From:   "Dik de Heer" 
Date:  Thu Mar 14, 2002  1:15 am
Subject:  Born To Be With You : Vito Picone
 
VITO PICONE (Elegants) (By Shaun Mather)

Born 17 March 1940, Staten Island, New York City, New York

Vito Picone was the lead singer for the Elegants, one of the few white
doo-wop groups to have a number one record in the US pop charts, when
Little Star sold two million copies in the summer of 1958. The Elegants
started off as Pat Cordel & the Crescents in Staten Island, with female
vocalist Cordel taking the lead on their first single for Club Records in
November 1956. The group split and a couple of them formed a new
group, the Elegants, with Picone taking over the lead duties. They cut the
self-written Little Star and Getting Dizzy for Hull Records, and soon
watched as the single was leased to ABC Paramount who put it out on their
Apt subsidiary. The song quickly entered the charts and rose all the way to
the top spot whilst the band began a hectic touring schedule. The follow-up
Please Believe Me was a slower but equally excellent doo-wopper in the Dion
& the Belmonts vain, but inexplicably failed to register on the charts.
When the same fate befell True Love Affair, Apt lost interest and they
returned to Hull for Little Boy Blue. The band never really recovered from
the frustrations of finding a second hit and even sacked Picone whilst he
lay in hospital following a car-wreck. Picone and the Elegants have
continued to play the odd Oldies concert and Picone has been successful with
his own television music show, Let The Good Times Roll. As a white doo-wop
group they were one of the best, up there with the Belmonts, and that's not
something to be sniffed at.

Recommended listening:
Little Star: Best Of The Elegants - Collectables.