Julius LA ROSA – Mainly Romantic

Julius LaRosa was born on 2nd January, 1930, in Brooklyn, New York City, of Italian parentage. As a youth he admired the rising star Frank Sinatra but did not imagine following in those footsteps, expecting instead to join his father's radio repair business. However, upon joining his High School's Glee Club for the purposes of avoiding some of the lessons he disliked, LaRosa's aptitude for singing became apparent.

Whilst doing his National Service in the Navy he became involved in various entertainment shows and this led to him being 'talent-spotted" to appear on Arthur Godfrey's prestigious radio "Talent Scouts Shows" in 1950. Upon discharge from the Navy, he became a regular guest the following year, then transferred to television. This was the early 1950s and TV was still in its infancy: "I guess I was the first nonentity to appear on television," LaRosa later recalled, and arguably he was one of the first test cases to prove that TV does not need celebrities, it creates them. He became the featured 'boy singer' on the Arthur Godfrey Show, and may have remained so if it were not for his very public sacking on 'live' TV by Godfrey on 19th October, 1953. Arthur Godfrey had a strict training regime for all his cast, and LaRosa had been skipping the obligatory ballet lessons because of other commitments - he had become a client of the GAC booking agency and had already started a successful recording career on the CADENCE label, run by Godfrey's Music Director Archie Bleyer.

See also JASCD 494

Track Listing

1. CHANGE PARTNERS
2. OUR LANGUAGE OF LOVE
3. WHEN THE WORLD WAS YOUNG
4. OUT OF THIS WORLD
5. YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT LOVE IS
6. LET ME SING AND I'M HAPPY
7. MY ROMANCE
8. CHEEK TO CHEEK
9. THERE'LL NEVER BE ANOTHER YOU
10. MY SHINING HOUR
11. NOW I KNOW
12. MOON RIVER
13 WHEN THE SUN COMES OUT
14. JUST SAY I LOVE HER
15. A FINE ROMANCE
16. AREN'T YOU GLAD YOU'RE YOU
17. WHERE OR WHEN
18. IF I HAD YOU
19. MY FAVOURITE THINGS
20. STELLA BY STARLIGHT
21. GONNA BUILD A MOUNTAIN
22. THIS IS ALL I ASK
23. BYE BYE BLUES