MIKE DALTO

My father idolized Frank Sinatra. He took piano lessons as a teenager, but his real love was crooning. He worked as an usher at the Paramount Theater. He got drafted into the army around 1949/1950 and served a year overseas in Korea when the war was hot.

After the army he sought vocal training and mentioned a number of times that he it had some connection to the Brooklyn Academy of Music. While he was getting his training he was also getting some live on the air play on one of the radio stations in NYC. A friend that I went to school with once told me that his aunt was in love with him and he used to sing to her on the radio station.

Around 1960 he started working at Rockefeller Center. He makes mention of that in the Ted Mack clip. "The Singing Elevator Operator from Brooklyn". While dad was working at Rockefeller Center, he performed a few times at the Rainbow Grill in the RCA building. He also performed in a theatrical group called the RCI Players. I am not exactly sure but I believe it was at Radio City Music Hall.

The Ted mack thing happened in 1962. He came won the first round and came back the following week. He got knocked off by "a trumpet playing broad" as he put it.

Around 1966 he sang in Italian at the Mt. Carmel Feast in Brooklyn. He was using the name "Johnny Armand" a tribute to his friend Armand Soriano. There were posters of him in some of the businesses in the nabe. Dad could belt out those Italian songs in dialect, Mala Femina, Inamorata, etc. Both my mom and dad's family are from Teggiano.

Nothing really happened after he left Rockefeller Center and he got a job with the Transit Authority. In the 70s and 80s there was an Italian cable television station in New Jersey where he was a guest several times, again singing in Italian. He really loved to sing.

Just a few months before he had a stroke in 2013, he was still performing in the Hudson Valley/Catskills. The last gig was at a Vaudeville Tribute. He played Al Jolson. "Vaudeville in the Catskills" in South Fallsburgh in conjunction with the Sullivan County Dramatic Workshop.

I had a couple of old shellac 78 RPM records of his. One is from the second Ted Mack show, and another is a demo he made for a songwriter. It's a lovely ballad called "This Heart of Mine (Belongs only to You). He also had a number of reel to reel tapes he made. Unfortunatley I have no idea where they are.

I hope you find something useful in these musings -- and thanks Joe for caring about my father and wanting to preserve a part of his legacy.

Back in the 70s there was a talent show called THE DING DONG SHOW. Basically the deal was that YOU had to sell tickets to get on it. One day MIke D'Alto was there and so was another GreenPoint group known as THE RHYTHM EXPRESS (including Joe Kirsch). We didn't know that we were there that very same day until years later when Mike D'Altos son happen to mention it in passing. Mike saved some paperwork from it -- here it is (click to enlarge it)

I Should Care on Ted Mack Amateur Hour1962

I Should Care
on Ted Mack Amateur Hour1962