Ron Onesti: Our variety of music began at home

As a music fan, I count my blessings every day that I was born WHEN I was born. The year was 1962. If I brought up an issue from 1990, it would not seem that long ago. But to think that the same number of years before I was born was during “The Roaring Twenties” just blows my mind!

Yet, I am still “young” enough to appreciate much of the music that has come out recently. Believe me, there is quite a lot that I just don’t care for, but I am still active in the current music scene. Between Chris Stapleton, Ed Sheeran and Post Malone, there is much to choose from!

My Florentine mother would cook with Enrico Caruso and Mario Lanza records drowning out the sizzle of the meatballs in the black cast iron frying pan on the stove. We didn’t get our first record player until I was about 10 years old, but when we did, my mom dominated it. That was until I became a teenager in 1973 and 45 RPM singles listed on the WLS Music Survey became my passion. Goodbye Caruso’s “I Pagliacci,” hello, Elton John’s “Bennie and the Jets!”

Even though my rock 'n' roll journey had just come underway, I was still surrounded at home by the classics.

My Dad, a WWII hero, would work seven days a week at his tailor shop on Taylor Street in Chicago. Sundays, he would take me with him. I would separate buttons and zippers by color to earn my allowance. That was the hardest $2 I ever worked for!

But it was nice because it was peaceful. It was just me, him and Jack Brickhouse on the AM radio shouting his familiar, “Hey Hey” as Ron Santo hit home runs for his beloved Cubs on WGN-AM 720.

But when the Cubs weren’t playing, it was the big band sounds of Dick Haymes, Tommy Dorsey or Glenn Miller that he would sing to. I was the only 9-year-old who knew what Miller’s “Moonlight Serenade” and Louis Prima’s “Sing, Sing, Sing” sounded like!

With those experiences and comedy classic films by Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, The Marx Brothers and Laurel and Hardy I would watch on Saturday mornings, I truly had achieved an appreciation for the music of the 1920s, ’30s and ’40s.

My awareness for the music of the 1950s didn’t really happen for me until the 1970s, when movies including “American Graffiti,” and “Grease,” and television shows including, “Sha Na Na” and “Happy Days” first came out. But I just loved those “Do Wop” sounds! My folks were a bit past the British Invasion/Elvis generation, so I didn’t get into them until much later.

Many of the “older” kids in the neighborhood were really into the psychedelic music of the 1960s. I didn’t get into the Jimi Hendrix-Janis Joplin phase, really ever. It was a change from what I was brought up on. The screaming of Janis and the screeching of Jimi was a bit tough next to the easy listening of The Beach Boys and Chicago.

I have a beautiful younger sister who helped me become aware of another side of the musical spectrum, the “Teen Idol” side. She loved Donny and his brothers, “The Osmonds.” Tony DeFranco and the “DeFranco Family,” Leif Garrett, Shaun Cassidy and others were glued to the walls of her bedroom. All I had on my wall was a Farrah Fawcett poster!

As she grew up, Jim Morrison and “The Doors” became her passion. Our younger brother was more into “The Who,” so heavier rock started creeping into our typically Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin-laden household.

As these days almost everything happens outside of the home, I grew up in an era where we were all home together at night and on the weekends. The Ed Sullivan Show, Johnny Carson, Soul Train and American Bandstand provided a steady diet of the music trends of the day, and helped to foster my musical tastes to ultimately be shared with our beloved customers!

My older female cousins opened my eyes to the “gyrations” of Elvis, Tom Jones and Engelbert Humperdink. Watching them scream at the TV was more of a show than Tom’s animated “She’s A Lady” was itself!

Then came the ’70s, MY ’70s! Whether it was the “Saturday Night Fever” disco era, or the hard rock of UFO, RUSH and Black Sabbath, I was loving my music! I was a rare breed in that I truly loved all the music of the time. The “Magic” of Motown with The Temptations and Supremes, The R&B grooves of Rev. Al Green and Barry White, or the vocal ranges of Journey and Foreigner, I was always singing or humming a tune. I even enjoyed watching, “Hee Haw,” the classic country variety television show with Roy Clark and Buck Owens. Clark, although a consummate joker on the show, was a guitar virtuoso that mesmerized me.

But all in all, I have my upbringing to thank for the music appreciation that has allowed me to bring so many shows of different varieties to our stages over the years. There is not enough space on these pages to adequately thank my parents for the gifts they gave to me, but opening my eyes to the wonderful world of music is close to the top of the list. Tears still come to my eyes when I hear “As Time Goes By” from the classic film, “Casablanca.” I could still see my dad do his Humphrey Bogart imitation after hearing a record that he liked. He would do the “Bogie upper-lip-twitch” and say, “Play it again, Ron!”

Yes, those were the days, my friend. I thought they’d never end …

• Ron Onesti is president and CEO of The Onesti Entertainment Corp., the Arcada Theatre in St. Charles and the Des Plaines Theatre. Celebrity questions and comments? Email ron@oshows.com.