More with Kenny Dino Goldmine: Were you affected by payola? Kenny Dino: Oh sure...Like, I'd be on tour and I'd hit stations. I had DJs where I would walk into a station with a date. They would turn around to the distributor of the label and say, "That girl that Kenny's with, I want to take her to bed tonight." Meaning, I could get all the airplay I could want. I never liked it. I always rebelled against that. I was always the rebel. Goldmine: What were the tours like? Kenny Dino and The Upsets, 1965 Kenny Dino: Great! That was the best. You were in your medium, you know. These were your people...creative, exciting people. I worked with Curtis Lee , we were very close...Johnny Cymbal, also...Jay And The Americans, with Jay Traynor. You know, he did "She Cried"...and later, with David "Jay" Black. We did a lot of shows together. I was close with a lot of good DJs...WIBG, Buddy Dean in Baltimore--I did his TV show 97 times, I broke the record. It was incredible...Bruce Hathaway, San Antonio...Cousin Bruce Morrow...Joey Reynolds, out of Buffalo. He was a heavy influence on me. KBW, Buffalo. That station was very powerful...at night, it went into nine, ten states. We started riots together. One night, I'm in the studio with him. We're separated by the glass and I'm with the rep from Mercury, Doug Moody. Doug has his big Lincoln Continental parked outside the studio. So Joey, always the kidder, he was like an early Howard Stern but, of course, in those days you couldn't talk like Stern, but he loved to create waves...anyway, he gets this idea...it was the start of the Beatle invasion and Doug has a thick English accent...he says, "Doug, you be a rep from The Beatles and Kenny, you're a Beatle." He greets us on the air, you know. He thought about 20 people would show up at the station. 5000 people showed up that night. It was a total riot. You've got TV reporters. And Joey is loving it. They've got police out there for crowd control. So they darken the hallway so I can get away. Doug and I didn't want to go out there, we were afraid. So they pull up his Lincoln to the door and put two cars behind it, surrounded by Buffalo Police, and five more cars with their lights on--the whole shot...I was Paul, tall and thin. And as I'm getting to the front door, a little girl sees me and starts to yell out my name, "Kenny Dino! Kenny Dino!. She had seen me at a localhop earlier that week. Suddenly, radio station guys are hustling her away. I ran and made my escape. It was close. It was crazy. Goldmine: So you started "Beatlemania - Not The Beatles But A Reasonable Facsimile!" Kenny Dino: Go on. (laughs) But I did see The Beatles. I was in The Peppermint Lounge, the night they came in with Murray The K. I also met them in Boston. I met Derek Taylor and he brought me over to see them in their hotel. I got pushed into a room that was solid bodies. Somebody told John that I was there, he waved and said, "How'rya doin' mate?" and I remember a hand reaching out over the heads to shake my hand. And then I got the hell out of there. Goldmine: Tell me about the songs and the songwriters. Kenny Dino: Doc Pomus. It was always Doc. I was always impressed with his songs. I did demos for Elvis. I did "Good Luck Charm." Doc gave me "Suspicion", that was supposed to be my song. Goldmine: What happened? Kenny Dino: It was after "Your Ma Said You Cried In Your Sleep Last Night" which I didn't want to do. Goldmine: Why not? That was your big song and TOP 40 hit. Why did you record it? Kenny Dino: I never wanted to do that song. I hated it. I felt it should go to Lonnie Donegan as a follow-up to "Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavor On The Bedpost Overnight?" It wasn't for me. Steve Shlacks and Irv Glazer wrote it and they loved it. They got these young girls from Syosset High to do the backup part. They convinced me to do it and we cut it. We mixed it in Queens Village at Howie Farber's house. This skinny, nerdy kid who lived across the street kept dropping in and bothering us. Finally, we let him stay and watch from the corner. The kid was Al Kooper. When we gave the record to Dot, the head guy in New York listened to it and then threw it against the wall. He hated it. All the writers walked out of his office with their heads down, like it was the end of their jobs. I laughed. I didn't like it either. But Dot didn't know what to do with me, whether I should be Elvis or Roy Orbison . My manager, Al, went in to the office, they had a meeting and then he came out with the record. He told me that I was released from Dot. I went seven months without a label until I signed with Musicor. That whole period was terrible. Goldmine: I don't understand--you had a hit! Kenny Dino: Well, I really hated Aaron Schroeder. He was terrible. He put out "Your Ma Said..." because we sold it to him. My company produced it...Steve Shlacks and Howie Farber actually produced it but under my production company. I think we were one of the first artist-manager-writer teams to do our own production. That started from Dot Records on. I always produced myself."Your Ma Said..." was a hit and it ran up the charts at the same time "If You Gotta Make A Fool Of Somebody" made its run. Those two songs were always side by side on the charts. Click here to continue Click Here To return to the Index This interview originally appeared in Goldmine Magazine, May 15,1992. Volume 18, Number 10, Issue 308 © Richard Arfin 1987 Revised 2004 All Rights Reserved