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Song about growing up italian band11/21/2023 Or we would go to one of two Italian delis in the St. I mean, my father would, out of the blue, just break out into an aria or an Italian folk song. These songs were, in ways, along with food, the connection to my Italian heritage. ROTELLA: It is the soundtrack to an early life, and this is what formed me growing up. Is this sort of the soundtrack to your life? It's kind of, I guess, there's aspects of memoir in here, because you talk a lot about your own family growing up in Florida and listening to these, just listening to them on the radio or hearing these songs and your dad saying, oh, he's Italian, she's Italian, he's Italian, she's Italian. RAZ: I should mention that a lot of this book is also personal. It was actually composed in Naples by Eduardo di Capua and a poet, Giovanni Capurro.Īnd this song was, this was really the first time that Americans of all nationalities were able to hear this song and it was distributed very widely. And this was a song that was actually written in 1898. I mean, this is the song that where, you know, wherever you are, you know this song, non-Italians know this. ROTELLA: This was, I'd like to think, the "Danny Boy" of Italian-Americans. RAZ: And the song he became probably best known for was "O Sole Mio," right? And he was the first million-selling pop artist. RAZ: You call him the first sort of pop star in America, really. ENRICO CARUSO (Singer): (Singing in foreign language) They were good-looking, they had a certain sensibility to them, a certain attitude, which was open, charming, and I think a lot of it had come from their style of singing, which when I interviewed almost every single one, I have to say every person who I interviewed and talked to, they all named Enrico Caruso as their influence. And so many voices, so many singers, were now seen on TV. This is the postwar, it was a time of optimism. ROTELLA: Well, this is when second and third generation Americans of Italian descent were coming of age. And you write that it was a sort of a golden age that began around 1947. I guess it's more about, kind of a turning point in the 20th century when all of these Italian entertainers started to be seen as American entertainers. RAZ: Mark Rotella, your book isn't just about Italian-American singers, or even the songs. and so many other songs that came after that were kind of kitschy but really pop and really kind of fun. I think there were Italian singers before, but this is one of the more obvious songs which led to other kitschy songs, even Rosemary Clooney's "Mambo Italiano". ROTELLA: It was one of the more obvious ones. But for a lot of Americans, this was like, this was their first introduction to anything really Italian, right? RAZ: And then when we hear it today, it almost sounds like a caricature, right, like a self-parody. And this is the song that they broke out into. And the song came from here when Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin went back to visit his family and they were welcomed by a large Italian dinner. ROTELLA: This song came from a movie called "The Caddy" with Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis about an Italian man who had changed his name. It's called "Amore," and the author, Mark Rotella, joins me from New York. The story of "That's Amore" and the songs made famous by Frank Sinatra, Perry Como and others is told in a new book. RAZ: Apparently, Dean Martin didn't much like this song, but in 1953, it became one of his biggest hits, and a song that seems to capture a moment in pop history when nearly every hit was being performed by an Italian-American singer. DEAN MARTIN (Singer): (Singing) When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that's amore. Welcome back to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News.
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