Customer Reviews

Singing Was the Easy Part

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I have been collecting the music of Vic Damone since the 1960's. I had the pleasure of meeting him at a BBC recording he made for Charles and Diana's wedding celebrations. At that recording he invited the audience to his Royal Albert Hall concert later that year - true to his word every member of the audience was sent tickets for that concert - a man of integrity. This books reveals the personility of the man - warts and all, he reveals his innnermost thoughts to us. A great read. It is like being at a dinner party and the host tells one anecdote after the other opening himself up more and more. After each chapter you want to hear the singing voice to remind yourself have superb an artist Vic Damone is!!!!!!!!! Live at the Royal Festival Hall 1985
A truly great singer - up there with his idol sinatra - many of Mr. Damone's recording surpass his idol

An interesting read for this Vic Damone fan. It made me want to hear his music again and wish he hadn't retired. It is unfortunate there has been no promotion on this book--at least, none I have seen. If a friend hadn't told me about it, I would not have known about it.

This book was a very entertaining read. The anecdotes and incidents that Vic Damone writes about kept me turning the pages. His story about being set up with Ava Gardner, and getting drunk for the first time had me laughing. My biggest surprise in his storytelling was when he recalled his singing "On the Street Where You Live" for the songwriters. The songwriters were about to pull the song from "My Fair Lady", and not use it in the show. His singing the song for them, had them keep the song in "My Fair Lady."
As stated in another review, this book is a fun read. I enjoyed it so much, that I have been buying some of Vic Damone's audio cds from Amazon. Since I am not of Vic Damone's generation, I just had to hear his voice. He has a beautiful voice, and wrote a terrific book.

Even Larry King, who introduces this memoir, says that Vic Damone never quite became a superstar or hit the top rung in the show biz ladder. (He says he was "one short rung down.") A friend of mine recommended this book to me on the strength of my review of the recent Andy Williams memoir, but the difference is, I sort of remember Andy Williams, and I have no recollection of Vic Damone at all. So it's sort of like reading a novel about someone you've never heard of, someone fictional. If you know Damone, go ahead and add a star to this review. He seems to have had a hardworking youth and became a star at 17, so his troubles you'd think would be over but they were just beginning.

The way he makes it sound, if you were an entertainer back then working the clubs, particularly if you were Italian American, you were going to get mixed up with the mob one way of another, and boy did he! He dated a top capo's daughter, and broke off an engagement to her because she was disrespectful to his mom when the mom tried to teach her how to cook Vic's favorite meals. The mob boss was enraged and tried to throw Vic out of a 14th story window. Only the strength of his calves and his grip on his fiancee's father's necktie saved his life. Sinatra became an older brother to him, saw him through some turbulent times. Once, Vic planned to kill the millionaire putz who had cuckolded him with Vic's glamorous wife Pier Angeli, and Sinatra snapped his fingers in front of his face and said, "Kill her, don't kill him." Damone had plenty of romance in his life, and married many beautiful women including Diahann Carroll of all people, but nothing ever stuck to him, even after he discovered the healing qualities of Baha'i, a religion of some sort that he turned to when Pier Angeli had disappointed him yet again.

Vic Damone knows how to tell a story that's for sure, but some highlights of the book for me personally were his accounts of working on Kismet with the great Vincente Minnelli (and a peacock and Ann Blyth) and also a dramatic accident in which he and another wife tumble down a mountain road on black ice. He is also a capable apologist for Baha'i and offers some singing tips that have helped me in my quest to made a record myself one day.

Just got finished reading "Singing Was The Easy Part", Vic Damone's autobiography. Vic was one of the best of the "crooners". He's had quite a life. The book isn't laid out like a regular autobiography. It's more like you and he were sitting at a bar, and he was telling you great stories. And what stories! There was the time Sinatra stopped him from killing a man, the time he found out about his wife's involvement with a big movie star by reading that star's autobiography, the time his future father-in-law tried to throw him out a hotel window, and, oh, yes, the time a group of Mafia Dons took a vote as to whether Vic should live or die. Lots of great rememberances of Jack Benny, George Burns, Perry Como, Ava Gardner, the boys in the Rat Pack, Diahann Carroll, and even champion golfer, Ben Hogan. I really enjoyed it. A good read.

An interesting story. Nice to read about all the "old time" personalties and how they interacted.

I'm just too good a fan of Vic's to be impartial.

Finally a book by Vic Damone. Waiting a long time for this and he didn't disappoint. His description of his early years in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn touched a cord...family difficulties, yet support from most of the people he met in his rise to fame was endearing.

His struggle in the faith department and his determination to keep his first marriage going was most inspirational despite many career-business setbacks.

Did you know he was a avid golfer, cook, and business enterpreneur? Truly, Singing WAS the Easy Part!

Quite a good read, not only was Vic Damone a good singer but he seemed to be a natural and pleasant type of guy, a rarity in entertainers of his era. The story was more anecdotal than biographic but worth reading any way. No muck raking of note and he seemed to get on with everyone he worked with except his first mother in law, not that he worked with her!

Such fun to read and I could not put it down!!!
Love that he had so many celeb fans too!

As a music collector of Sinatra, Andy Williams, and other fine music, including jazz and classical, I find it exciting that so many of the greatest singers are finally having books about their lives published. I have already reviewed the Andy Williams book and it didn't surprise me that Vic Damone's book is in a similar vein. I say this because as a music collector, I find the techinical details of a musicians art invaluable information. The only book that has explored the techinical side of recording to an in depth degree was Sessions with Sinatra: The Art of Recording. That book is most invaluable of how the genius singer applied his craft. A must reading for any music collector. Having said that, Damone's memoir is much like Williams, the early days, the middle and late, and all the fun stories in between. GREAT fun and I learned an enormous amount of facts about Vic and his life. Some were very surprising. I won't list any spoilers here so my fellow music lovers can discover it for themselves. But like the Andy Williams book, Vic doesn't go into great detail about recording styles, techniques and who is favorite arrangers and condcutors were and how it was like to work with them. He talked about his "muzak" recording sessions and the rehersals and he talks about how he and Burt Bacharach came to an end to their relations (musically, not personally). Stories like these, were some of my favorites. And after all these years, I always thought that Damone had gambled away his money. When you read what happened to him and how he was totally scammed, you will feel bad for him. All his hard work down the drain because of some VERY bad people. He comes across as a truly sweet guy who sacrified a lot for his family, especially in his early days. If you are a Vic Damone fan, this is must reading. I would have given it five stars if it had more details about the recording sessions. I was especially interested to hear his toughts on his stormy relationship with Warner Brothers records. They forced him to cover the Tom Jones hit "It's Not Unusal" and as we all know, that didn't work out well at all. I would have liked his thoughts on what many believe to be his best album, "Strange Enchantment". So all of my musical questions from a collectors point of view was not covered, but hey, it's a small gripe. Otherwise, buy the book and enjoy the hey day of Hollywood and music with the guy who clearly has some of the "best pipes in the business"!