Beginnings . . .
Soon after 7-year-old Antonino Lo Tempio of Niagara Falls, New York found out that his parents had not
actually found him abandoned in the garbage, (as his sister, Carol, had
repeatedly insisted) he made his initial foray into the limelight. Nino
recalls: "I sang with Benny Goodman when I was a little kid. Peggy Lee
had just finished singing. I walked on the stage, tugged at his coat,
and said `Mr. Goodman, my grandfather said I could have 10 dollars if I
could sing with your band.´ Well, he looked at the audience and said
`Folks, this is not planned,´ which it wasn´t. So he picked me up
and said `What are you going to sing?´, and I said `Rosetta in the key
of C with a tag at the end´, and TORE `EM UP!" At Goodman's request,
little Nino
returned to Shea´s Buffalo Theatre in Buffalo, New York for the next
six nights to encore his show-stopper. This was the debut performance in a
career that would span over 60 years. And his sister didn't do too badly
either.
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