1959, "I Want You To Love Me" became a regional hit for the band. Green became Alaimo's manager, ultimately giving up the role to Stone. That same year, Dick Clark's Caravan of Stars came to Miami needing a band to back up artists, so the Redcoats became that band.

The Redcoats broke up in 1960, and under Stone's tutelage, Alaimo became a "blue-eyed soul singer" with an all Black back-up band. Alaimo and the group became the house band for a local club at the Eden Roc Hotel. Despite his rising local fame, he released two solo albums that did not earn him the national spotlight. On September 23, 1964, Alaimo opened the concert at the Alexandria (Va.) Roller Rink ahead of The Mugwumps and The Beach Boys. During this time, Stone put Alaimo to work as a promotion man for Stone's Tone Distributors, which acquainted him with the music industry at large.

Through his promotion job, Alaimo landed his first major record deal with Checker Records, a subsidiary of Chess Records, in 1961. There, he struck a minor amount of gold in 1963 with his single "Every Day I Have to Cry," written by Muscle Shoals singer-songwriter, Arthur Alexander. The record peaked at Number 46 on Billboard's Hot 100. The song was a top-five hit in Miami, on local radio stations WQAM and WFUN (AM). Later that year, Alaimo left Checker for Imperial Records, and ABC Records, but the fame of his recording career would soon be eclipsed.

Dick Clark proposed to hire the Redcoats again for his music program Where the Action Is, but the group had broken up. Instead, Clark hired Alaimo as host and music director. Alaimo took the opportunity to promote his own records on-air; however, he rarely had time to record new songs. Alaimo would also become co-producer of the program, which lasted from 1965 to 1967.

Biography summary from English Wikipedia, photograph via Wikimedia Commons.