Tony Mastroianni Review Collection
Fans rally 'round Jerry Vale
Cleveland Press July 25 1972
Singer Jerry Vale made his fourth visit to Musicarnival beginning last night, proving nor only his durability but also an increase in popularity. An additional performance has already been added to the week-long run at 4 p.m. Sunday.
Vale is a little older but so is his audience and they are obviously loyal to each other. They know what they want and he delivers.
More the troubadour than the crooner, Vale sells every song, knows all the tricks and uses them skillfully. He sings them big and gets the right break in his voice at the right time.
WHILE THE OLD favorites were present, Vale has managed to add a little more variety to his show. The staples continued to be the love ballads and the Italian and Italian-American songs. Added to these was a mixture of show music, country and western and a medley of songs associated with Nat King Cole.
He plugs his own records, does & few songs associated with other singers, closing with a big emotional rendition of: "My Way," a song associated with Frank Sinatra.
Like most singers he can't resist telling jokes. He did I so for better than 10 minutes last night. He got a better response than most of the comics who have appeared at the tent this summer . . . and with some of the same material.
Vale does the entire second half of the show, is on for close to 90 minutes. He also opens the show, walks down the aisle shaking hands, sings two songs before going off.
THE FIRST HALF of the show is occupied by an act called the Golddiggers. Television audiences, I'm told, know them well, principally as part of the Dean Martin Show.
The Golddiggers consist of eight very gorgeous girls in fetching costumes. They sing, sometimes all eight at once, sometimes one at a time, sometimes in groupings of two, three, four and all the way back up to eight.
The singing is only fair but it isn't singing that they get by on. They move around a lot ...dancing, stamping, slinking, bouncing and just moving this way and that.
You see, the idea is for what the act is all about. One or more of them to sing an upbeat number and then he rest dash out on stage to accompany it with all that movement. On them all that movement looks good. They do a nostalgic bit, but nostalgia for them is the Twist.
They also try a little conversation with the audience but the banter doesn't work as well as the other stuff.
Keep moving girls, that's what the act is all about.
