14. the Singers in Cleveland
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14. The Singers in Cleveland orgotten by many is the fact that several of the his longtime girlfriend, most popular singers of a generation had sung Roselle, in 1933, Carlone Fwith jazz bands in Cleveland. Perry Como, was the best man. The Frankie Laine and Dean Martin all spent several years young couple lived in South singing here before winning national fame. Martin and Euclid Tony Bennett met their wives in Cleveland. Other well One night in 1936, known singers had memorable appearances and Como was singing with experiences here. In addition, several native Cleveland Carlone at a gambling spot singers made national reputations. One became an in Warren when another overnight success after 50 years oftrying. band leader, Ted Weems, walked in to play roulette. The singer who turned down Carlone Weems heard Como sing In the early 1930s, a young singer from Lakewood and saw the crowd call him turned down an offer to join one of Cleveland' s most back for several encores. popular bands. That decision opened the door for a Weems immediately Perry Como singing in future national star. offered Como ajob with his Cleveland in the 19305 The young Lakewood singer' s name was Bert Porter. orchestra. Como toured He had played saxophone and guitar and sung with a with Weems' II-piece band for six years and became band led by Bob Royce at Ohio State University and the prototypical big band singer. later with the Vernon-Owens band in Cleveland. After Como later became one of the most popular record getting his civil engineering degree in 1928, Porter spent and television singers ofthe 1950s. several years singing with various bands in Cleveland and attracted the attention of popular Cleveland Como and Frankie Laine bandleader Freddy Carlone who was playing at the Como, while he was touring with the Weems band, Rainbow Gardens on the Lakewood-Cleveland border. met an ambitious young singer in Chicago named Frank Carlone wanted Porter to become his band's singer, but LoVecchio. His main claim to fame at the time was Porter had other plans. setting the world' s record for marathon dancing - 145 He went to work in engineering and in 1947 became days! He had also done some singing with jazz the Cuyahoga County Engineer, a position he held for 30 musicians Joe Marsala, Henry "Red" Allen and Art years. He was the man who was primarily responsible Hodes. The young singer, who later changed his name for building the freeway system linking Cleveland and to Frankie Laine, heard that Como was about to leave its sprawling suburbs. In 1953, he ran for mayor of the Weems Orchestra and was hoping to get the job, but, Cleveland and served as the Cuyahoga County at the last minute, Como decided to stay with Weems. Democratic Party chairman from 1963 to 1969. Laine told me that Como apologized to him and asked, "Would you like to go to Cleveland? I can make a call Perry Como and maybe get you ajob." When Porter tuned down Carlone' s offer, the Como called his former boss; Freddy Carlone, and Cleveland bandleader hired a handsome young barber LoVecchio began singing in Cleveland with Carlone' s from Cannonsburg, Pennsylvania, named Perry Como. band late in 1937. Copying the crooning style ofBing Crosby, Como came to Cleveland in 1933 and sang with the Carlone Frankie Laine in Cleveland Orchestra at various Cleveland hotels and other spots In his autobiography, That Lucky Old Son, Laine around Northeast Ohio for the next three years. The wrote that his high hopes in Cleveland were "quickly band also performed at the March, 1933 Inaugural Ball shot down." He discovered that Carlone then had a Guy for President Franklin Roosevelt in Washington. Lombardo-style sweet band. Laine wanted to be a jazz Another member of the Carlone Orchestra was Johnny singer. He said, "When I heard the reed section playing Singer, who later led his own Cleveland band for years. a shade sharp to get that saccharine Lombardo sound, it Singer, who played at the Hotel Cleveland in the early rasped me like fmgernails drawn across a chalkboard." 1950s, remembered Como crooning with the Carlone When Laine wanted to sing jazz songs, Carlone said, band at Conneaut Lake Park in the summer of 1933. "Frank, we just don't do that kind ofmusic." Carlone' s band also played at the Crystal Slipper Laine sang with the Carlone band at Vincent's Club Ballroom at 9802 Euclid A venue before the name was on East 9th Street, but he stayed with Carlone for only changed to the Trianon Ballroom. When Como married a few weeks. Bookings for the band were scarce. "Two 148 Cleveland Jazz History Owned by Irish gamblers who paid "protection money" to the infamous Mayfield Road Gang, it was a drinking and gambling carry-over from Prohibition days. The club was a private monument to indoor sports and offered the biggest names in entertainment, excellent food, and almost any form of gambling you could think of. The young singer filled in as a singing coupier at the local mob's private playpen. It was a colorful spot. Eight years after Martin was there (September 28, 1947), comedian Peter Lind Hayes and his wife, singer Mary Healy, were entertaining about 250 customers at the Mounds Club when ten masked Courtesy of Frankie Laine men, wearing fatigue suits and carrying submachine Frankie Laine in an early jam session guns, burst in and halted the show. Most of the people weeks after I started," Laine told me, "Carlone fired thought it was part of the act until one of the bandits everybody." fired a shot into the ceiling. They forced the manager to The future international singing star began 1938 in empty the safe and took cash, jewelry and furs from the Cleveland - broke and unemployed. The son ofgangster customers. On the way out, one ofthe bandits spotted a Al Capone' s personal barber managed to fmd a job big diamond right on the fmger of a man who was well singing for a man named "Twinkle" Katz at an East Side connected to the Cleveland mob. He told the gunman, bar called the Ace ofClubs, but a week after he started, "Do you know who I am?!" The gunman said, "I don't the club burned down. give a ---- who you are," and ripped the ring off his "So a friend of mine," said Laine, "suggested I go to finger. The hooded gunmen made a clean get-away with Lindsay's Sky Bar at East 105th and Euclid. I auditioned a take estimated at $500,000. and I got the job there and stayed five months." Working By the end of 1939, Martin, the singer, who grew up at Lindsay' s, Laine met a Cleveland pianist named Art in Steubenville with Jimmy "The Greek" Snyder, found Cutlip "and we used to teach each other songs. We put work at other gang joints in the Youngstown area. He together a hell ofa repertoire book ofabout 1,000 songs." decided to move on to Columbus where he joined Ernie It included their own arrangement ofLouis Armstrong' s McKay' s band. In Columbus, he changed his name from classic "West End Blues." Dino Crocetti to Dino Martini. While singing at the Laine called his five months at Lindsay' s Sky Bar State Restaurant in Columbus, he was heard by another "absolute musical heaven for me." One night there, he singer named Lee Ann Lee. She was the wife of heard Cutlip playa song on the piano. "'What' s that?' Cleveland bandleader Sammy Watkins. I asked. He said, 'It's a song called 'Shine' that Watkins ' Armstrong used to do.' I said, 'I'd like to learn it.' So orchestra was a he taught it to me." Ten years later, Laine' s recording of Cleveland institution, the song he had learned at the Sky Bar in Cleveland playing at the city's became one ofthe nation's biggest hit records. top supper club, the Vogue Room of the Dean Martin in Cleveland palatial old Hollenden Hotel at East 6th and . Superior. Nick Cleveland Press I CSU Archives Tosches, in his Dean Martin and Sammy biography of the Watkins in 1940 singer, Living High in the Dirty Business ofDreams, wrote that Watkins hired the young singer in the fall of 1940. It was at about the time Italy' s Benito Mussolini was declaring war on England and France, The Mounds Club in the late 1930s and Watkins, whose real name was Watkovitz, While Laine was singing in Cleveland in the spring of demanded the young singer change his name again - to 1939, a 21-year- old singer from Steubenville got ajob at Dean Martin. As Dean Martin, he sang with Watkins' the Mounds Club on Chardon Road in Willoughby Hills. band at the Hollenden for three years. The Singers in Cleveland 149 The old Hollenden Hotel at East 6th and Superior Entrance to the Vogue Room at the Hollenden Martin later remembered it was a different Cleveland was paid $35 a week, a free hotel room, and a 50 percent in 1940. There were one-dollar houses of prostitution food discount at the hotel restaurant. downtown. The Hotel Gillsy was directly across East 9th Street from the Roxy burlesque theatre. In the Laine returns to Cleveland 1920s, the Gillsy had advertised rooms for $1 a night Frankie Laine, meanwhile, had left Cleveland for ($1.50 with a bathroom). The Erie Hotel was near St. New York City hoping to find his fame and fortune, but John's Cathedral.