PRH REMEMBERS
by DAN VANORE
BOBBY
In Memory of
photos by PHIL KRAMER
RYDELL As a kid aspiring to be a singer, I loved listening to our famous neighborhood guys. There was something about walking on the same streets they did 20 years before me. It gave me confidence and the hope to do what I had to do to succeed. Bobby Rydell was one of those guys. I drew my confidence from him and, of course, admired him. In my career, I had the good fortune to perform with him on stage with my band The Business at a friend’s wedding. We also opened for him at one of Philly’s big Labor Day concerts at Penn’s Landing. A dear friend of mine and former bandmate, Rick Baccare, coincidentally, became very close with Bobby while performing with him at Fredrick’s, back in the day. We both agreed that Bobby not only had the best overall voice of all the South Philly pop singers, but he also had one of the best voices in the business, period! Bobby Rydell’s idol was another legend, Bobby Darin, and you can tell the influence that his idol had on him. In the early 1960s, Bobby Rydell was quoted in 16 Magazine saying, ‘I should like for all of Bobby [Darin’s] friends to know how indebted I am to him. Not only
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has he been kind enough to give me hints on most of the aspects of show business, he has also helped me in more practical ways by mentioning my name to important people who might never had known I exist. This unselfish attitude from Bobby makes me admire him even more. He’s just great!’ If you were an Italian kid from South Philly, you knew after being in Bobby Rydell’s presence for only a few minutes that he was one of us. He had the swagger, the South Philly wit, the pride in our neighborhood and, along with Charlie Gracie, never left the area. To me, that’s a huge deal. It was evident in all the photos that were posted of him with his fans immediately after he passed. He posed for a shot with everybody who asked, and their mothers! Bobby’s death was a blow for South Philadelphia and beyond. We think people like this will be around forever and that is not so. We are only fragile humans. At least he left us with a massive array of music to be enjoyed by future generations. As I said in my opening sentence, as a young kid, he was one of my musical heroes. I, along with many other South Philadelphians, will never forget him. PRH
| ROWHOME MAGAZINE | July / August / September 2022
photo by ANDREW ANDREOZZI
gohomephilly.com
