Eyetalian Magazine, Winter 1997/1998
He was financially broken and suicidal after a sorid battle with his record company wiped out his gains of his early success in the seventies. Andrew Clark uncovers how singer Gino Vannelli reinvented himself, rediscovered his voice and why is ready to record again.
A snapshot: Gino Vannelli, 1974. His shirt a brilliant blue, as if he had been cut from a clear indigo Italian sky. It is open almost down to his navel. His jeans swell at the heel and grasp tightly around his hips. His hair cascades in a full mane of black locks. He leans forward on his left leg and stretches his right hand, which clasps a microphone, towards the heavens. Pelvis rocking like a metronome.
His visage is that of a fallen angel. Innocence toppled by desire. He is 21 and he is everything that the rest of the world’s 21 year olds want to be. Free. Confident. Romantic. Utterly and unabashedly consumed by his own ego. Gino is making his TV debut on America’s hippest show, Soul Train. The audience grooves to his moves and melodies. His song, “People Gotta Move” is a Top 20 hit and particularly popular with what A&R; executives call “the black market”.
The tune took him all of ten minutes to write. His girlfriend, in a flurry of rage, had chastised him for thinking an Italian kid from Montreal would make it in the music business. “You think it’s that easy”, she said. You think you’ll just go to Los Angeles and make records? “Yes. It was that easy. “I’ll bet you I can write a hit song right now.” He had, right there, and now he and his brothers Joe and Ross were playing it live for an American TV audience.
His dress and his attitude are Summer of Love. His voice is a throwback. A Raphaelite swoon steeped in a Byronesque obsession with the strange order of life. It is a cool seductive mix of choir boy exuberance and urban sixties agit prop.
Twenty years later only the voice would remain unchanged. In 1997, the mention of his name in media circles invokes comments like “Didn’t he change his name to Baron Longfellow” and “Didn’t he see the Devil?” The glowing Italian son has set into murky, curious myth.
Gino Vannelli was the first Italian Canadian to be what he was-a Gino. His music stood on its own merits: solid, at times inspired pop songs that were beautifully arranged and sung. Vannelli’s image gave Italians a chance to revel in their uniqueness. To not only like their night-black hair and olive skin but to accentuate them. To the Anglo mainstream he offered a chance to vicariously experience characteristics which its British heritage did not allow, like emotions. Vannelli, with his boiling passions, sincerity and brazen sexuality, was a release valve. In fact the popularity of Italian culture in the seventies hung mainly on its ability to placate an Anglo desire to unleash repressed demons.. AS ONE FAN HAS WRITTEN ON GINOV.COM, “HE SAID WHAT I DARED NOT SAY OR THINK”. Italy has always played this role. Shakespeare had used it as a setting for his most bloodiest and most treacherous tradgedies. Here was a Gino the mainstream would enjoy. He was a Romeo for all women to covet and Italian boys to emulate.
“A lot of my male friends really identified with Gino Vannelli,” says Gianna Patriarca, a poet who grew up during the seventies in Toronto’s Little Italy on College Street. “He was not only physically gorgeous, he was making a statement with his music. I remember my friend arguing that Gino Vannelli would be the most enduring musician of his generation.”
Vannelli was born in Montreal in 1952. His grandfather who landed in Canada at the turn of the century had started the “Roxy” chain of hair salons in the 1930. Gino’s father Russ Vannelli, was musically gifted. He was a noted singer for Montreal’s best big bands during the forties. A career in music, however, was out of the question. Gino’s grandfather expected all three of his sons to enter the hair salon business. sacrifices were made in order to ensure the prosperity of the family.
Gino’s talent was evident at a young age. By nine, he had procured his own set of bongos. He had been in a drug store with his father and snatched a pair of eight dollar drums from the shelf and immediately proceeded to bang on them, demonstrating considerable prowess. “If you don’t buy that kid those drums”, the pharmacist told Vannelli’s father, “I will”.
Young Gino sang in the church choir throughout elementary school and he was in love with the Catholic church. Vannelli would often attend two services on Sundays just to hear the organs and hymns. His home life was traditional: a close family unit with the accompanying claustrophobia. “It was both a heaven and a hell”, 47 year old Vannelli says from his home in Portland, Oregon where he is finishing a new CD which is due out in the Spring of 98. “There was lots to depend on and look forward to, at the same time everyone had their own aspirations to be different and assert themselves.”
Vannelli began playing in clubs at the age of 11. His greatest passion was the drums but, by age 15, he was beginning to discover the voice that would eventually make him a millionaire. He was also writing songs. It was around this time that Vannelli broke with the church. “A lot of of the Catholic church was based upon a threat. That’s a good way to make a child do something but its not a good way to lead a child into adulthood.”
He and his brothers Ross and Joe formed a band called the Jacksonville five. The Vannelli brothers managed a record deal with RCA. At age 16, Gino recorded under the name Van Elli. He thought Vannelli was too ethnic. The single became a top it in Canada. After a stint in New York City, Gino decided it was time to try the West Coast.
The Vannelli brothers hit Los Angeles in 1972. One of Gino’s friends sent the group’s demo tapes around the major studios but they pulled little interest. Money ran out quickly. His parents had wired money but that had sent it to the wrong Hollywood (Hollywood, Florida). The boy wonder singer was faced with the prospect of returning to Montreal without a deal.
On the morning they were set to fly out, Gino rose early and took off down Sunset( back then people still walked in L.A.). He found a church and slipped in for a few moments’ quiet. He had a vision, he says, of “waiting by the gates.” Vannelli went back to the hotel and told his brother Joe, “I can’t tell you where I’m going but if you want to follow, you’ll follow.”
Gino went to the office of A&M; records at 10:00 a.m., his goal, to way-lay record big shot Herb Alpert. Finally, at about 2 p.m. Alpert appeared. Vannelli recalls, “I said, Joe, hold my guitar’, and ran right through the gates. The guards were chasing me. Herb freaked out. He was shaky. In the last year or two he had received kidnap threats. I told him, ‘I want to play for you.’ After he realized I wasn’t a terrorist, he listened. He told me to come back in half an hour .”
Vannelli left that afternoon with an A&M; record deal.. Vannelli’s ascent began. During the remainder of the seventies his music rose up the charts. His first album, Crazy Life, did not do well. Vannelli went on the road opening for Stevie Wonder. His albums Powerful People, Storm at Sunup, Gist of the Gemini, and Pauper in Paradise sold about 500,000 each. Vannelli toured constantly, building his audiences from nightclub crowds of 300 to arena mobs. The singer was on the road so much that he had no permanent home. His convoy included 41 staff and 4 semi trailers to haul the 17 synthesizers and instruments from town to town.
Vannelli became famous for his lush, highly synthesized orchestral melodies that were mixed with funk percussions. He was also known for his poster boy looks and was picked as Hunk of the Month by Sixteen magazine. He remained an oddity. An Italian in the rock and roll business.
“Many times I felt the predjudice. There was this image that Italians aren’t important in contemporary music. Truly, there hasn’t been that many Italians who have pierced the Anglo-fied culture. Italians don’t feel the same way, they’re really more romantically inclined.”
By 1977, Vannelli was feeling the pressure both from his record label and from his family to make a commercial record. These forces ran contrary to Vannelli’s instinct. He had been more intrigued by writing more orchestral works and had recorded The Pauper in Paradise album with the London Philharmonic. He relented and the result was the 1978 Brother to Brother album which featured the song I Just Wanna Stop, a tune written by Ross Vannelli, on which Gino polished the lyrics.
The Brother to Brother album sold approximately two million copies. Vannelli was nominated for a Grammy award for best singer. Industry giant Arista records offered him a lucrative deal and he signed. Vannelli says they courted him sweetly. They said everything that a self-absorbed artist wants to hear. He released the Nightwalker album in 1981, after marrying in 1980, Vannelli stopped touring and wouldn’t tour again until 1991. Like it’s predecessor, The Nightwalker had a hit, the lonesome ballad, “Living Inside Myself”. It too won a Grammy nomination. Vannelli continued to rise. He went into the studio and recorded an album. Arista records heard it and loathed it. Almost immediately relations went sour. All his years of work blew away like dust. Vannelli found himself at war with his own label.
The quarrel was simple: Vannelli was accustomed to a large measure of license. Arista was accustomed to a large measure of control. Arista records wanted Gino to sing the songs Arista Records dictated. Vannelli learned that his contract, which he thought protected him, left him a puppet. It appeared that he could release no work, not a note, without Arista’s approval. A four year struggle ensued. The fighting became so petty that the song Living Inside Myself was banned from the Arista Christmas party. For a period Vannelli became partially dependant on anti-depressants.
“I was willing to bend a bit but it was what they wanted me to record. They wanted me to record “Even the Nights Are Better” I think one of the worst songs ever written. I said, ‘You don’t understand, I can’t sing a song like that.’ Then, after Air Supply recorded the song, and it was number one, I received a call and the voice said: ‘See I told you so’. I said, ‘What are you telling me? The fact that it’s number one bears no significance on my life. They were confounded.
“My career was going to die. I couldn’t do anything. Everybody thought my career had peaked at age 27. I couldn’t get any other record company to buy out my deal.
Eventually he gave Arista what they wanted- everything he had. Vannelli bought out his contract. Against the wishes of some family members he purchased his freedom. The move cost him all the money he had amassed during his career. He also signed away earnings from future records.
Vannelli bottomed out. He immediately started work on a new album. Vannelli recorded the Black Cars album in his brother Joe’s home studio and signed with Dreyfuss Records, using the money to pay off his Arista debts. Vannelli also hired a new manager. “He commanded me to cut my hair. He groomed me. I hated it. Then I realized he was right. It was all part of smashing my image.”
Thus faded the picture of the romantic seventies singer. The original Gino was gone. He was replaced by the eighties. Slick suits. Hip swivels. Music videos. The good looks still intact, Black Cars which was released in 1985, proved to be Vannelli’s most commercially successful, winning sales in Europe and Canada. The Montreal heartthrob had bounced back, at least materially. Spiritually, he was in a state of permanent dusk. Vannelli teetered between day and night, between life and death.
“Everything I had built myself up to be was really truly an illusion that I’d built up in my head,” he admits. “I had too many unanswered questions. I couldn’t write anymore. I had nothing to say anymore. I couldn’t feel anything at the piano. I couldn’t feel my voice. I couldn’t hear my voice. I couldn’t stand my voice. I couldn’t stand the idea of show business. I was a breadth away from saying goodbye to the world.”
Over the next five years Vannelli embarked on an odyssey. He became keenly interested in the occult and in various forms of religion, everything from Buddhism to the Cabbala. Vannelli flew to Japan and spent time in a Buddhist monastery. He went to Peru and spoke with shamans. In Europe, he visited with monks. One monk suggested that before he search for a crashing experience with God, that he should “get an accountant.”
Vannelli dedicated himself to becoming a voracious reader and consumed, by his estimation, between 500 and 1000 books on philosophy and religion. He practiced martial arts and meditation. Eventually, these pursuits led to a series of what he describes as “mind shattering, ego shattering, revelatory experiences.”
Journalist Peter Howell, who in 1991 was the Toronto Star’s pop critic, recalls interviewing Vannelli after one such experience: “He practically started talking in tongues. He went into this weird spiritual trip. He said he had lost all his ego and turned himself into a spiritual force…I thought he was close to being unhinged. I felt like I was this guy’s shrink. He was saying things that were really intense. It wasn’t an agenda. He was letting it pour out.”
Howell’s attitude was indicative of the overall attitude the media took towards Vannelli’s spiritual turn. On a certain level it was to be expected. Artists, be they musicians, poets, or actors, who adopt a spiritual tone are regularly castigated. There may be, however, a little more at work in the case of Gino Vannelli. The critics and public had accepted his first incarnation-the love tossed balladeer. Likewise, they had embraced his eighties Armani posturing. His follow-up to Black Cars, Big Dreamers Never Sleep had also been a success. Theses were Gino. A pondering spiritual crusader, such as the one who appeared on the 1991 Inconsolable man CD, was one step too far. His 1995 album, Yonder Tree, was a commercial bust.
“I think the critics were totally unfair.” says Vancouver-based CKLG disc jockey Stu Jeffries, formerly the host of CBC television’s Good Rockin’ Tonight. “They were not willing to let go of the Gino Vannelli everybody knew. He has a lot more to offer and has accomplished far more, even in the seventies, than bands are trying to accomplish in the nineties.”
This creative roadblock is significant when you consider that no other entertainer has exemplified the Italian experience in Canada as fully as Gino Vannelli. He came of age in the early seventies, just as the second and third generations of Italy’s immigrant children were clumsily making their way between two worlds, the old and the new. Prior to Vannelli, there had been Italian celebrities, all of them American. They offered old school images. They were either boxers like Rocky Marciano or singers like Fabian, who tried to wash their Italian genes from their music and looks. Only Frank Sinatra did not hide his Italian roots. These boy-toy singers made out like Italian WASPs. Like many Italian Canadians, Vannelli considers his heritage an act of chance, a part of his overall being, but not its defining characteristic. He considers himself an individual and an artist first. When Vannelli expressed these beliefs, and his spiritual ponderings, in the Yonder Tree album, he came under fire. When he ceased to fit the Gino image he was whacked.
Whether or not he is capable of translating his spiritual awakenings into music is immaterial. Regardless of the quality of Vannelli’s philosophical musings it is important to note that he was chastised for making the attempt. He was criticized first and foremost because he had the temerity to try, and to try it, not in a fringe art such as literature, but in a mainstream medium. It was as if he had strayed out of bounds. Romance and passion worked. They were Italian domains. Philosophical musings? No, no.
Italian Canadians who care about their place in society should take note….(the next few paragraphs of this article go on to admonish Italians to break into areas that do not fit the Italian stereotype)
……As for Gino Vannelli, he has reached a happy medium. His new CD, with the working title Faith, Hope, and a Dash of Despair is more commercial than his last but has the artistic weight he requires. Will it click with listeners? If Vannelli has proven anything, it’s that he has a talent for weathering storms, both external and of his own making.
There’s a good chance he will find popular success once again. More importantly, he says, he has found the sunny peace he searched continents to unearth. In many ways it is ironically reminiscent of the morals he heard preached from the pulpit.
“I have a son to raise and a wife to love,” he says. “My sweetest revenge is that I’m going on and making my music and that I have found a good life.
“I am willing to live by the code of polaric rules that are part of human existence. Instead of trying to be like Jesus Christ and control the waves, I’ll ride the waves.”
