Bobby Vinton

Genres:	Comedy • Documentaries • Easy Listening • Holiday & Seasonal • Pop / Rock • Television • Vocals • Westerns
Descriptive "tags":	oldies • 60s • pop • easy listening • male vocalists
Decades Active:	1960s • 1970s • 1980s • 1990s • 2000s
Links online:	BBC Music • Wikipedia

Biography

Stanley Robert Vinton, 16 April 1935, Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, USA. Born of Polish extraction, Vinton was one of the more enduring boy-next-door pop idols who sprang up in the early 60s. He began as a trumpeter before agreeing to front his high school band as featured vocalist. A tape of one such performance reached Epic Records, who signed him in 1960. Composed by Al Byron and Paul Evans, ‘Roses Are Red (My Love)’ was Vinton’s first national smash but it was overtaken in Britain by Ronnie Carroll’s Top 10 cover version. Despite a much-publicized arrival in London for his cameo in the teen-exploitation movie, Just For Fun, a second US number 1, ‘Blue Velvet’, was initially ignored in the UK, although another American smash, a revival of Vaughn Monroe’s ‘There! I’ve Said It Again’, made number 34 in 1963.

Vinton continued playing in supper clubs until 1968, when a policy of revamping hits by...

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