WONDERFUL FRIEND

BY FABRIZIO CATALFAMO

Wandering around youtube, on a trivial day, when I started a new channel that I had decided to simply call Media. By chance, I came across a piece by Frank Lafaro and I listened repeatedly for at least an hour. Then happened, like many things in my life, an event that introduced another and another, again. For the magical of algorithms in facebook, the name of Frank appears on my page and therefore I do not find better than to ask for a contact.

I wanted to write a piece about him and, I scheduled a meeting via zoom. I didn’t know it yet, but that would be the first and last time we would talk to each other Frank goes on video via his iphone, from a location called Media. Transcribed here, part of the short interview we had on March 4, 2022. A few days later, I receved a message from his wife Betsy Corbi announcing that, Frank had passed away.

MARCH - 4 - 2022

Hi Frank, where are you?

I’m in Media and my niece helped me connect on video. I didn’t know how to connect in Safari and she showed me these buttons I didn’t know, so I’m going to get my car, I want to sit down.

Ok Frank, I want to thank you for accepting my invitation but for our readers in Italy who maybe they don’t know you: who is Frank Lafaro?

Who am I?

An Italian American born in Philadelphia and has been singing since I was born. I love music, I took piano lessons from the nuns. I went to a large school that needed to be Italian to enter. It was in an Italian neighborhood and I started singing on street corners, with my friends since I was 13, so after I was drafted, I went to military service, did some records first and then in 1990 I started to sing professionally.

So that’s who I am!