Amore: The Story of Italian American Song

Amore traces the "Italian decade"—the postwar years before the Beatles—when Frank Sinatra, Perry Como, Dean Martin, Tony Bennett, and others brought a smooth, stylish brand of pop music to American audiences. Through stories of forty Italian American classics including "O Sole Mio," "Night and Day," "Mack the Knife," "Volare," and "I Wonder Why," Mark Rotella shows how this musical tradition became the soundtrack of postwar America and embodied a distinctive sense of style. Rotella traces the music's journey from opera houses and piazzas in southern Italy through barrooms in the Bronx and Hoboken to venues like the Copacabana, the Paramount Theatre, and the Vegas Strip. He profiles hardworking musicians whose voices dominated jukeboxes and radio, whose names—anglicized or otherwise—came to represent Italian American success, even as they faced stereotypes and prejudice. The book serves as both a personal collection of forty favorite songs and a tribute to Italian American culture and a bygone era.