Frankie Laine, the singer with the booming voice who hit it big with such songs as “That Lucky Old Sun,” “Mule Train,” “Cool Water,” “I Believe,” “Granada” and “Moonlight Gambler,” died Tuesday at Mercy Hospital in San Diego. He was 93.
Laine entered the hospital over the weekend for hip replacement surgery but suffered complications from the operation, said his friend A.C. Lyles, longtime producer at Paramount Pictures.
In all, Laine sold well over 100 million records and was hugely popular not only in the U.S. but also in Britain and Australia.
Even after his popularity crested after the rise of rock ‘n’ roll, Laine was heard for many years singing the theme to the TV series “Rawhide,” which featured a young Clint Eastwood and ran until 1966.
Laine started out in jazz but was sidetracked by arranger Mitch Miller, who fashioned Laine into the popular artist he is best remembered for being.
Miller produced most of Laine’s hits in the 1940s and 1950s, including “Mule Train” and “That Lucky Old Sun.” He said he loved Laine’s voice because it sounded like “the blue- collar man, the guy who didn’t know where his next paycheck was coming from.”
Francesco Paolo LoVecchio was born March 30, 1913, the eldest of eight children of Sicilian immigrants who settled in the Little Italy neighborhood of Chicago. His father was a barber whose customers included Al Capone; his maternal grandfather was the victim of a mob hit. Laine said he came from a “big and poor but happy” family.
As a kid, Laine sang in the all- boy choir at church, but he first became excited about music when he listened to one of his mother’s records on a wind-up Victrola: Bessie Smith singing “Bleeding Hearted Blues,” with “Midnight Blues” on the flip side.
“The first time I laid the needle down on that record, I felt cold chills and an indescribable excitement,” Laine said later.
The record was his first exposure to jazz and the blues, which would draw him into music.
At 18, with the Depression underway and his father out of work, Laine hit the road as a dance marathoner. He and his partner, Ruthie Smith, made it into the Guinness Book of World Records for dancing 145 days straight.
Laine would not hit it big until his mid-30s. In between, he would live the tough life of an undiscovered musician in the Depression.
Then he got a break – a $5-a- week job singing on a live half- hour radio show and later a chance to record with Mercury Records. “That’s My Desire” was his first hit, at the age of 34.
After rock ‘n’ roll hit big, Laine was considered old hat. He remained popular in Europe and Australia, and he caught a second wind recording the theme songs for “Rawhide,” the movie “Blazing Saddles” and commercials, including one for Manhandlers soups (“How do ya handle a hungry man? Manhandlers!”).
