From:   "Dik de Heer" 
Date:  Mon Jan 6, 2003  6:24 am
Subject:  Born To Be With You : Nino Tempo

NINO TEMPO (and April Stevens)

Born Antonio Lo Tempio, 6 January 1935, Niagara Falls, New York

Nino Tempo is best known for his duo with his sister, April Stevens
(born 29 April 1936 as Carol Lo Tempio), which produced a number of
hits in the '60s, notably "Deep Purple." He also had a long career as a
session musician, and in the '90s belatedly embarked on a career as a
jazz musician.
Already at age seven, Tempo spent a week singing with Benny Goodman's
orchestra in Buffalo, NY, an experience that inspired him to take up the
clarinet, though his main instrument turned out to be the tenor saxophone.
(He also plays guitar.) The family moved to California to further the artistic
interests of the children when Tempo was still young, and he became
a child film actor, first appearing unbilled in The Story of G.I. Joe (1945)
and George White's Scandals (1945), then with credit in The Red Pony
(1949). Meanwhile, his younger sister Carol Lo Tempio unexpectedly
became a recording success before he did. After recording unsuccessfully
for the tiny labels Laurel and Society, she was signed to the major label
RCA Victor, where a revival of the 1924 Cole Porter song "I'm in Love Again",
credited to Henri Rene & His Orchestra featuring April Stevens, peaked at
# 6 in July 1951. Stevens earned top billing on the follow-up, a revival of the
1926 song "Gimme a Little Kiss, Will Ya Huh?" that reached # 10 in August.
Stevens' third and last chart single of this period was a cover of the Patti
Page hit "And So to Sleep Again" in October 1951 (# 27). Already at this
young age (15), Stevens was known for her sensuous, intimate whispering
vocal style.
Tempo played in high school dance bands, then began to carve out a career
as a session musician, playing the saxophone as well as eventually arranging
and composing for artists like Rosemary Clooney, Steve Lawrence, and Eydie
Gorme. He continued to appear in movies, too, usually musicals, playing a
character based on Benny Goodman in The Glenn Miller Story (1954), and
taking small parts in The Girl Can't Help It (1956), Johnny Trouble (1957),
Bop Girl (1957), and Operation Petticoat (1959). By the late '50s, he was
starting to get record releases under his own name. Tempo's LP Rock & Roll
Beach Party appeared on Liberty Records in 1958, the same year the Tempo
single "15 Girl Friends" came out on RCA Victor. Neither reached the charts,
nor did a second RCA single, "Ding-A-Ling," in 1959, but that year, Tempo's
composition "Teach Me Tiger" charted for April Stevens on Imperial (# 86).
He made one more single for RCA, "Jack the Ripper," in connection with a
film of the same name in 1960, then moved to United Artists Records, which
released "What Is Love to a Teenager" without success. It was at this point
that he had the idea of forming a duo with his sister, but their first single
together, "Ooeah (That's What You Do to Me)," also released by United
Artists in 1960, was a flop.
Tempo went back to playing sessions, becoming a full-fledged member of
producer Phil Spector's studio band, known informally as "the Wrecking Crew,"
and he was at a session for Bobby Darin, when he met Atlantic president Ahmet
Ertegun and pitched him on recording his duo act with his sister. Ertegun signed

the two to Atlantic's Atco subsidiary and, under the billing April Stevens &
Nino
Tempo, released a revival of the 1931 song "Sweet and Lovely," which grazed the
charts in the summer of 1962 (# 77). Their next single, a revival of the 1932
song
"Paradise," failed, as did their third Atco single, "Together We'll Always Be"
(co-written by Stevens and the duo's mother, Anna Lo Tempio), after which
Tempo persuaded Ertegun to release their revival of the 1939 song "Deep
Purple," a recording Ertegun considered so bad it was embarrassing.
But record buyers disagreed. Issued in the summer of 1963 with the billing
switched to Nino Tempo & April Stevens, "Deep Purple" hit # 1 in November.
It also won the 1963 Grammy Award for Best Rock & Roll recording.
Having established a formula with "Deep Purple," Tempo and Stevens
followed it with a revival of the 1920 song "Whispering" (# 11). The arrival
of the Beatles and the rest of the British Invasion tended to marginalize
the duo's brand of pop music, but they continued in the same vein with
diminishing success. In 1966, Tempo and Stevens moved to White Whale
Records, a Los Angeles-based independent label, and altered their style
to suit changing musical trends and achieve something similar to Phil
Spector's "wall of sound" productions. The result was the single "All Strung
Out," written by Tempo and Jerry Riopelle, which went to # 26 in October
1966. A couple of follow-ups flopped, but Tempo and Stevens returned to
the charts in July 1967 with another Tempo/Riopelle composition, "I Can't
Go on Livin' Baby Without You," which oddly had been previously released
as the B-side of "All Strung Out." Over the next several years, the siblings
released singles on White Whale, MGM, Bell, and Atco without getting
onto the charts. By 1972, Tempo and Stevens were on A&M Records,
for which label they also recorded separately, and Tempo scored his first
solo hit with "Sister James," billed to Nino Tempo and 5th Ave. Sax, which
went to # 53 in October 1973. Stevens, now billed simply as April, reached
the pop charts with "Wake Up and Love Me" (which she co-wrote with Tempo
and Jeff Barry) in June 1974.
In 1981, Tempo retired from record-making for a decade until he produced
and played on Stevens' 1990 comeback album Carousel Dreams. Then he
played at a memorial service for Atlantic Records co-founder Nesuhi Ertegun
and as a result was re-signed to the label as a jazz instrumentalist. He made
three albums, Tenor Saxophone (1990), Nino (1992), and Live at Cicada (1995).
(Adapted from All Music Guide.)

Official website: http://www.ninoandapril.com/
CD: Nino Tempo and April Stevens, Deep Purple / Sing the Great Songs
(Collectables, 2001). 2 Atco LP's on 1 CD.
Or: Sweet and Lovely : The Best of Nino Tempo and April Stevens (Varèse
Sarabande, 1996).
As far as I know, none of Tempo's more rocking recordings from the fifties has
been reissued.