(credit:Lane Turner/The Boston Globe)
Inside Story from The Boston Globe Magazine
November 26, 2000
By Tom Witkowski
Ron Della Chiesa's home recording studio is a heady mix of music and memories.
The door from radio host Ron Della Chiesa's kitchen leads to the basement of his house and the attic of his mind.
His memories of more ban 40 years in Boston radio are in sagging drawers filled with tapes of interviews with Arthur Fiedler, Ella Fitzgerald, and Mel Torme, on shelves weighed down with vinyl albums, on walls lined with photographs. Oh, and of course, a shelf filled with Disney toys. Della Chiesa, best known for the Classics in the Morning and Friday-night Jazz Songbook shows, on WGBH-FM, and Strictly Sinatra, Saturday nights on WPLM FM, has been a Disney fan since his parents bought him a Pinocchio album as a child. He still has it, right there on the shelf next to Rusty in Operaville, a children's record that's among the first albums he acquired.
Della Chiesa and his wife, Joyce, moved to their single-family house in Dorchester last year after two decades in a South End condominium. Ron needed more room to
store his memorabilia, and Joyce, who is a chef, wanted a bigger kitchen. Though Dorchester seems like New Hampshire after living in the South End, Della Chiesa says, he can walk straight up Massachusetts Avenue to Symphony Hall in about an hour.
The Della Chiesas renovated the 1890 Victorian in the South Bay section inside and out and built a small recording studio in the basement, where Ron tapes his radio shows.
There, above his reel-to-reel tape recorder, hangs a photo of one of his influences in radio, Boston personality Bill Marlowe. On another wall is a picture of Milton Cross, who hosted the broadcast of New York's Metropolitan Opera from 1930 to 1975. Pictures of other radio personalities are interspersed with a signed photo of Arthur Fiedler (from a Boston Pops program); a drawing of Dizzy Gillespie by "Benedetto," the name with which singer Tony Bennett signs his artwork; and a poster signed by tenor Franco Corelli.
Some of the memories are distinctly Boston - among them a hand-colored photo of Della Chiesa by artist Peter Urban that hung in an exhibit called Distinguished Bostonians. There's also a photo of the Boston Opera House that stood on Huntington Avenue and Opera Place, today the site of a Northeastern University building. "I saw my first opera there," Della Chiesa says. Like the opera house, many of the giants Della Chiesa has met and interviewed over the years are gone. But he keeps them cataloged in his basement, so they're never far away. He often listens to the interviews again when one of them dies. "When Fred Astaire died a few years ago, I had one of the only interviews -- we called him on the phone on his 80th birthday. When Stan Getz died, the same thing: I brought out my Stan Getz interview and did a tribute to Stan. Mel Torme, the same thing. All the giants are going. I feel privileged to have interviewed them," he says, the nostalgia in his voice hard to miss.
"There is so much of the past down there, O can't help but be melancholy. So many of them are gone. My friends that I knew, that I got to know. Mel Torme -- every time he'd come to Boston, he'd call me. I'd be the first show he'd do, and we'd go out."
Della Chiesa's are among the few local programs celebrating the work of greats like Getz and Torme. His fans are as dedicated to him as he is to the heritage of the American songbook.
"So much of what I do deals with the past, and yet the legacy of music continues," he says. "I feel I have a mission."
By
Ron Della Chiesa
Swing
Easy, Songs for Swingin' Lovers, In The Wee Small Hours, No One Cares, Come Fly
With Me, those are just a few of the remarkable recordings made by Francis
Albert Sinatra. Doing a weekly
Sinatra radio show is one of the great joys in my almost forty years as a
broadcaster. People ask me,
"Do you have a favorite Sinatra recording?"
That is a difficult question to answer.
It is like asking, "Do you have a favorite sunset, do you have a
favorite Michelangelo painting, do you have a favorite Mozart Symphony or do you
have a favorite Puccini Opera?" I
think my good friend Tony Bennett summed it up best when he said,
"Sinatra's music is art, and a work of art is a joy forever.
Just as the great artists going back hundreds of years in history left
their mark, Sinatra left his in this century."
What makes this man's music so unique, is his emotional honesty in
everything he sang. He combined
superb musicianship and open enthusiasm for the fine musicians and arrangers
that he worked with. He had the
greatest respect for the music and lyrics.
Every time I had the pleasure of hearing him sing, he always credited the
composer, lyricist and arranger.
Looking
back at Sinatra's career as a recording artist one is amazed. I think much of
what Sinatra brought to his music was part of his Italo -American roots. Not
only just for his star quality and the beauty of the voice, but because he was a
true Italian "bel canto" singer. Growing up in Hoboken, New Jersey, he
was exposed to Italian music and song at a very young age. He once mentioned
that one of his favorite composers was Puccini, an obvious choice for him to
make. For Puccini's music touches our heart, as Sinatra's voice touches our
soul. He also listened to recordings played on the old family Victrola by the
great tenor Enrico Caruso. I am sure this had an impact on his future
development as a singer and recording artist. Peggy Lee said that Sinatra is
irreplaceable because of his emotional honesty. I think that is one of the most
valid comments about his recordings. His career spans over sixty years in the
technology of the recording industry, from the 78 RPM'S, to the 45'5, to the LP,
and finally the compact disc.
I
recently had the pleasure of attending the first world conference on Frank
Sinatra, that took place at Hofstra University, in Long Island. Hundreds of
Sinatraphiles gathered together for four days to discuss and define his
accomplishments in the world of music. One of the participants at the conference
was author Pete Hamill. He sums it up best in his marvelous book titled
"Why Sinatra Matters." At the very end of the final chapter, Hamill
says and I quote, "Frank Sinatra was a genuine artist a1ld his work will
endure as long as men and women can hear, ponder and feel. In the end that is
all that tru1y matters."
Now Frank has his own All Star Big Band in
the sky. Satchmo is wailing on
trumpet, Count Basie is swinging on the piano, with special guest appearances
by Sammy and Dino. I can hear the introduction now by my dear friend, the late
disc jockey Bill Marlowe……….Ladies and gentlemen join me in welcoming
Francis Albert Sinatra……...Is there another?
I hope you will join me each Saturday night from 7 midnight, and every
Sunday evening from 7 to midnight on WPLM 99.1 FM, as we celebrate the career
of this remarkable man who dedicated his life to the Great American Songbook
and left a legacy of unrivaled recordings that are true monuments of art.
Old Blue Eves lives!
Ron Della Chiesa has carved a career out of talking into a microphone, of sharing his passions for music with an equally passionate listening audience. Weekday mornings he goes the classical route and Friday nights jazz is his genre of choice on WGBH-FM, with "Classics in the Morning" and "The Jazz Songbook." Weekends find him on WPLM-FM with "MusicAmerica" on Saturday evenings and "Strictly Sinatra" on Sunday mornings and afternoons.
But Della Chiesa also enjoys getting out of the studios and mingling with the public, as he will at the Newton Free Library on March 7 when he presents "Sinatra and Friends."
"This is the first time I've done Sinatra," he says of a lecture series that's covered opera, the American songbook, great entertainers and others. "This came about due to the tremendous popularity of 'Strictly Sinatra.' "
Combining some facts and anecdotes about Francis Albert Sinatra along with selected recordings from his vast repertoire, Della Chiesa has fashioned his presentation into four acts. Part one focuses on Harry James' discovery of Sinatra at the Rustic Cabin in New Jersey, where the skinny young kid sang a few sets and doubled as a waiter. James was knocked out by what he heard and hired him, only to lose him about a year later to the Dorsey band.
Act Two goes into Sinatra's successful Columbia years as well as his tumultuous marriage to Ava Gardner. Della Chiesa promises to play "I'm a Fool to Want You," a song he allegedly recorded in one heartrending take after Gardner's return from making a movie in Spain and having an affair with a bullfighter.
"In Act Three," says Della Chiesa," he's hooked into the movies, he left Columbia and joined Capital. Now he's swingin' and he teams up with the three greatest arrangers: Nelson Riddle, Gordon Jenkins and Billy May. And he starts turning out some classic records: 'Come Fly with Me,' 'Only the Lonely,' 'Come Dance with Me.' This is the Sinatra that was upbeat and euphoric. In the early '60s he started to team up with Sammy Davis and Dean Martin. Meanwhile he has a beef with Capitol and starts his own label, Reprise, and takes a lot of these guys with him. This starts the Reprise period and the Vegas period, the connection with Kennedy, the Rat Pack. The controversial side of Sinatra starts to come out. At this point we've already shifted into act four."
Although Della Chiesa readily admits that Sinatra will always remain at the top of his favorite singers list (with Tony Bennett right behind), he can't actually recall the first time he actually heard the man who became known as "The Voice."
"Well, it had to have been on the radio, probably on a broadcast of the 'Bing Crosby Show,'" he says. "I wasn't won over right away. I was a kid and didn't realize how great he was at the time. When he really won me over was in high school. I used to date a girl in Quincy and we would listen to her father's Capitol collections. We used to sit in her father's house and wear the records out. That's when I started to discover his greatness and then started collecting my own Capitol records."
He has to think a moment before deciding on his favorite period of Sinatra's singing career. But only a moment.
"He did things in the '60s on Reprise that were amazing," he says. " 'Luck Be a Lady' really takes off. And 'Summer Wind' is another one. But I'd have to say for sheer euphoria, it's hard to top [the album] 'Songs for Swingin' Lovers.' I think Riddle just provided him with such an ensemble and I think he wrote with Frank in mind; he was thinking like Frank sang."
Yet Della Chiesa also feels that perhaps Sinatra stayed up on the concert stage just a little too long, a bit past his prime.
"But I think it kept him alive," he says. "I think what he was able to do was speak the lyrics even though his voice was gone. He did that a lot with 'One More for My Baby and One More for the Road' and 'Angel Eyes,' those two torch songs. The voice was just about gone, but he was able to communicate such raw emotions simply by almost speaking the lyrics. I know some people were saying why doesn't he quit. But in some ways I feel that it was an incredible thing that he did. I don't think other singers could have gotten away with it."
Next
month, Ron Della Chiesa will celebrate 30 years on public station WGBH-FM
(89.7). But the classical and jazz show host, who can now also be heard on WPLM-FM
(99.1), has been involved with radio for much, much longer. ``I started hanging
around radio stations as a kid, taking a gentle nuisance of myself,'' recalls
the 61-year-old host, who made his first on-air appearance at the age of 10, on
a children's show on WJDA-AM (1300) in his hometown of Quincy. ``I remember the
golden age of radio. `The Lone Ranger' . . . I grew up listening to those
shows.'' Della Chiesa now hosts the weekday ``Classics in the Morning'' (8 a.m.
to noon), Friday night's ``Jazz Songbook'' (7-9), and the live summertime ``BSO
at Tanglewood'' (Sundays through month's end at 2 p.m.) on WGBH, and the
previously taped Sunday shows ``Strictly Sinatra'' (7 p.m. to midnight and ``MusicAmerica''
(7 p.m. to midnight), on the Plymouth commercial station.
But
his first paying gigs were less exalted. In stories that sound designed to
encourage today's beginning broadcast professionals, he relates his first days
as a part-timer and a fill-in, helping put together different language and music
shows for WBOS, which, 40 years ago, was programming
ethnic radio. `Arnie Ginsberg hired me,'' Della Chiesa recalls, referring
to the renowned Boston rock 'n' roll DJ who gave him his first full-time job at
WBOS in 1959. ``He had me doing the Italian hour, the Greek hour, music of the
Near East. . . . I was doing the Irish music show. What was an Italian boy like
me doing [with] the Irish music show?'' The training paid off, however, and
Della Chiesa made the jump to WBCN in 1960, whose call letters stood for
Boston's Classical Network then. As the station prepared to switch to rock, in
1969, Della Chiesa landed at WGBH, where, in 1977, he created ``MusicAmerica,''
a show that celebrates standards, songs that bridge pop and jazz.
``
`MusicAmerica' has a heavy emphasis on vocals -- Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald,
Mel Torme,'' explains Della Chiesa. ``The American songbook is really the focus
of it. Cole Porter: That's American Lieder, that's in the classical world what
Schumann and Schubert were doing.'' His serious approach to music that ranges
from jazz to the pop of Judy Garland and Barbra Streisand won him a committed
following. And when WGBH discontinued the show at the end of 1995, citing a
station switch to a classical and news format, the furor that resulted lost the
public station pledges. One year later, WPLM picked up the show -- and Della
Chiesa -- who now tapes ``MusicAmerica'' and his all-Sinatra show on Saturdays
at the Plymouth station. And his fans, who formed the Save MusicAmerica
foundation, now devote their money and energies to a series of concerts,
excerpts of which are aired on WGBH on Della Chiesa's ``Jazz Songbook.'' (The
June 13 ``Together Again'' concert, with Donna Byrne and the Marshall Wood Trio,
will air Aug. 13 from 7 to 9 p.m.) The foundation has also started a scholarship
at Della Chiesa's alma mater, Quincy High School, in his name, a resolution that
Della Chiesa says leaves him content, if busy.
And
so now, nearing what would typically be retirement age, Della Chiesa is as busy
as he's ever been, working at two different stations and playing a spectrum of
music from pop to classical to jazz. ``I grew up listening to all those kinds of
music. For me, it's a very pleasant transition. ``It's been a long run, but it
just keeps me going,'' he says. What I enjoy doing more than anything is radio.
I wouldn't know how to do anything else.''
WPLM-FM
(99.1) is taking a chance on love. The Plymouth-based station that gave Ron
Della Chiesa’s``Music America'' a home in 1997 after WGBH-FM (89.7)
canceled it is hitching its star to his expertise and listener requests with a
new format that features familiar love songs by Barbra Streisand, TonyBennett,
Johnny Mathis, Lionel Ritchie, and other popular crooners. If that
isn't
enough to make listeners swoon, the station has six hours of ``Strictly
Sinatra'' hosted by Della Chiesa every weekend. It also features four hours of
the great American songbook on ``MusicAmerica'' Saturday nights, with special
editions planned for this weekend in honor of Valentine's Day.
``They are romantic songs; they are beautiful songs,'' said Lana Amodei,
55,
of
Lincoln, R.I., an avid listener since New Year's Day, when WPLM switched from
its smooth jazz format to the more romantic sounds it calls ``the best songs by
the biggest stars.'' Since the switch, Amodei listens all day, every day,
whether she is at home, in her car, or in Carcieri's Supermarket, the Providence
store she and her husband own.
``The
music brings back fond memories,'' Amodei said in a telephone interview.
``You're right back to where you were and you forget how old you really are. . .
. We laugh, because I see people kind of standing there singing along with it as
they are waiting at the deli counter.''
Alan
W. Anderson, station general manager, said the proposal to marry great American
standard ballads with soft oldies, easy listening, and contemporary hits to
produce a romantic and nostalgic sound grew out of audience response to Della
Chiesa's ``MusicAmerica'' show, which airs Saturdays at 8.
``It's
all based on feedback from listeners about what they wanted to hear,''
Anderson said.
From
listener requests ``it was obvious that here is a format we could do, the Tony
Bennetts, the Barry Manilows, the Frank Sinatras.'' Since WPLM went on the air in 1955 in its ranch house on top
of a hill in Plymouth, it has played big band music, adult contemporary music,
or smooth jazz. The 50,000-watt signal extends to the Boston metropolitan area,
Cape Cod, Worcester, New
Bedford/Fall
River, and Providence. The privately owned station broadcasts around the clock.
WPLM wanted to forge a new path because another station in the
marketplace, WSJZ-FM (96.9), plays smooth jazz, Anderson said. The station
targeted the Della Chiesa audience, which Anderson describes as ``adults, in
broad strokes, over the age of 45.'' ``We
wanted to fill the void between soft adult contemporary stations like WMJX
[106.7-FM] and the nostalgia stations like WXKS [1430-AM],'' he said. ``We are
taking elements of KJUL-FM in Las Vegas and WGAY-FM in Washington, D.C.,''
Anderson said. ``WXKS is focusing on big band and standards from the '40s; we
are stretching it out. Tony Bennett is still producing good music.''
CROON
2 WQEW-AM (1590) in New York was another model for the new format. Before
that station became Disney Radio at the end of last year, it played songs from
the American songbook, Anderson said. Della
Chiesa, who hosts ``Classics in the Morning'' weekdays on WGBH, started airing
``MusicAmerica'' on WPLM two years ago. Last fall he expanded his presence when
he introduced ``Strictly Sinatra.'' The two-hour Saturday show quickly lured new
listeners, and by December they were clamoring for more. On New Year's weekend
Della Chiesa expanded the Saturday Sinatra show to three hours (5-8 p.m.) and
added ``Strictly Sinatra Sunday'' (8-11 a.m.).
``I
think it's a tremendous show and it appeals to a very broad market,'' said David
Colella, managing director of the Colonnade Hotel in Boston, where Sinatra
stayed for a week in
August
1994 when he performed at Harborlights. Colella,
a longtime friend of Sinatra's,
advertises
the hotel and its restaurant Brasserie Jo on both ``Strictly Sinatra'' shows.
``We
have a number of people who say they heard about our restaurant on Ron's show,''
Colella said. ``I don't think
another Boston station has a show like that. Certainly there are other stations
that play [Sinatra's] music from time to time, but no one is putting in the time
Ron is.'' Della Chiesa sees the popularity of his Sinatra show, especially among
a growing number of people in their 20s and 30s, as part of a general hunger for
more romance in their lives.
``The
romance has been missing,'' he said. ``But more people are watching AMC
[American Movie Classics] and Turner Classic Movies, seeing black-and-white film
classics that bring to life nostalgia and romance they never saw before. . . .
Young people want to hear a song if a recording of it is used in a movie.'' He
mentions ``Sleepless in Seattle'' and ``Big Night'' as two examples of films
that have generated interest in the romantic format. ``This is no longer a
test,'' Anderson said. ``In terms of overall revenues, we're seeing double-digit
percentage increases vs. the same period last year, and advertisers are calling
to be part of it, which is very unusual in this
industry.''
Talks are under way with Tower Records to give WPLM a dedicated space where
listeners can buy recordings of the music they hear on the station. Yet it's not
all hearts and flowers for WPLM's new format. Some jazz aficionados, such as
Roger Griffin, 48, no longer listen to WPLM. ``I was very much in love with the
smooth jazz format, and I listened to it day and night,'' said the Wareham
resident, who wrote to the station to complain about the change. But most of the
letters and phone calls to the station applaud the new format.
In a letter, Irene Canavan, 60, of Duxbury, thanked the station for
``going against the tide and giving so many of us this very enjoyable listening
pleasure.''
In a phone interview, Canavan said she and her husband plan to spend this weekend their usual way, snuggled up together Saturday with ``Strictly Sinatra'' crooning in the background. ``My husband and I are real Sinatra fans, so we listen to it every Saturday night. We like to kind of put the fireplace on and relax. Even at our advanced age, it is still romantic.''
Jim Tuberosa
It's been a week now since Frank Sinatra passed away and I
still feel a great sense or loss, not only for the man and his music (no pun
intended but the phrase is inescapable) but for the era he helped define. He
showed his entire generation (or two) how to enjoy the simpler, and maybe finer
things in life with his easy listening musical stylings and light-hearted
movies. He was pure entertainment plain and simple. And we all loved him for it.
But that sense of loss is lessened by something the late,
great Bill Marlowe once said to me about the passing of Celtic legend Johnny
Most: “Jimmy, he's not gone, he'll always be forever high above court-side for
us all."
If Bill were alive today I'm sure he would say, “Frank
will be with us forever in his music and in our hearts. We'll' never forget him,
he won't let us." Then he'd remind me of an old Sinatra favorite song,
“I’11 be Seeing You (in all the old familiar places)" and
recount a Sinatra anecdote or two. He was absolutely a "one-of-a-kind," just like his
idol.
Marlowe, who passed away two years ago, introduced me,
along with thousands of other listeners, to Sinatra's music back in the early
50s.
Frank's “Songs for Swinging Lovers" became the
hottest album in town and Marlowe's inimitable, upbeat style in presenting each
song as a DJ to his audience was right in tune with the music.
It was as if Bill were an extension of Sinatra and a part
of the whole performance. He even
held a much-heralded contest to find a nickname for "old blue-eyes"
that attracted thousands of his loyal listeners to submit such entries as
"Farouk," “the king" (sorry Elvis but Sinatra had it first) and
"chairman of the board," among countless others. I can't recall the
winner but Marlowe always favored "Farouk" after the flamboyant
Egyptian ruler of the ‘50s as he introduced one of Sinatra's many up-tempo,
“signature" songs of the day.
I first became friends with Bill at, where else, an Italian
restaurant in Medford called DePasquale's back in the '7Os.
We sat for four or five hours “dining" on several dishes the chef
prepared just for us. We shared many stories along with more than one bottle of
fine wine and by closing time we had become comrades-in-arms and I had found a
good friend and mentor.
Through his many Sinatra stories I came to realize they
both came from the same Italian family and neighborhood background and had the
same strong integrity for their craft. They
each did things their way.
Bill not only loved, but respected the man.
"He was a real 'Sinatra-phile'," said well-known
radio DJ Ron Della Chiesa, who plays all the musical sounds that Marlowe devoted
his life to. "More than once he proclaimed, on air and off, 'If Sinatra
were a chick, I'd marry him'.
"Sinatra and Marlowe had very similar lifestyles -both
their careers were influenced strongly by their mothers' encouragement and they
both loved good food, music, entertainment and lovely ladies. Marlowe spoke
Frank's language on the radio and through his shows single-handedly kept Sinatra
alive in Boston throughout the 50s."
All the stories I've read about Sinatra telling of his
kindness, generosity, loyalty and truly caring nature were equally appropriate
in describing Marlowe.
In 1981 I ran a small radio station in Everett called
"The Olde Tyme Radio Station.” Things
weren't going too well but I never wanted to take advantage of my friendship
with Billy by asking him for help. I felt he was way out of our league. We also
didn't have a budget that could pay him what he was worth. When he heard this he
approached me as if insulted and said, "Jimmy,
you're my friend. Forget about anything else."
He was about to sign on with WMRE, but for a short time,
just to get the station going, he did his big band/Sinatra show on what became
for me the most memorablenesday nights of my life.
One day we were talking about great foods and he mentioned
Gorgonzola cheese. I wrinkled up my
nose at it and he said, "Jimmy, are you crazy? (his favorite expression)
You've never tasted it, right?" I confessed, yes, and before I knew it we
were off to a real classy eatery, Bellini's, Bobby Orr's old branding iron in
Charles River Park.
Needless to say I became a big fan of Gorgonzola (although
I wish they’d change the name) as well as the perfect wine to accompany it.
Bill just couldn't pass up any opportunity to introduce and share the finer
pleasures in life with his friends, whether it was music, food, a fine wine or
just plain fun and entertainment. He was "Mr. Excitement," a walking
good time.
When Bill passed away two years ago I was not surprised,
knowing that he always liked to do things "his way," to hear, as I
entered the funeral home, the gentle sounds of Stan Kenton, Benny Goodman, Glen
Miller, Harry James and of course Sinatra as well as the rest of the big band
era that Marlowe helped to immortalize. And every 10 or 15 minutes we heard
Billy's descriptions of the song and musicians as if he were still around doing
one of his broadcasts. He was that sensitive to the feelings of all his
friends that he didn't want them to feel any deep sorrow. It was his way of
saying, "Hey, I'm not gone, I'll be there every time you hear one of my
songs."
The man had panache and style right to the end. I felt his
presence immediately, not only the music and his voice from excerpts of his
shows but the 150 or so pictures spread around the rooms of him with stars like
Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Nat King Cole, Sarah Vaughn, Duke Ellington and
countless others. There were also
several letters from Frank Sinatra sent to him through the years, the most
recent offering encouragement, get well wishes and everlasting "thanks for
everything."
It was then that I realized Marlowe would be with us forever as will Frank Sinatra. Bill was a lover of good friends, good music, great food, fine wine and lovely women and when you got them all together it was a rip-roaring, exhilarating, magical roller coaster ride, and we were all the better for having bought a ticket.
Radio
show host Ron Della Chiesa was so pleased with his tribute to Frank Sinatra in
New York last weekend that he plans to make it an annual event. Last Sunday,
Della Chiesa broadcast his "Strictly Sinatra" show on WPLM-FM (99.1)
from Patsy's Italian restaurant in Manhattan, a hangout of Sinatra's, to mark
what would have been the late singer's 84th birthday. Among friends and fans who
stopped by were crooner Tony Bennett and pianist Skitch Henderson