Dick Contino, Accordion Heartthrob, Dies at 87

[JSngry]

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/30/arts/music/obituary-dick-contino-accordion-heartthrob.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fobituaries&_r=0

 

“He isn’t just sensational,” the gossip doyenne Hedda Hopper wrote, “he’s youth walking into your life.”

But in 1951, as the Korean War headed into its second year, Mr. Contino, then only 21, was drafted into the Army and, after reporting to Fort Ord, near Monterey, Calif., bolted before his induction, overwhelmed by persistent neuroses including claustrophobia.

He said he could not stand being fenced in at Fort Ord. “I could never describe the anxiety attack I had,” he told The Los Angeles Times in 1982. “I felt I had to leave.”

He wandered San Francisco and entered a sanitarium before surrendering to the F.B.I. a few days later. He was indicted on a charge of refusing to submit to induction. After pleading guilty, he was fined $10,000 and served four and a half months in the federal penitentiary at McNeil Island, Wash.

He entered the Army willingly in 1952 and spent much of his two years there entertaining troops in Korea. “These boys need entertainment,” he told United Press while in Seoul. “They all want to hear music. They want to forget they’re here, I guess.”

Mr. Contino was pardoned in 1954 under the provisions of a general proclamation issued two years earlier by President Harry S. Truman that covered members of the armed forces who had been convicted of crimes before their induction.

But despite his subsequent honorable service, the draft-dodger label dogged him. The sponsor of a proposed new band pulled out because of the publicity. The comedian Joey Bishop once brought him on as a guest on his late-night talk show, was enthusiastic about helping his career, but never had him on again.

“Why did people resent me so much for years?” Mr. Contino asked in the interview with The Los Angeles Times. “Why would certain shows pencil me in but never use me?”

[Ted O'Reilly]

Q:  Who is the patron saint of accordionists?

A:  "Our Lady of Spain"

(I haven't been able to use that one for years.)

[Big Beat Steve]

7 hours ago, JSngry said:

But despite his subsequent honorable service, the draft-dodger label dogged him. The sponsor of a proposed new band pulled out because of the publicity. The comedian Joey Bishop once brought him on as a guest on his late-night talk show, was enthusiastic about helping his career, but never had him on again.

“Why did people resent me so much for years?” Mr. Contino asked in the interview with The Los Angeles Times. “Why would certain shows pencil me in but never use me?”

 

You wouldn't have guessed, looking at this (from the 1955 Metronome Yearbook of Jazz). So he must have had some publicity deals.

 

A name that probably has not left much of a trace with the music history-minded outside the US, so it's one of those cases where, flipping through those old mags, you have to constantly remind yourself that just because the ad is in a jazz mag does not automatically mean it's a jazz artist who is featured. (That said, I wouldn't mind getting my hands on a copy of that jazz LP that Angelo Di Pippo did for Apollo)

 

 

 

Edited May 1, 2017 by Big Beat Steve