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Tony d'Amato
Albums
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Appearances
This artist appears on 10 albums, now showing 1 through 10.
#20491909
In 1978, Benny Goodman celebrated the 40th anniversary of his original pioneering Carnegie [more]
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#21716950
This two-fer from Dutton Vocalion features a pair of out of print LPs by easy listening vocalist [more]
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#21071263
Michael J. Dutton is the man behind the Dutton Vocalion reissue label, a ready source of [more]
#21518343
Ted Heath (1900-1969) was one of the U.K.'s best bandleaders during the 1940s and '50s. The culmination [more]
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#20438244
Originally released on Decca, these two Ronnie Aldrich albums zero in on easy listening versions of popular love songs [more]
Biography
Tony d'Amato reigned for close to two decades as Britain's premier light classical producer. In addition to the enormous commercial success he enjoyed with light music luminaries like Mantovani, Frank Chacksfield, and Stanley Black, he was also a technological innovator, pioneering the Phase 4 label's trademark ping-pong stereo approach. Born in New York City on January 21, 1931, d'Amato attended NYU before entering the Juilliard Conservatory of Music, where he studied composition and piano. While in school he was drafted to serve in the Marine Corps, and spent two years editing a military newspaper produced in Laguna Beach, CA. D'Amato also composed an opera inspired by the Herman Melville classic -Moby Dick before signing on with London Records in the fall of 1958. Assigned to label exec Marty Wargo, he did everything from photographing album covers to writing liner notes before earning the opportunity to begin producing his own sessions. Paired with arranger Ronny Roullier, d'Amato worked to transform stereo recording from novelty status to viable creative platform, employing multi-channel processing and other innovations to create what London dubbed "ffss -- full-frequency stereophonic sound." Issued under London's revolutionary Phase 4 imprint, d'Amato productions like Bob Sharples' Pass in Review not only wowed audiophiles but sold impressively, and in 1961 the producer was dispatched to Britain to join the staff of parent company Decca Records. Decca teamed d'Amato with Mantovani, the famed conductor virtually synonymous with easy listening. Their common Italian heritage quickly solidified their relationship, and together they created dozens of light orchestral LPs, many of them Top 40 hits. D'Amato further established himself as a preeminent force in light music via best-selling projects with Chacksfield, Black, Ronnie Aldrich, and Maurice Larcange, as well as classical composer Leopold Stokowski and film composer Bernard Herrmann. As rock and its myriad offspring gradually eradicated light music's chart eminence, d'Amato retired from the recording industry in 1978, and after a period in Winnipeg he and his family settled on Long Island, where he consulted the Mantovani Orchestra following the conductor's 1980 death. D'Amato was also a prominent contributor to the 2005 biography -Mantovani: A Lifetime in Music, published on the centenary of his longtime collaborator's birth. D'Amato died on Long Island on July 7, 2006. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Music Guide
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