Legends need substance

 This post will extend the one from last week; more uses for (and surprises from) old business cards and similar mementoes.

Everyone (in my humble opinion) builds a legend about themselves.   Some may be swashbuckling, some tame, but they are there.

How does this happen? In some cases, it is a synthesis of other peoples' view of you.  If you are a public figure (e.g. Britney Spears, Taylor Swift (using female singers as an example)), the media and your audience will develop both their views and the myth around you.

However, in other cases, it is your view of yourself, and your (sometimes slightly colored) remembrances of the things you did and the things you came through.  It shapes (to a degree) what you are willing to do, and to try.

So, here you go:

In 2020, I found Richie Landolfi's calling card for the Imperials, a rock 'n roll singing group from Dumont, NJ, adjacent to my hometown.  The card dates from 1958 or so.  This is a part of my past I have mused and spoken about over the years.  I had tried starting my own group in Tenafly, including both young men and women.  Two posts ago, there is a picture and a list of the group members.  I thought we had potential, but you need to convince record promoters of that, and at age 15, we never did.

Tenafly had its share of musical talent.  Lesley Gore grew up there, and Paul Anka moved there, with his family, from Canada.  Bob Gaudio is from Bergenfield, another adjacent town, although he ended up in Newark with the Four Seasons.  Englewood had Sylvia Vanderpool (Mickey and Sylvia), who went on to be a record producer and is credited at her firm Sugar Hill Records with offering some of the first Rap songs.  In addition, in the 1950's Englewood had the Avons, led by the three Lee brothers, each of whom I had great respect for.  

All of which brings us backs to the Imperials.  Richie and Ralphie Landolfi were the lead singers.  I was just a background guy.  Since I was a member of the "Thundering Turtles" Hot Rod Club  (see next post), which was Dumont based, I was up there a lot, and I heard them at Shutin's, a Madison Avenue bar.  I was auditioned, and sang with them for about a month.  But they knew, as I did, that I had to go back to college in the fall.  So it is just a little piece of a legend, but we all have to try something.  Unfortunately, The Imperials could have had a better choice of a name.  Concurrently, a young man named Little Anthony had his Brooklyn, NY based backup group with a similar name.  In 1958, they made "Tears on my Pillow." and the Landolfi brothers had to find a new name.

More on cars (and travel and racing) next week.