This is the most beautiful thing you'll ever see. The total passion for the total height in motion:

I tried posting this on Amazon but was not allowed because I haven't purchased anything in the last 12 months. Wotta dumb, shoot-yourself-in-the-foot policy!

'Classics' is a smorgasbord of comfort Super-foods—sustenance for the soul that infallibly satisfies, satiates and inspires. The servings have been selected and prepared with exceptional intelligence and love. As is unfortunately not the case with the occasional, sullen, grudging recycling of Lanza by his official custodian, Sony, where some tracks are included because of the generic popularity of their title rather than the quality of Mario's performance, there are no rotten offerings here. Every dish is a masterpiece. 'Passione,' preceded by Mario's speaking his famed credo, "I sing each word as though it were my last on earth" and demonstrating how much he meant it, is the perfect dessert. Bravo Sepia and Derek McGovern!

Last month saw the official launch of the estimable UK-based Sepia Records' ninth Mario Lanza CD---and the eighth disc on which I've been intimately involved (as both liner notes writer and co-compiler). Entitled Mario Lanza: Classics, it may well be Sepia's best offering yet of the great American tenor, bringing together all of Lanza's worthy hits, plus representative examples of his best singing in multiple genres. Beginning with the greatest rendition of "Granada" recorded by anyone, it bows out with an equally sensational rendering of the Neapolitan classic "Passione," a recording that concludes, fittingly, with a transcendent high A that will leave ordinary mortals gasping. (Don't believe me? You can listen to it here.)

Classics is available now from Amazon and all the other usual online sellers. For a full track listing and more information, click here.

Here's a guy who should have had a stellar career, but didn't for reasons that are obvious. It's sad that we live in that kind of world. I remember him well from the Mario Lanza Ball in 1996 and from subsequent outrageously bawdy phone calls to the Lanza home while I was there:

I would still love to see The Total Passion For The Total Height by Lindsay Perigo put into print. Books are so much easier to study and promote when available in a printed version.

"Aretha's stylistic embrace was amazingly open-armed. In her 1999 interview on Fresh Air, she told Terry Gross that she loved the Charlie Parker records she listened to in her girlhood home, and eventually grew to love the operatic Mario Lanza albums that caused her older sister Erma to cry."

http://www.nepr.net/post/areth...

After the recent commotion caused by an atrocity upon the National Anthem performed by a hideous screeching bimbo caterwauler, I stumbled across this version by Anthony Kearns, who wrote one of the Introductions to my Mario book. Unaccompanied, and unadulterated by The Filth:

More Magnificent Mario! Keep 'em coming, you and Sepia!

When it comes to Mario Lanza CD releases, UK-based Sepia Records is in a class of its own. The company’s latest release, Poetry and Passion—its sixth Lanza compilation since 2015—continues its commitment to showcasing the great tenor in consistently glorious form, and includes everything from opera to popular song. It’ll be available directly from Sepia around the middle of January, and then from Amazon and other online retailers from February 9.

More information is available at my web site: www.mariolanzatenor.com/news

Dmitri Hvorostovsky’s death six weeks ago hit me hard. I’d followed his career closely since he first burst on the international stage in 1989, and had heard him in concert in Seoul in 2005—a thrilling experience. If not the finest baritone of his generation, he was certainly the most exciting.

This amateur video of Dmitri (flanked by a couple of bright-voiced tenors and a pair of baritones) singing an arrangement of Abinoni’s famous Adagio in G Minor offers proof of that. It was filmed in 2014, when he was already feeling the effect of the (then-undiagnosed) brain tumour that killed him. While he’s uncharacteristically slumming it here, relying on the score in front of him, just watch and listen to what he does from the three-minute mark to the end. He has the voice and bearing of a god.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

I'm glad The One Tenor is now in paperback! But I'd love to see The Total Passion for the Total Height also in print. For me, there's such convenience and pleasure in having an actual physical book of something. It's well worth the extra cost.

Conductor touts his favourite Xmas albums:

"Christmas with Mario Lanza." "Just what a voice," Russell said. "And because he had such a huge and clear tone, it would stand up to full orchestra treatment. The orchestrations are just mammoth and audacious. And it is really heartfelt. Crank it up."

http://buffalonews.com/2017/12...

A stunningly gorgeous man with a real talent - at 55, that truly is a tragedy. RIP.
Bloody cancer!

The great baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky has just died in a London hospital from a brain tumour diagnosed some time ago. His death at the age of 55 while still in full vocal bloom is a tragedy. Dmitri was inspired to sing by Mario: "It was Mario Lanza. He had a thrilling voice, and the first time I heard him I thought, I want to sing like that."

http://www.classicfm.com/artis...

Congratulations to Lindsay on the remarkable success of his book, The One Tenor. No Lanza fan can be 'complete' without reading this extraordinary approach to profiling the Lanza voice and legacy. He has always been an exceptionally diverse observer and, as you know, writes on a wide range of topics…from classical music reviews to political and social topics, like the engineered destruction of America…our country has been taken from 13 Trillion to 21 Trillion in debt in just 7 years…that's not 'politics'...that's reality. And speaking of 'reality'…what IS it anymore? Remember Orwell? This is a worthy commentary of where we are and where we are heading… https://www.youtube.com/watch?... As for 'politics', I will just say it is profoundly obvious we are at the Final Crossroads now. America will soon decide its fate. (Barring vote fraud or electoral college fraud or fraud fraud). In The One Tenor, the reader is led through a feast of remarkable words, gourmet expressions and unique creativity and insight. Few can write from the heart as effectively as does Mr. Perigo…as you will see for yourself, if you haven't already. There can never be too many wonderful books on Lanza whose memory and living voice are blessed with some truly amazing volumes. The descriptive exuberance and masterful phrase-turning of Mr. Perigo in The One Tenor, are often magical, indeed. I was honored to make a small contribution to this unique and indispensable work. There are so many textures and harmonics to Mario's life...and many of them are brought to vivid, colorful, sparkling life here.

http://www.quicktopic.com/30/H...

I hadn't quite realised how tacky Kindle is till I got the hard copy of my own book having had it out on Kindle only for so long. Phooey to Kindle!

Linz
Proud Dinosaur

Listen to these while you wait. They are beautiful.

Un all'azzuro spazio; Lamento di Federico; E lucevan le stelle; M'appari; Come un bel di di maggio; Mamma mia, che vo' sape; Che gelida manina.

Edit: I got my copy yesterday. One book in the hand is worth more than two on the iPad. Looks excellent.

Arriving Tuesday
Not yet shipped
Track package
The One Tenor: A Salute to Mario Lanza
Perigo, Lindsay
Sold by: Amazon.com LLC
$35.99
Buy it Again

Thank you Neil! Note it's hard copy but not hard cover—it's paperback. Amazon makes on charge ridiculous prices for books containing colour photos, as this one does, so hard cover would have too expensive altogether for most folks.

Enjoy!

In hardcover,

How I could I avoid a book by a fellow Italian-American from Philadelphia?

The updated Kindle version of The One Tenor is available for 99 cents for the next forty hours. Special Amazon promotion. Be in! But do buy the hard copy as well.

And the paperback version. Mine's due around July 27th.

And those Sepia CDs are excellent Derek. Now I'll check out your review of the book..

Derek, it was worth writing the book just to get a review like yours! Must have worked too—I'm back at #1!!

https://www.amazon.com/gp/new-...

Lady Slapper: It sustains me, knowing that Mario would indeed have loved it. Seeing you on the back cover, though, he'd have been impossible to fend off. Not that you would have even begun to try!

Nephew Vardo: Why are you not the LP candidate instead of that wimp Johnson?!

and it is simply beautiful.
Beautifully written, beautifully produced and beautifully pictorial!
A work of art all round.
Mario would love it!!

Splendidly done Lord Whopper Flopper.

"The One Tenor" is increasing mightily in scope and influence, as it so well deserves!