Did you know that Italian-American crooner Jerry Vale sustained the crooning tradition well into the rock 'n' roll era.
He was born Genaro Vitaliano in the Wakefield section of the Bronx in 1930, to Italian parents. At age 13, Vale started singing for tips as a shoeshine boy at a barber shop in the Bronx. His boss, Vito Veneziano, liked his sound so well that he paid for music lessons for young Genaro.
While in high school, he sang in some musicals. After graduating from high school, Vale started performing at nightclubs in New York in the early 1950s, including one lasting for three years at the Enchanted Room, a club in Yonkers. The famous singer Guy Mitchell saw Vale at the Enchanted Room and soon introduced Vale to Mitch Miller, then head of A&R at Columbia Records. Vale signed a recording contract with the record company and soon recorded "You Can Never Give Me Back My Heart." The song became a fairly big hit. He went on to have other tremendous hits throughout the 1950s, including "Two Purple Shadows," "You Don't Know Me" and "Pretend You Don't See Her."
Frank Sinatra soon recruited him to play in the lounge of the Sands Hotel in Vegas while Sinatra performed in the showroom in the early 1960s. He then went on to have hits such as "Have You Looked Into Your Heart" and "For Mama." He and Sinatra remained friends until Sinatra's death in 1998. He made cameo appearances as himself in the 1990 film Goodfellas and the 1995 film Casino, both directed by Martin Scorsese. Sadly and unfortunately, Vale died of natural causes in his sleep on May 18, 2014, at his home in Palm Desert, California.
