He was known as "The King of Italian-American Hit Records" but for just plain fun-lovin' entertainment, he was exceptionally good. His contagious sense of humor could have you hysterical one moment, but if he changed to a sentimental Italian ballad, he could have you on the verge of tears. That was Lou Monte.
Louis Scaglione was born April 2, 1917 in New York City. His Italian immigrant parents moved to Lyndhurst, NJ shortly afterwards, and it was there that they raised Lou and his five siblings. Lou would watch his father dig ditches and decided early on that that was not the life for him. As a kid, Monte would entertain the neighborhood with his guitar playing and singing and began making a living singing and playing while still in his teens.
His fledgling career was cut short by a stint in the Army during World War II. After he returned to civilian life he got a big break with a stint on WAAT radio in Newark, NJ. He also appeared in area clubs - and as he developed a following on the radio was given a show on WAAT-TV. His local TV program gave him an excuse to cut a couple of records on a local label. Unfortunately, without national distribution, it was hard to sell the discs outside the local area. His career was again put on hold when a serious automobile accident left Monte hospitalized for four months. This did not deter Monte, and he persevered and tried to keep himself in the public eye.
All that radio and television exposure did not go unnoticed outside New Jersey. One spring evening, Joe Carlton was having dinner at a spaghetti joint, south of Secaucus NJ, when an Italian minstrel came out to croon for the patrons. Joe, who would later go on to start Carlton Records – was an A&R man at RCA Victor Records. He liked Lou Monte’s singing style and the way he accompanied himself on the guitar. He offered him a contract with RCA. Lou talked it over with his wife Marie, and she supported the idea. That summer in 1953 Lou Monte became an RCA Victor recording artist and would remain so for seven years.
"His first big hit was 'Darktown Strutter's Ball'," says George Brown, who first booked Monte through his Spotlight Attractions and went on to manage the singer for more than 20 years. "The A-side was a gorgeous ballad called “I Know How You Feel.” By mistake, a DJ in New York City, at WMCA, played the other side and with one play it took off and that was it. He was a ballad singer and did 'Darktown Strutter's Ball' in the cocktail lounges he worked in as a joke. We put it on the back side and all of a sudden it's a hit."
It was a big hit, too, sailing into the Billboard pop Top 10 in early 1954 and kicking off Monte's career. Newsweek magazine reported that he sang it in a "Neapolitan dialect, (and) applies a scat like treatment to that jazz perennial." Monte was 38 when his record took off, hardly an inexperienced newcomer to show business. He had been working for years, often booked by Brown, in clubs around New Jersey.
His Italian parodies of hits with their Southern Italian dialect continued with his remakes of “(If I Knew You Were Coming) I’d’ve baked A Cake” and Etta James’ “The Wallflower (Dance With Me Henry).” His ballad style was also quite popular, and songs like “Roman Guitar” gave Lou a permanent place in the hearts of many. "That's one reason he was such a fine singer,” Brown continues. “He did every kind of song you could imagine; jazz, ballads, novelties, and anything else people would request. He also sang in tune and never tried to copy anybody else." Brown estimates Monte - who changed his name when he began working in those Jersey clubs - knew more than 1,500 songs, "and that was because part of working the bars was that you had to know the hits of the day and all the old songs as well."
Monte and Brown - who wrote many of his most popular songs - were able to build on the success of the first hit. "Somewhere There Is A Someone" went Top 20 in the spring of 1954 while his high-energy "Italian Huckle-buck" topped the charts in the fall of '54.
He was booked at major clubs around the country and appeared on TV shows hosted by Perry Como, Steve Allen, Arlene Francis, Merv Griffin and Dick Clark, who regularly booked him on "American Bandstand."
In the spring of 1958, he was back on the charts with the popular million-selling hit, "Lazy Mary", a catchy remake of what had been a huge hit for Rudy Vallee in 1938. He brought his unique style to bear on another classic when he charted in the summer of '58 with an Italian version of "The Sheik Of Araby," which had first been successful in 1921.
Monte recorded a number of fine albums for RCA, plus some bonus cuts - "Lou Monte Sings for You", from 1958, and "Songs for Pizza Lovers", issued in 1958. In 1960, Roulette Records offered him a deal he couldn't refuse, and Lou stayed with them for a year, when he re-recorded "Darktown Strutter’s Ball", and had a best-seller with his Christmas favorite, "Dominick the Donkey (The Italian Christmas Donkey)"
In 1962, he moved to a new label based in Hollywood with a lot of promise. "He went with Frank Sinatra’s Reprise Records after Roulette," says Brown. "It was owned by Frank Sinatra and he told Mo Ostin (label president) to call me and say he wanted Lou on the label. He had the first million-seller for the label."
The million-seller, written by Brown, was "Pepino the Italian Mouse", which came out in late 1962. Sung in a pastiche of both Neapolitan and English, "Pepino" tells the humorous tale of a mischievous mouse who lives within the walls of a man's kitchen and who comes out at night to eat cheese, drink wine, frighten Lou's girlfriend when she comes over and befriends the cat, sent out to catch him. It was followed by the popular "Pepino's Friend Pasqual (The Italian Pussy-Cat)". An album - "Pepino the Italian Mouse & Other Italian Fun Songs" - went Top 10 in early 1963.
"That was special material, the kind that people don't write anymore," says Brown of Monte's cheerful hits. "Why a mouse, why anything? We thought about what to write about then said let's try something with, a mouse. Then we did a song about a parrot and the Italian pussy-cat, one about a horse."
In 1964, Lou lost one of his three sons, Lou Jr., to leukemia at age 21 and this took a toll on him. He organized a fund-raising drive with other performers and donated a fully equipped lab for leukemia research to the College of Medicine and Dentistry in Newark, NJ. The lab was named the Lou Monte Jr. Leukemia Foundation, in honor of his son.
In 1969 things got even worse when his wife, Marie, died of cancer. Lou was devastated and sunk even deeper. In 1971, while performing in a nightclub in Syracuse, NY, Lou met the woman who would become his second wife. Norine Monte remembered that first meeting in an article in the Miami Herald: "He was different. He was a clown. He had a weird sense of humor. He loved attention. I reminded him of the wife he had lost and that attracted him to me." She revitalized him. She became his road manager and traveled with him when he played the popular night spots like The Copa and the Town And Country. Lou wrote a song in memory of his late son entitled “I Have an Angel in Heaven” and released it on the small GWP label in late 1971. A final single came out a year later for Jamie Records. They moved to Deer Park, NY (home of Taragon Studios, where this collection was mastered) then moved to Pompano Beach, Florida in 1983, where Lou retired.
Lou’s health slowly began to decline and he was eventually hospitalized at Imperial Point Medical Center in Fort Lauderdale. He died there June 12, 1989. He left behind his wife Norine, two sons (Ronald and Raymond), a brother (Pat), three stepsons (Stephen, David, and Mark Leone) and eight step-grandchildren. He was buried in Immaculate Conception Cemetery in Upper Montclair, New Jersey, alongside his first wife Marie, and their son, Lou Jr.
During his lifetime, Monte recorded 13 albums which have sold a combined total of well over 6 million records.
**PLEASE NOTE: I am a Lou Monte fan, I'm not Lou Monte or his son or in anyway connected to him. But feel free to write comments as if they are to Lou, because this is a Lou Monte tribute and there is no other "official" Lou Monte myspace.**
Also, be sure to take a look at the profiles of the very talented musicians below, especially Patrizio Buanne, Matt Dusk, Giada Valenti, Giorgia Fumanti, the Puppini Sisters, and the New Paisans.
