America's Small Town Music Capital: Canonsburg

Canonsburg is a small borough of about 9,000 souls, located in Washington County, eighteen miles southwest of Pittsburgh. It was laid out by namesake Colonel John Canon in 1789 and incorporated in 1802. The town is famous culturally for its Oktoberfest, Fourth of July parade, and proud musical heritage.

And with a roster of music-makers from the big time to local heroes like those listed below, why wouldn't they be?

Pierino "Perry" Como: Yes, he started in a barber shop and was quite good at snipping hair, too. Fortunately for the music world, he found something that he was even better at. Como had 14 Number One hits on various lists and 48 songs that charted. He hosted the Kraft Music Hall and specials galore on TV.

Como was honored with five Emmys, a Christopher Award, and shared a Peabody Award with bud Jackie Gleason. He was inducted into the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Hall of Fame in 1990 and received a Kennedy Center Honor in 1987.

After he passed away in 2001, Como received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, and was inducted into the Long Island Music and the Hit Parade Halls of Fame. Como has three individual stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his body of work in radio, television, and music. And as highly regarded as he was in musical circles, he was more highly thought of as a true gentleman.

Canonsburg honored him with a statue and Perry Como Avenue.

Bobby Vinton (Vintula): His dad Stan was a popular local big band leader and got his son rolling on the music track. Good move; after a sluggish start, Vinton went on to record four Number One tunes and had 28 songs that charted in the Top Forty.

He's also the Canonsburg link to The Tempos of  "See You In September" fame. Vinton sang with Clairton's Mike Lazo and Gene Schacter as the Hi Lites in the mid-fifties. Lazo and Schacter went on to form the Tempos when they returned from the Army in 1957. Vinton sang briefly with them again before they went their separate ways.

The town fathers named Bobby Vinton Boulevard and Drive after the Polish Prince. He vetoed a statue, insisting that the money be spent on something the town needed. It took a while for the street names to get the OK, though. Earlier attempts to name a residential road for Vinton were scrapped because some of the homeowners were honked that Vinton called Pittsburgh rather than Canonsburg home!

The Four Coins: Jimmy Gregorakis, George Mantalis, and the brothers George and Jack Mahramas formed the smooth vocal group. They started as part of Bobby Vinton's "Band of Tomorrow" and later became the Four Keys.

As the Four Coins, the quartet charted five Top Thirty songs, led by "Shangri-la" at #11. Their other hits were "My One Sin," "The World Outside," "Memories of You" and their first breakout song "We'll Be Married." They were also well-known for performing ethnic Greek and Italian tunes.

The Four Coins caught their break when local band leader Lee Barrett took them to Cincy to audition for General Artists, which got the ball rolling for them. They left show biz in 1970 to take care of their families, though they did briefly reunite for two final shows in 2003 at the Pepsi Roadhouse and pop up on rare occasion for PBS specials and the such.

Four Coins Drive was named after the group.

Gregg Kostelich: Kostelich is the guitarist for the garage punk rockers The Cynics and famous for his fuzzy riffs. The hard-touring band has been together since 1984 and is an overseas favorite. He got his start playing for a local outfit called Cottonmouth.

Kostelich founded the local label Get Hip, which of course issues the Cynics and other edgy bands, but also has done a great job of preserving the old acts through its Archive Series. He does business in a contrarian way; no big box retailers for his releases. Get Hip wax is only sold at the indie stores as part of his passion for music and insistence that each release get individual attention.

Chuck Edwards (Edwin): The jazz/R&B player moved to Canonsburg in 1959 or so. He took a day job in the mill, with club and session gigs filling the night. He was a popular local performer with several regional favorites on wax, and hit it big with "Bullfight" in 1966. It was taped at Gateway Studios and first released on his own Rene label, to be later picked up by Roulette for national distribution. His 1968 song "Downtown Soulsville" became a huge Northern Soul record across the pond.

In 1972, he and the clan Edwards moved to the coast, where the family released some tunes as the Edwards Generation in the mid-seventies. Chuck passed away outside San Jose in 2001 in Pittsburg, California.

Phil Lipari: The Canonsburg native was the featured vocalist on Chuck Edward's first Rene release, singing "Please Come Back" b/w "Later For You Darling," issued in 1962.

Joey Powers (Ruggierio): Look up "one hit wonders" and "Midnight Mary" always pops up. It was recorded by Canonsburg's Joey Powers on Amy Records, and charted at  #10 in 1963-64. While he didn't produce any more hit records, the Joey Powers Flowers were a hot and very much in-demand group in the Jersey/Philly area clubs for years.

He first recorded under the name Joey Rogers, and his initial career was given a boost by Perry Como. The last rumored 411 on Powers is that he's a missionary in Russia, operating a Christian recording studio.

Jason Walker: Known for his soulful vocals, Walker scored a #1 track on the Billboard Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart in 2004 with "Foolish Mind Games" and in 2005 with "Set It Free." Walker cracked the Top 10 three other times, with "My Life" (#3), "No More" (#5) and "Movin' On" (#7).

He's now based in Brooklyn.

Four Townsmen: The group got together as Canon-Mac high school mates in 1959, and had a pair of local hits with “Sometimes (When I’m All Alone)” and “It Wasn’t So Long Before (Graduation Is Here)” on Odell Bailey's Art-Flow Records label in 1962.

The original members were Chuck Marshall, Bobby Kraushaar, Lou Gadani and Pete Kouklakis. Marshall passed away in 1985, Kraushaar retired, and Gadini and Kouklakis, along with Eric Bruce and Pete Povich, reformed the group in 1999. They're still performing a revue with a backing band and have a trio of CDs out.

Donnybrooks: John Alterio, Ken Paige, Frank Trebel, and Bob Kobert, Third Ward School classmates, started as the Phaetons in 1954, guided by their grade school music teacher Lou Popiolkowski. The group entered a talent contest with KDKA Radio as The Four Pals (one story has them named after DJ Art Pallan, but Frank Trebel says "...we selected the name 'the Four Pals' because we were four real friends and pals." Cool!) in 1958, winning a recording contract with Calico Records.

Their first record, "Everytime We Kiss," was a big local hit under the new name of the Donnybrooks. The group traveled the East Coast and performed as part of the regional club circuit on the strength of that song. They cut two records with Calico Records, (four songs) Three were written by  Popiolkowski and one, "Mandolins of Love" was written by Tony Ambrose, another Canonsburg song writer.

After their breakup in 1960, only Kobert continued in the industry, recording for Alanna and Souvenir Records as Bobby Shawn and still performing locally.

Vic DaPra: DaPra made a local name for himself as the lead singer and guitarist from 1972 to 1984 for Sugarcane, which opened for Joan Jett at the Stanley Theater. Now he's more known for his expertise with guitars. He's co-owner of Guitar Gallery and a collector of old axes.

DaPra received the ultimate honor when Gibson named a guitar for him, the Vic DaPra Bourbon Fade, a reissue of a 1959 Les Paul model. He's also written a pair of highly regarded guitar books, "Burst" and "Sunburst Alley." DaPra is a 1970 Canonsburg Hi grad and Gregg Kostelich's cousin.

Big Guns: Jay Kasper, Mike Touville, Mark Knapp and Don Pruse form Big Guns, a country rock band that's had some national exposure and radio play, opening for Hank Williams Jr., Travis Tritt, Willie Nelson, Kenny Chesney and a whole slew of country acts. Around since the mid-nineties, the group tours mainly in the east and south, and regularly play many of the local country festivals.

They were named as the area's "Best Country Band" from 1996-98 by various local publications, and their latest CD is called "Bang."

Antoinette (Manganas): She may not have broken out yet, but the jazz/R&B vocalist has made quite a name for herself in the regional clubs (she started out at Deja Vu). Antoinette has a CD titled "Crush" out and is working on another. She suffered an early career setback when her first album went unreleased after her indie label went belly up, so she's making up for lost time.

But hey, how can you bet against her? Antoinette was raised on Perry Como Avenue and opened for both the Four Coins and Bobby Vinton. There's a whole lotta good hometown mojo working for the lady.

The bandleaders: We've mentioned Lee Barrett, who led his own Orchestra, and Stan Vinton (who also played in the Canonsburg Italian Band with Perry Como). There was a third bandleader that was popular in the area, and that was Lee Kelton, who for a brief period had radio DJ Art Pallan as his singer.

Bluesman Louisiana Red (Iverson Minter) also spent a little time in Canonsburg as a ward of his aunt and uncle. However, all he recalls from that spell was beatings from his unc, paddlings at school and a stint in a reformatory. So hey, maybe that's where he first caught his lifelong case of the blues.

Canonsburg touts itself as "America's Small Town Music Capital" on its web site. And they sure won't get an argument from us.

(There's a lot of talent from Canonsburg, so if we missed some acts, rest assured it's just an oversight. Google and a couple of phone calls usually don't cover all the bases. Please let us know of any other town musicians we may have missed. And Old Mon gives his sincere thanks to music writer and historian Dave Sallinger for calling on his network to help whip this post into shape.)

The Polish Prince

Bobby Vinton, photo from Star Pulse
Stanley Robert Vintula, Jr. entered the world on April 16th, 1935, the only child of local bandleader Stan Vinton. The Polish Prince, Bobby Vinton, had arrived.

Vinton was surrounded by music early, watching and listening to his dad's band practice on the first floor of their Smith Street house through the floor vents to his second floor bedroom. It took him a while to get used to it, though - his mom had to bribe him with quarters to take his music lessons as a kid. But it did take root.

At 15, the Canonsburg native formed his first group (the Hilites, with Mike Lazo and Gene Schacter, later of the Tempos) and played the local dances. "I played West View Park, Kennywood and just about every prom in the area," Vinton told John Hayes of the Post Gazette. They also got to back some national acts passing through town.

Then it was off to college. He paid his way through Duquesne University with the money he earned from the band. Vinton studied music on the Bluff, learned to play a half dozen instruments, and graduated with a degree in musical composition. He would later be awarded an honorary doctorate by the school, too.

He credited the Dukes with giving him the foundation in arrangements that helped him reach success. Dick Clark picked him up as band director for acts like Fabian, Brenda Lee, and Chubby Checker.

He served a two-year hitch in the Army, where he was a chaplain's assistant and blew the trumpet. After his discharge, his band scored a four week gig on Guy Lombardo's "TV Talent Scouts".

Local DJ Dick Lawrence (WMCK?) then made the rounds peddling Vinton wax. The songs were "Halellujah I Love Her So" and "Twilight Time," released on Pat DiCesare's Bobby Records label. Ray Charles and The Platters also released the songs, leaving Vinton in the dust. But it did land the Polish Prince a contract with Epic Records in 1960 as the bandleader for "A Young Man With a Big Band." Hey, we can't make this stuff up!

Two albums and several singles flopped, all big band versions of contemporary hits, and the label was ready to deep six the band; they owed them two more sides and that would legally complete the deal.

Then a record sitting in Epic's pile of rejected songs fell to Vinton. He took off his bandleader hat and turned to singing, even though he always felt that he was a musician, not a singer. It was a pretty good career choice.

"Roses Are Red (My Love)" became a number-one song in 1962, topping the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart for four weeks. Oddly, the crooner first recorded it as an R&B number but decided on a different arrangement with strings. Good choice, again.

The single was not only Vinton's first Number One; it was also the first Number One hit for Epic. The label, needless to say, held onto Vinton.

Other songs he released that year sold like hotcakes, too. "Blue on Blue" hit #3, and "Over the Mountain (Across the Sea)" cracked the Top Thirty.

Vinton kept cranking the ballads out, and with great success.

He followed "Roses Are Red" with 1963's "Blue Velvet", an old Tony Bennett tune, and hit the top of the charts again. In 1990, "Blue Velvet" climbed to Number One again, this time in Great Britain after it was played in a Nivea commercial.

Vinton also had five more songs enter the Top Twenty Five on the charts.

In 1964, he had a pair of chart toppers. First was "There! I've Said It Again," also a #1 hit in 1945 for Vaughn Monroe. It marked the changing of the guard in American music when it was bumped off the charts during the first wave of the British Invasion by the Beatles' "I Want To Hold Your Hand."

That invasion, though, was a battle that Vinton fought as well as any US act. He charted 16 top ten hits during the era, while other singers and artists of the early sixties faded from the scene, not to reappear again until the oldies circuit revived their music. Vinton's manager, Allen Klein, later managed The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, leaving the circle unbroken.

The second top rated song of the year was "Mr. Lonely," written by Vinton while he was in the Army. Epic didn't share Vinton's enthusiasm for the song, and had Buddy Greco release it with no success in 1962; two years later, Vinton showed the label how to do it. In 2005, rapper Akon sampled "Mr. Lonely" on his CD "Lonely."

In 1965, "Long Lonely Nights" came in at #12, while "L-O-N-E-L-Y" charted at #22.

Vinton wrote his 1966 hit "Coming Home Soldier," and everyone in uniform during the Vietnam War had a jones for the sentiment; it's what they all wanted to be. The song was played on all the 'Nam freedom flights home, a hit on the Armed Forces Radio Network, and #11 in the States. It's still a favorite with the troops.

"Please Love Me Forever," the old Cathy Jean and the Roommates and Wanda Jackson song, reached #6 in 1967 and was a million seller, as was 1968's "I Love How You Love Me," originally done by the Paris Sisters. That song reached #9 on the charts and was awarded a gold record by the RIAA. Also in '68, "Halfway to Paradise" and "Take Good Care of My Baby" were strong sellers.

From 1969-71, the "Polish Prince" hit a cold spell, not charting a Top 30 melody. He wasn't quite done, though.

In 1972, "Ev'ry Day of My Life" hit #24 and the old Brian Hyland smash "Sealed With a Kiss" charted at #19. From 1962 through 1972, Vinton had more Billboard #1 hits than any other male vocalist, including Elvis Presley and Frank Sinatra, and scored 28 Top 40 entries.

But Epic Records decided to drop Vinton from his contract in spite of those successes, feeling his hit-making days were over in the rock era.

So Vinton spent $50,000 of his own money on a self-written song sung partially in Polish, "My Melody of Love." He wrote it in part because his mom wondered why he didn't do any songs in Polish. And hey, moms always know best.

The song was turned down by seven major labels, but the eighth, ABC Records, bit. "Melody" turned into a multi-million selling single that hit #3 on the Hot 100, #2 on the Cashbox Top 100 chart, and #1 on the AC chart in 1974.

He followed with the "Beer Barrel Polka" in 1975, which reached #33. But his career was clearly in transition now, though his popularity as an entertainer was as great as ever.

Vinton hosted a half-hour variety program "The Bobby Vinton Show," which aired from 1975 to 1978 on CTV to 140 US and Canadian stations, and was later syndicated in the States. ABC Records, in fact, released a soundtrack album of songs performed on the show in 1975.

In 1978, CBS TV aired "Bobby Vinton's Rock N' Rollers," a one hour special that rolled up high ratings, toppling Monday Night Football. The Polish Prince even teamed up with the Duke, starring in John Wayne films "Big Jake" and "The Train Robbers." Heck, Vinton even published an autobiography, "The Polish Prince."

He owned the Bobby Vinton Blue Velvet Theatre in Branson, Missouri until 2002. Now Vinton does quite well on the casino, cabaret, and club circuit and still gets love from the oldie stations around the country.

Vinton has earned a dozen gold platters during his career, sold over 75 million records, and was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He's been recognized by more than a hundred national organizations and a dozen mayors across the United States for his contributions to the ethnic communities.

He was even invited to Poland as a guest of the government, and got an audience or two with Pope John Paul. He really is the Polish Prince!

And that's not the only place he's remembered.

Canonsburg named two streets, Bobby Vinton Boulevard and Bobby Vinton Drive, in his honor. His hometown fathers even had plans to erect a statue in his honor, but Vinton nixed the idea. He told the politicos that the $100,000 that his statue would cost would do a lot more good in Canonsburg's pocket than spent on his image.

Vinton and his wife Dolores "Dolly" Dobbins Vinton have been married since December 17, 1962, raised five children, and live in Englewood, Florida. And the family man never had a whiff of controversy, quite a compliment considering that Billboard Magazine called Bobby Vinton "the all-time most successful love singer of the Rock-Era."

Here's how Vinton describes his squeaky clean career, in a Gary James interview:

"As far as critics, I'm not a hip guy. I was never on drugs. Nobody ever felt sorry for me 'cause I went straight or found God. I always had God. I've always like, played by the rules."

"Hey, we've all been to high school. We've seen the in-crowds. Most of us have been in the outer crowds, the people who weren't in. Although I was never in, I was selling records and was very happy."

We'd have to say that he's part of the in-crowd now.


"Mr. Lonely - Bobby Vinton live in 2002