When it comes to Billy Joel and “American Idol,” Frankie Avalon turns his nose up. As opposed to 1959, when the teen idol recorded the hit song “Dede Dinah” with his nose completely closed.
“I love Billy Joel’s music, but let’s put it this way – I think this is a frustrated, ugly man,” Avalon said in response to Joel having publicly questioned the musical veracity of Avalon and his fellow ’50s pop icons such as Fabian and Bobby Rydell.
“He has made statements about how guys like myself and Fab and Rydell were manufactured and nothing but good looks,” said Avalon, 65, who returns to Denver for the first time in seven years as the Teen Angel in the national touring production of “Grease” opening Tuesday.
“I’ve been around two years shy of 50 years doing what I do. I am a musician. Rydell is a drummer, impressionist and comedian.
Dion is a songwriter and a stylist. So of course in my opinion, it’s not true.”
Avalon has heard it all before: Lily-white pretty boys. Untalented cardboard cutouts. However true that may have been about some of his peers, Avalon has been unfairly knitted into the red-sweater heartthrob heap.
He started his career as a 12-year- old trumpet player in a Philadelphia band called Rocco and the Saints, which included Rydell. Avalon first appeared on “American Bandstand” at age 13. Seven years later he recorded six top-40 hits in 1959 alone, including the No. 1 songs “Venus” and “Why.” He owned the pop charts for four years, then smartly transitioned into a career as a matinee idol opposite ex-Mouseketeer Annette Funicello. Their wildly popular “Beach Party” franchise (including 1965’s “How to Stuff a Wild Bikini”) made a fortune.
“Those were wonderful times,” Avalon said. “They weren’t great pictures, but they were fun, and they really represented that period of time well. It was about kids who were having problems with the adults, as they are today. But there still were values then.
“It was the innocence of Frankie trying to take Annette to bed, and she would say, ‘I won’t do that until I get a ring on my finger.’ It’s gone way beyond that now. Do you call that progress?”
Avalon certainly doesn’t regard the music by today’s former Mouseketeers as progress. He looks at the rise of Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake, and it dawns on him that if he were an 18-year-old coming up through the system today, he wouldn’t stand a chance.
“I think today’s music absolutely stinks. I really do mean that,” said Avalon. “I wish I could say nice things about it, but I just can’t. I guess if you want violence and you want language and you want ‘messages,’ well, that’s what today’s music is. It’s just awful.
“These kids today, everything is about hitting a vocal home run,” he said. “They look for the top note to end every song. They don’t know what they are singing about. There is no style. If you watch ‘American Idol,’ and you close your eyes, you don’t know who’s singing because they all sound exactly alike.”
One thing that looks and sounds exactly the same – happily, Avalon said – is “Grease” and the Teen Angel character he personified in the 1978 film.
Avalon can see the next question coming from miles down the beach. He was 38 when he first dropped out of the celluloid sky to sing “Beauty School Dropout.” The “Teen” Angel is now 65 and a father of eight.
“Yes, but I don’t think of the Teen Angel as of an age,” he said. “What you must realize is that the kids are always teenagers – but he’s an angel, so he’s ageless.”
Avalon first joined the national tour two years ago but performs in only 12-15 designated markets per year. Because his appearance is basically a cameo, each performance ends with an extended encore with Avalon singing his biggest hits.
“The reaction has been incredible,” he said. “Every place we play, it’s to sold-out crowds. People have a great time. It’s amazing to me how this show has captured kids who are 8, 20, 40, 60 years old.”
He attributes its staying power to the fact that “the music is acceptable to everybody.” On this tour, that music includes three songs that many “Grease” fans know only from seeing the $387 million-grossing film: “Hopelessly Devoted to You,” “You’re the One That I Want” and the title song.
Many don’t realize those songs were not part of the original 1972 stage musical and have never before been included in live performances.
“I like that because the fans want to see onstage what they know so well from the big screen,” Avalon said. “If people didn’t know those songs were never in the musical, it might be a big disappointment to them. So it’s a good thing.”
The tour, which features Littleton’s 19-year-old Jesse Johnson as Doody, ends next month but may return after a year-long hiatus. In the meantime, Avalon would love nothing better than to reconnect with his old friend Funicello. But the news is not good concerning her valiant and once public 18-year fight with multiple sclerosis.
“I wish I could talk to Annette, but she doesn’t even correspond at this point,” Avalon said. “She’s very ill, and she is in a state now where she is really not responsive.”
Theater critic John Moore can be reached at 303-820-1056 or jmoore@denverpost.com.
