Teddy Randazzo

born on 13/5/1935 in Brooklyn, NY, United States

died on 21/11/2003 in Orlando, FL, United States

Teddy Randazzo

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Alessandro "Teddy" Randazzo (May 13, 1935 - November 21, 2003) was a New York City born pop songwriter who composed hit songs such as "Goin' Out of My Head", "It's Gonna Take a Miracle", "Pretty Blue Eyes", and "Hurt So Bad" in the 1960s.

Early years

In the early years of rock and roll, Randazzo played with a group called The Three Chuckles and appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show numerous times. Their first hit "Runaround", was a top 20 hit. As a solo artist, he had three singles that made the Billboard Top 100: "Little Serenade" (#66) in 1958, "The Way Of A Clown" (#44) in 1960 and "Big Wide World" (#51) in 1963. He co-starred in rock revues staged by the legendary disc jockey Alan Freed, appearing with such artists as Chuck Berry and LaVern Baker. Randazzo also had some starring roles and often performed in such rock films as Hey, Let's Twist, The Girl Can't Help It, Rock, Rock, Rock and Mr. Rock and Roll in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

Hit-making years

Randazzo wrote a string of major hits for other artists with composing partner, Bobby Weinstein,[1] including "Pretty Blue Eyes", a top ten hit for Steve Lawrencein the US and Craig Douglas in the UK. He penned many songs for Little Anthony and the Imperials, producing and arranging several albums for the group in the mid-60s. The hit songs included "Goin' Out of My Head" (#6 Pop, #22 R&B), which was covered by numerous artists including The Zombies and Frank Sinatra; "Hurt So Bad" (#10 Pop, #3 R&B), which was covered by The Lettermen (#12 in 1969), as well as Linda Ronstadt who took it to #8 in 1980; and the Imperials' Top 20 hits, "I'm On The Outside (Looking In)" and "Take Me Back". The Lettermen combined "Goin' Out of My Head" with Frankie Valli's hit, "Can't Take My Eyes Off You" in a medley which reached #7 in 1968.

He arranged and produced two albums on MGM Records with Baltimore girl group, The Royalettes including the Top 50 hit "It's Gonna Take A Miracle" in 1965. He gave the group a big production sound with a full orchestra (compared to sparer instrumentation for Little Anthony recordings), but despite critical acclaim and good reviews for their live shows, the group failed to achieve a major commercial success. "I Want To Meet Him", the follow-up in 1966, reached the Hot 100 and the Top 30 R&B charts. "Miracle" was revived in 1982 by Deniece Williams, who took it to the number 1 R&B spot and #10 in the Hot 100.

All of the 27 songs that Randazzo produced on the two albums, plus another issued on single, appeared on a CD retrospective of the Royalettes' complete MGM output released by UK label, RPM in late 2010.

Many of Randazzo's tunes became pop classics, recorded by a gamut of industry giants from Ella Fitzgerald to (as mentioned previously) Frank Sinatra. "I've lost count on how many versions there are", Randazzo once said of "Goin' Out Of My Head". It is now included in the Top 50 most recorded songs with sales of over 100 million by over 400 artists, according to the Songwriters' Hall Of Fame.

Randazzo wrote "Yesterday Has Gone", which was recorded by UK band Cupid's Inspiration in 1968 and climbed to #4 in the UK pop chart. Later, he provided several songs for albums by New York soul group, The Manhattans, during their 1970s' hey-day, including the 1977 hit, "It Feels So Good To Be Loved So Bad" (#6 R&B, #66 Pop), "There's No Good In Goodbye", "A Million To One" to name a few. He also wrote and produced for The Stylistics. Albums include "Fashionably Yours" and "Love Spell." At this time, Teddy co-wrote songs with his then girlfriend, Victoria Pike and songwriters Roger Joyce and Souren Mozian.

During the early and mid 60's, Randazzo toured extensively with his own band appearing at the Copacabana, New York, Hotel Americana, San Juan and regularly at the Thunderbird Hotel, Las Vegas. Band members included renowned musicians: Larry Taylor, Gerry McGee, Tommy Boyce, Bobby Hart, Vince Megna, Billy Lewis, Kenny Rankin, Bobby Weinstein and Billy Barberis.

Later life and death

Randazzo married R. Shelly Kunewa [2] of Hawaii and divided his time between their home in the islands and their home in Florida for most of the latter half of his life. He continued writing and producing. Randazzo produced and arranged the "Honolulu City Lights" album (for Tom Moffat's Paradise Records Label] The song was a hit, the album has become a classic. In 2004, the editors of Honolulu Magazine asked a panel of distinguished recording industry veterans to rank their choices for the best Hawaii album of all time. "Honolulu City Lights" was chosen #1.

Randazzo died at age 68 at his home in Orlando, Florida.

Songwriters Hall of Fame

Randazzo and his writing partner, Bobby Weinstein, were inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2007, fifty years after they first started writing songs together.

See also

  • List of Italian American entertainers

Sources

References

  1. BMI and Songwriters Hall Of Fame
  2. Honolulu Advertiser

External links

This page was last modified 05.03.2014 13:21:02

This article uses material from the article Teddy Randazzo from the free encyclopedia Wikipedia and it is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.