Fabian (50's) Biography
Fabiano Forte Bonaparte, 6 February 1943, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. Fabian, almost despite himself, was among the more endurable products of the late 50s when the North American charts were infested with a turnover of vapid boys-next-door - all hair cream, doe eyes and coy half-smiles - groomed for fleeting stardom. Fabian was "discovered" by two local talent scouts, Peter De Angelis and Bob Marucci, in Frankie Avalon's Teen And Twenty youth club in 1957. Enthralled by the youth's good looks, the pair shortened his name and contracted him to their own label Chancellor Records where a huge budget was allocated to project him as a tamed Elvis Presley. Accompanied by the Four Dates, Fabian's first two singles - "I'm In Love" and "Lilly Lou' - were only regional hits, but a string of television performances on Dick Clark's nationally-broadcast American Bandstand plus a coast-to-coast tour had the desired effect on female teenagers, and Fabian found himself suddenly in Billboard"s Top 40 with "I'm A Man," composed by the top New York songwriting team Doc Pomus/Mort Shuman, who also delivered more lucrative hits in "Turn Me Loose" and "Hound Dog Man', the main theme from Fabian's silver screen debut of the same name. More substantial movie roles came Fabian's way after his recording career peaked with 1959"s million-selling "Tiger' and Hold That Tiger. As well as the predictable teen-pics with their vacuous storylines and mimed musical sequences, he coped surprisingly well as John Wayne's sidekick in 1960"s North To Alaska and with Bing Crosby and Tuesday Weld in High Time. Fabian's decline was as rapid as his launch after Congress pinpointed him as an instance of one of the exploited puppets in the payola scandal. Questioned at the time, Fabian made matters worse by honestly outlining the considerable electronic doctoring necessary to improve his voice on record. Reverb was required to cover his limited vocal range. His first serious miss came in 1960 with "About This Thing Called Love' and an irredeemable downward spiral mitigated by 1962"s "Kissin' And Twistin'" and other small hits. Nevertheless, he could be seen in films such as the 1962 war epic The Longest Day, but more commensurate with his talent were productions such as Fireball 500 (a 1966 hot-rod epic with his old friend Frankie Avalon) and 1965's Ride The Wild Surf. Fabian's limited vocal range should not be held against him: he became a puppet and he danced; out of it he traded a doomed musical career for a credible movie career.
Source: The Encyclopedia of Popular Music by Colin Larkin. Licensed from Muze.
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