Bobby Rydell will team with fellow Golden Boys Frankie Avalon and Fabian for a March 31 concert in Red Bank.You could say that Bobby Rydell’s fate as a pop star was sealed when he was 5.
Recalls the singer: “My dad took me to a theater here in Philadelphia called the Earle Theatre. It used to bring in big bands. I happened to go on a Saturday afternoon, a matinee performance. It was the Benny Goodman Orchestra. And playing drums with Benny Goodman at the time was Gene Krupa. I didn’t know who he was, but I just loved the way he played the drums. I said to my father, ‘Daddy, I want to be him. I want to be that guy.’ ”
Rydell went on to become known, not as a drummer, but as the singer of the ’60s hits “Wild One,” “Volare” and “Wildwood Days.” He is set to perform alongside Frankie Avalon and Fabian as the Golden Boys on March 31 in Red Bank.
Besides being fellow hitmakers, the singers hail from the same area in South Philadelphia. “Fabian lived a half a block away from me on 11th Street, but I never knew him,” says Rydell, 68. “Frankie Avalon and I go back. I think when I was 10 years old, Frankie was about 12, and Frankie had a band. I did some comedy and singing. We used to do shows together for USOs and veterans’ hospitals. Actually, I didn’t meet Fabe until he wound up becoming a star.
“But the days in South Philadelphia, they were all great. Very, very ethnic, as far as Italians and Jewish and Irish. Everybody got along.”
According to Rydell, his father, Al, was instrumental in nurturing his talent. “He took me around to clubs in Philadelphia at a very early age; I was 8 years old, 9, 10 years old, something like that,” Rydell says. “He’d go up to the club owners and say, ‘Is it okay if my son goes up and sings and does a few imitations?’ I would get up and sing and do some imitations, and people applauded. I thought, ‘Gee, all I have to do is do this, and they do that?’ What a wonderful feeling.
“As a matter of fact, when I was about 3 years old, my dad was overseas. My mom and my dad, they kept writing letters back and forth. My mother sent him one letter. She said, ‘I don’t know what to do with the baby. He’s always singing.’ I was about 3 or 4 years old at the time. And my father wrote back — to this day, we still have the letter — and he said, ‘Who knows, Jenny, maybe one day we’ll have a star in the family.’ ”
As for Rydell’s 1963 hit “Wildwood Days,” which extols the virtues of the Cape May County boardwalk resort: “My grandmother, my mom’s mom, had a boarding house in Wildwood. I used to spend my childhood up until the time I started recording when I was 17 years old … I spent all my summers in Wildwood, N.J. It was phenomenal.
“I think the original record was recorded by the Dovells. They (Cameo Records) were going to release the record by the Dovells. I don’t know who made the decision. They said, ‘Well, you know, Bobby’s like, really, a Wildwood guy. Let’s let Bobby record it.’ It was a different recording altogether — musical sound, musical tracks and so on. It became the national anthem of Wildwood, N.J.”
Rydell, Avalon and Fabian first performed as the Golden Boys in 1985. Recalls Rydell: “When we did the first tour, there wasn’t a moment when we didn’t leave the stage laughing, just having a ball. To tell you the truth, we all thought, ‘How long is this going to last? A year? Two, tops?’ Well, this is 2011 and we’re still doing it.”
Cool Stuff appears the final Friday of the month in Ticket.
The Golden Boys
Where: Count Basie Theatre, 99 Monmouth St., Red Bank
When: March 31 at 8 p.m.
How much: $38-148. Call (732) 842-9000 or visit countbasietheatre.org