Vic Damone - As Time Goes By
From Album:“Vic Damone~The Collection (3CD) [Box set] [Original recording remastered]”
Vic Damone (born June 12, 1928) is an American singer and entertainer.
His career spanned over five decades. Fans wish he would have gone on forever. But last week crooner Vic Damone - the guy Sinatra said had the best pipes in the business - performed his final engagement at the Kravis Center in West Palm Beach, Florida.
He retired with class and style performing before his wife, four children, daughter and son-in-laws, grandkids and a packed house of friends and fans.
Along the way Damone - born Vito Farinola - acquired a string of hit records, and spent decades as a Vegas mainstay.
Millions of fans worshipped him and Damone enjoyed the perks of celebrity.
He once paid a Las Vegas showgirl to run naked through the men's steamroom. Damone and his buddies were in the steambath when the well endowed lady arrived on schedule and began her trot. While the guys grabbed for towels Dean Martin calmly eyed the situation - watching the lady's every move. Martin simply nodded his head approvingly saying "Lovely ... lovely."
Vic, the guy critics dubbed "a 1940s Sinatra with a touch of Torme'," suffered a mild stroke last June, which interrupted a scheduled final concert tour. Deciding to focus his attention on his wife, designer Rena Rowan-Damone, whom Vic credits with saving his life during the stroke, his four children and grandchildren, the handsome singer fought back tears as he took his final onstage bow to an audience that jumped to their feet applauding his performance and career.
It's a career that spans popular standards written by Cole Porter, George Gershwin, and Sammy Cahn.
He credits his mother with musically empowering him. He frequently told audience the story of his mother, who spotted his talent when he was a child, scrimping to get $1 a week for his singing lessons and subway fare from Brooklyn.
After winning a place on Arthur Godfrey Talent Scouts, in 1947, he started singing regularly on the radio and at nightclubs, and signed with Mercury Records. I Have But One Heart gave him his first hit but his first big success was Again from the 1948 film Road House. Another million-seller was You're Breaking My Heart, based on the turn-of-the-century ballad by Leoncavallo, composer of the opera I Pagliacci. Damone was a sought after television guest.
At the lower left - in type really too small to read- the guests are listed: Ronald Reagan and Vic Damone.
By the early fifties Vic was a successful recording star. But it was his recording of On the Street Where You Live from Lerner's and Loewe's Broadway show My Fair Lady, which put Damone into super-star status. His version of An Affair to Remember, one of the last songs written by Harry Warren, is unequaled by anybody.
It was fitting that Damone used that song to close his two hour performance at the Kravis Center, which featured a 60-piece orchestra, led by veteran pops conductor Richard Hayman.
Kravis Chairman Alex Dreyfoos took to the stage and delivered a post-performance speech to the audience. "Vic Damone is the kind of performer who comes along once in lifetime," he said. "Fortunately, he came along in our lifetime."
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