Vi Velasco

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Vi Velasco (born January 12, 1939 in Manila , Philippines ) is an American soul and bossa nova singer with Filipino roots.

Life

Origin and education

Her parents moved to San Diego in 1940 and shortly afterwards to Hollywood , where Vi Velasco grew up. After graduating from high school, she attended City College in Los Angeles, won a local television station talent competition, and went on to study singing and acting in New York . In June 1955 she made her debut as a calypso dancer with the Los Velasco Trio at the Blue Angel in Chicago, a nightclub to which she later remained loyal. Shortly afterwards, in August, she sang there for the first time on the show Voodoo Calypso , supposedly on the side of a donkey that was being led by the audience. Variety described the show as "loud, fast and short" so that no one was embarrassed to fall asleep. In the Sahara Hotel in Las Vegas, she impressed with Latino numbers like Elube Chango . She was cast in a supporting role for the first time in the then highly successful Broadway musical Jamaica by Harold Arlen (music) and EY Harburg (lyrics) (premiered October 31, 1957 at the Imperial Theater ). In the same year she made an appearance on the television show In Melbourne Tonight . In 1960 she made as a singer in the BBC telecast 60 pace sensation. From August 5, 1960 she was engaged by the Brazilian promoter Ricardo Cella from São Paulo for a tour of South America .

Musical and night club performances

The following year, she got the lead role of the naive June Young in Kicks and Company by Oscar Brown Jr. and Robert Nemiroff (text) and Alonzo Levister (music) alongside actor Meredith Burgess . The musical, a satire on Playboy and Hugh Hefner , failed after four performances at the world premiere at the Arte Crown Theater in Chicago , but got a second chance in New York after excerpts were shown on the Dave Garroway TV show. But as the diabolical Mr. Kicks (in the play the devil tries to seduce a colored student with the help of an orgy magazine ) the brittle Burgess failed in the title role - he lacked any sex appeal. In addition, the off-Broadway theater in which the restart was attempted was more like a dismissive convention hall, which is why the production flopped again. Nonetheless, Velasco achieved a certain fame through the musical and on October 12, 1961 , her picture graced the cover of the music magazine Jet .

In 1962, Velasco was cast in the musical No Strings by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein as a substitute for the leading actress Diahann Carroll in the lead role of model Barbara Woodruff (the story takes place in the Parisian fashion world) and excelled in several performances. From July 30, 1963 followed a leading role in the musical Flower Drum Song , which came out in Chicago. Despite her stage success, appearances in nightclubs remained the great passion of Velasco, which also accepted engagements in the Caribbean ( Aruba Caribbean ). She repeatedly made guest appearances in Las Vegas , for example at several weeks of appearances in the Flamingo Hotel , as well as in the Freemont and Frontier Hotel , as well as in numerous television shows in Brazil , France , Germany and Great Britain , etc. a. on the Merv Griffin Show (eleven times between January 2, 1963 and September 12, 1967), The Red Skelton Hour on CBS (January 7, 1964), and the Lester Wilson Show (1971).

Record contracts

With Cantando Bossa Nova Velasco recorded her first album on Colpix Records , where she also had her first record deal, accompanied by jazz saxophonist and band leader Zoot Sims (producer Jack Lewis , arrangements by Al Cohn and Manny Albam ). It was the first ever album by an American artist with sung bossa nova tracks. 1964 followed for the label Vee-Jay Records The Vi Velasco Album , arranged by Charles Callelo, a production with which she went on a promotional tour through several US cities, Great Britain and Italy after careful planning of the corresponding marketing campaign in Hollywood. On this record Velasco also sang the Burt Bacharach hit That's Not The Answer (lyrics by Hal David ), the only song with which she is still featured on easy listening samplers today. The Bacharach song Reach Out For Me , which Velasco also sang on her portrait album, is much better known in the version by Dionne Warwick (1964). When Velasco's second album was released, the Vee-Jay label was going through a crisis: until then, it had focused exclusively on rhythm and blues , jazz and gospel and was now trying for the first time to gain a foothold in the pop business , which resulted in a series of expensive legal proceedings withdrew. At the time , Vee-Jay also fought with the EMI Group about the first US release of a Beatles record, so that the marketing of Vi Velasco was significantly impaired.

Contrary to what was announced in Billboard magazine on July 17, 1965, Velasco did not sing the title song composed by Charles Calello for the United Artists film Who Killed Teddy Bear , but Rita Dyson (who was not mentioned in the opening credits) . In 1967 the single Lonely Boy was released on the New York MTA label founded in 1966 by Bob Thompson and Bob Mack, a company that had set out to produce only a few selected tracks. In 1969 Velasco took on the supporting role of the pistol in the Mata Hari -Musical Ballad for A Firing Squad , which was only shown off-Broadway at the Theater de Lys .

The singer has also performed on cruise lines such as the Emerald Seas .

From 1970 Vi was traveling with her two sisters Barbara and Maria under the name Velasco Sisters , u. a. in the Bahamas. In the summer of 1974, they were celebrated by the press at Fields Restaurant in Chicago and Brunos Beach House on Sylvan Beach, near Syracuse, New York . Vi delighted with her interpretation of the song Delta Dawn by Larry Collins and Alex Harvey . Vi Velasco's sisters Barbara and Maria also performed as a duo in Florida and the Caribbean, accompanied by Maria's husband Dick Leiman, who played the trumpet and led the five-piece band at performances by the Velasco Sisters .

Discography

Albums

  • 1962: Vi Velasco With Zoot Sims And His Orchestra - Cantando Bossa Nova Means Singing The Bossa Nova (Colpix)
  • 1964: The Vi Velasco Album (Vee-Jay)

Singles

  • 1964: You are my sunshine / I don´t want to go on (Vee-Jay)
  • 1965: If You Must Break a Heart / That's Not the Answer (Vee-Jay)
  • 1965: I Don't Wanna Go On / Oh No, Not My Baby / Tokyo Melody / I'll Come A Little Bit Closer (Fontana)
  • 1967: Lonely Boy / I walk the line (MTA Records)
  • Unknown: Vi Velasco / Barbara Lewis / Riley Hampton Oh No Not My Baby / Hello Stranger (Connoisseur)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://www.rocknroll-schallplatten-forum.de/viewtopic.php?t=14628&sid=bbb5a526f5c3d5a0d2cb12a0f24a1f81
  2. ^ Billboard , June 18, 1955, p. 15
  3. ↑ Variety , August 1955, No. 199/9
  4. ^ Billboard , Aug 13, 1955, p. 18
  5. ↑ Kimberly R. Vann: Black Music in Ebony: An Annotated Guide to the Articles on Music in Ebony Magazine, 1945-1985 , Columbia College 1990, p. 32
  6. ^ Brian E. Herrera: Latin Numbers: Playing Latino in Twentieth-Century US Popular Performance , Ann Arbor 2014, p. 96
  7. ^ Variety , Aug. 31, 1960, p. 43
  8. ↑ Donald McKayle: Transcending Boundaries: My Dancing Life London 2002, p. 214
  9. ↑ [1]
  10. ↑ [2]
  11. ^ Cash Box , January 5, 1963
  12. ^ Cash Box , January 30, 1965
  13. ↑ [3]
  14. ↑ [: //archive.org/stream/bub_gb_2CgEAAAAMBAJ/bub_gb_2CgEAAAAMBAJ_djvu.txt]
  15. ^ Cash Box , April 23, 1966
  16. ↑ Barbara Martin Stephens: Don't Give Your Heart to a Rambler: My Life with Jimmy Martin, the King of Bluegrass , University of Illinois, 2007
  17. ^ Billboard , October 24, 1970
  18. ^ The Post-Standard Syracuse / New York, July 19, 1974, Page [4] /
  19. ^ Billboard , December 18, 1971
personal data
SURNAME Velasco, Vi
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American soul and bossa nova singer with Filipino roots
DATE OF BIRTH January 12, 1939
PLACE OF BIRTH Manila , Philippines