Hardcore Italians Podcast
Hardcore Italians Podcast
Sal “The Voice” on Hitting on Heidi Klum, AGT & Why Italian Traditions Matter
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In this episode of the Hardcore Italians Podcast, Mike sits down with Sal “The Voice” for one of our most fun and heartfelt conversations yet.
Sal shares the unbelievable story of how he went from delivering pizzas in Queens to becoming an America’s Got Talent finalist, including the moment he flirted with Jennifer Lopez on American Idol, hit on Heidi Klum on live TV, and turned those viral moments into a 10-year career.
We also get deep into Italian-American culture—why traditions matter, the difference between “sauce” and “gravy,” why Toronto and Chicago Italians keep the culture alive, and Sal’s ranking of the best Little Italys' in America.
Plus, Sal opens up about family, growing up with Sinatra, how his late uncle changed his life, and why Italian-Americans sometimes feel “too Italian” for America and “too American” for Italy.
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Hi everybody, this is Mike from Hardcore Italians. Welcome back to another episode of the Hardcore Italians podcast. I'm here with a special guest today, Sal the Voice. Sal, how's it going, man? Always a pleasure to have you in town.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, man. I feel like I'm home when I'm in Chicago because of you guys.
SPEAKER_02Really? I really do. We had a fun time, dude. I did have a fun time at um St. Joseph's Day. That was like the perfect time. You came in right for St. Joseph's Day, at the Zeppelin. It was a good time.
SPEAKER_00It's important for me. You know, my my godfather's Joe. My father-in-law was Joe. So it's important that on St. Joseph's Day, I continue the tradition. And you took me to this great spot, Sicilian Bakery, right on uh Harlem Avenue. Yeah. And uh we had tremendous Zeppelin. Nice cup of coffee. Yeah, they took care of us over there. Yeah, 100%. That's the way to do it. That's the way to be. Yeah. There's traditions, they're they're dying out, people don't follow them. And I, you know, it may might seem like silly superstition to some, but I feel like it's important.
SPEAKER_02No, for me too. My grandfather, the whole reason we started the page is, you know, because of him. He was born on St. Joseph's Day. His name's Giuseppe. You know what I mean? So it's like it always gets me in the reminder, like why we started the page and kind of the authentic, like Italian you know what I mean, like immigration story and everything he came through. Like I think about it every year, you know, so yeah what year did your grandfather come? I think the fifties.
SPEAKER_00My grandmother came nineteen sixty-one.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. It's a little thirty because my grandfather originally went to Canada. Oh yeah. And then yeah, my grandmother was living in America and like her mom got sick, so he like immigrated to America. So I c I kind of forget the exact year because I know he was in Canada a couple years. You know what I mean? So it's kind of crazy.
SPEAKER_00All the different Up in up in Toronto with the rest of the Calibrae's up there? Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02That's why we were talking about that. Like I know everything about it, dude. All the catinas with all the soprasata and everything. Like they do it right up there. I feel like they're definitely more Italian than us, kinda.
SPEAKER_00They take pro well, a lot of them, a lot of them are are, you know, uh first generation. Yeah. You know, a lot of them were born in Italy. Exactly. They came here as young kids. You know, a lot more emigration from Italy to Canada, you know, in the eighties, seventies and eighties, a little, you know, a decade or two later than my grandmother came.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00They are really, really, really into their traditions though. Yeah. You know, you talk you talk about the suprasada, right? They they every every winter they are putting together, you know, hundreds of pounds of suprasada and hanging them up. And they are incredibly proud of them. Yeah. I I was gonna go to a market to to buy uh suprasad to bring back to the States because I like the way they make their suprasad up there. They flatten them down, you know, they do it right. And I I always get like a like a vacuum sealed bag of like six or seven of them and bring them and smuggle them back into the country. Right? So I told this this guy on this uh this hall of the Venetian uh in Concord and Vaughn, and I told him I'm gonna go stop by the market. He goes, No, don't do that. Don't do that. You're gonna have mine. Right? Yeah he brought like a dozen of them to the venue, and I was like, I can only take a few of these with me, you know.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And he goes, fine, we're gonna sample. Right? So the whole you know, it was uh I think it was uh 180, 200 people, something like that. Um everyone had just eaten, you know, full five course meal and all this, and they were up dancing, and all of a sudden, these plates of of uh hot calibre superside start getting passed around. That's the boss and people are just popping them like chips.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And I I love that. I love that uh I love that also the the culture of giving. Yeah, you know how important that is. It's I w I need you to have mine. Yeah. I'm not just proud of this. I just you gotta have this. Yeah. I I think it continues here in Chicago, though.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it does, but they definitely I think you nailed it with the traditions, they keep up with so much like whenever I go, because we have cousins there, whenever I go, I just feel real connected to the culture because they like you said, they got they do the sopra sada, they have a garden, they have kakuza in the garden, they have sauce, they do the wine, like they have every like they do every tradition. I feel like out here, like each family maybe does one tradition, you know what I mean? But out there I feel like every family does all of them almost, you know.
SPEAKER_00I I I think about that frequently, how like my grandmother would almost never buy vegetables. Yeah, she would make what's growing in her backyard. Yeah. You know, for at least for the summer, for the months that we can. And it's that's such a beautiful way to live. It's a beautiful way to be. Yeah, you know, and we've we've just we've made ourselves so busy with other, you know, but for lack of a better term, bullshit. You know, we we don't have room for for for that anymore. We gotta make room for that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I know. Nothing's like batter two, man. The meals with the homegrown like tomatoes and things like that, like it's the best, dude. It's it's good memories for sure, you know.
SPEAKER_00The Italians out in uh Macomb County in Michigan, uh suburb of Detroit, they're also very traditional. Now, granted, they've they're also a lot closer to uh Ontario than the both of us are, and uh they're they're really they're really uh uh traditional. And then you have out in San Diego, you have all these extremely recent Italian immigrants. Yeah. Miami, you do have you have it as well, but in San Diego on Indio Street, their little Italy. I mean, first of all, it's like four miles long. You know, it's a real, it's it's the biggest Little Italy I think I've ever been in.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you're telling me about this a little bit. That's crazy.
SPEAKER_00Like I wouldn't expect I never gone, obviously, but all Sicilian immigrants, all Siji, right? And they make they make all the the traditional like Sicilian street food, the Arancina, like the cone shape, yeah, Arancina, right? The the the the anus, the the little donuts, right? The cartou, the with the cannoli cream in the middle, right? Love it. They have all the restaurants, they have a lot of the businesses, you know, and you s you start seeing those uh those more traditional Italian American businesses coming back with the new generation over there. Boston, Boston's a great little Italy. Yeah, Boston is is my favorite little Italy in the country.
SPEAKER_01That's awesome.
SPEAKER_00I know I might catch a lot of heat for this because New York has a little Italy, but you know, if if uh if San Diego is the biggest little Italy, New York has got to be the littlest little Italy. And it's shrinking every year.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00You know, but uh Boston is my favorite.
SPEAKER_02Um Yeah, I was curious what your favorite because I feel like you've been all around like America doing shows and stuff. Like you've been to a lot of the little Italys. Like, what are your top five little Italy's, would you say?
SPEAKER_00Top five. Number one is Boston.
SPEAKER_02Wow.
SPEAKER_00Uh number two is San Diego, number three is the Bronx. Uh, you know, uh Pelham and um Country Club and all that. Uh you know, they have a Federagosto feast up in up in the Bronx every year, and they really, really do it exceptionally well. Uh I I don't know if it's considered a little Italy, but it is an Italian neighborhood. Uh Williamsburg in Brooklyn. Okay. Uh that's where my uh my grandparents first lived, uh, first landed when they come to this country, and it's all people from Naples and even more specifically, there's a bakery there called Fortunato Brothers. Okay. And uh they're from the town that my grandmother's from. Like they they were paisans for like four or five generations. Going back to that neighborhood with all the business, you know, Emily's Plork store, uh, you have uh uh Anthony and Son's Panini shop, you have uh you know new ones like uh Casa Cujin popping up and you know bringing bringing back some uh the some of the younger interest in that neighborhood. You know, not saying that there's not younger interest in Williamsburg, there's a whole hipstery side of Williamsburg, too. Yeah. But on Graham Avenue, you know, um, you know, or or down uh down at the corner of Manhattan and Devaux where uh where Fortunato Brothers is, like it's that's a great little Italy. Uh so that's that would be number four, number five, number five. Oh man. See, I love the strip district in Pittsburgh.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
unknownRight?
SPEAKER_02You're telling me about Pittsburgh, how it's like real hardcore out there, too.
SPEAKER_00Real hardcore. Again, colorbreze, Sicilian, real hardcore. Uh the Censeris, they own a big uh Italian market called Pennsylvania Maccaroni Company. It started out as one store, and then they started buying up the stores next door. So you're in the fur, the first one you walk in, that's where they keep like all their dried nuts, dry fruit, all their spices. And you could buy seasoning by the by the you know, gallon, or they sell them in the little, like, you know, like the little look, I'm holding a potato. We'll get we'll get to that later. They sell them, they sell them in the in the little uh like the dressing cups that you would get from like takeout for a dollar, just in case that's all you need.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, a gallon or like a cup, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Then then you walk through, I mean, what could only be described as a hole in the wall, and you you're in the Salomaria, right? And there's incredible imported cheeses and all all the the deli and the meats and everything, all the imported prosciutto and cabo gol, and the and my favorite, which is brezzala. Have you ever had brezala? No, right? It's uh it's like beef cabo gol, right? Okay, yeah, really, really good. Uh and then you walk, you go to the other side, right? You walk through another hole in the wall, and you're in all the imported pastas, right? Then they have in these giant, like hundred gallon, maybe more than a hundred gallon. Probably let me think about this. My uh my oil tank in my house is two hundred gallons, and it's got to be at least like four, yes, probably a thousand gallons. They have these big thousand gallon stainless steel tanks filled with olive oil.
SPEAKER_02Oh my god.
SPEAKER_00And you bring your bottle from home and you fill it up, and you pay like a flat fee to fill up a bottle, right? And then you walk to another hole in the wall, and there's a grosser, there's you know, it's and it's all the same thing. And that's just that one, that's just that one business.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_00You know, uh, they have the have all their their traditional, their Italian-American interpretations on food, you know, the the pepperoni roll and everything is a Pittsburgh classic, uh, all that. And um the people out there are fantastic. You know, uh, even even just outside of the strip district, there's a lot of really, really great restaurants. So, yeah, that's number five, Pittsburgh.
SPEAKER_02Cool. I love it. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. You were saying like some underrated ones, I feel like when we were talking the other day, so I wanted you to go over those. I appreciate it, man.
SPEAKER_00Those are I still haven't been to the the hill in St. Louis. Yeah, neither have I, but uh, I mean, Federal Hill gets an honorable mention in in Rhode Island. That's a great little neighborhood. Shout out to Judge Caprio, right? They have a great little Italian club over there. I mean, you know, even like small towns in the middle of seemingly nowhere, like Enfield, Connecticut, right over the border from Springfield, Massachusetts, over the southern Massachusetts border, is a great Italian neighborhood. Yeah, you know, uh Syracuse. Uh shout out to the Uncle Louis Variety Show. They took me, uh Lou and Carlo took me to their uh their Cafe Express, right? And all the businesses around there, you know, and and unfortunately in New York it's just going away. Even even like where my father grew up, South Brooklyn, yeah, you know, where uh Villa Bate is a famous Sicilian bakery and uh you know a lot of a lot of great restaurants, a lot of that's going away. It's changing over. I mean, such is I'm sure the neighborhoods that we live in, you know, I'm sure Cicero was uh was Irish and Polish or something before.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and then yeah, no, I get you. That's why the fests are so important because yeah, I was gonna say about Chicago, like, you know, it's not Italian anymore and Taylor Street or whatever, but like that's what's so nice about it is every year for the fest, like every Italian comes back and sets up, and you know what I mean? It's like you you feel like how it used to be down there, you know. So it's it's important to support the local Italian fest for sure.
SPEAKER_00You know, a lot of people, uh a lot of people fill the comment sections of pages like yours.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And they'll be like, uh, bro, you're American, like just just be American. We are, we're proud Americans, right?
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00But uh I think it's important to know where you've come from.
SPEAKER_02Oh, a hundred percent.
SPEAKER_00Because it'll it'll give you a good roadmap on where you're going.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, a hundred percent. I think it's important for everybody to like look at their roots and their history and why they are the way they are. It's important, and I agree. I feel like we're kind of the Italians in Italy think we're not, you know, Italian, and then whatever the American, you know what I mean? It's like, but there's a distinct infrastructure for Italian.
SPEAKER_00They don't want to, they don't want to make babies and and and uh uh you know uh uh prolong the uh the bloodline anymore. We're doing it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, we're doing it. Yeah, we are, but we do feel like misfits in a way a little bit because it's like we don't feel like Italian in Italy, but we don't feel like American, like Americans, you know. There's like a specific difference.
SPEAKER_00100% true. I was just listening to uh was uh I don't I don't know if it was a comedian or an announcer, a very famous guy, and I don't know why the name escapes me right now. It wasn't Pat Cooper. Uh oh my goodness. But he was he was talking about how, you know, like yes, we were Americans, right? We were born here, you know, but we weren't Medigon. Yeah. Like we weren't like we were we were Italians because we we did so many things differently. Yeah. So many things, you know, in a in a much more traditional sense. And I also think that there might be a disconnect with the Italians because their culture has shifted and changed over the last several generations. Our culture has remained in the place it was when our grandparents got here.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00It's the way to put it like they stopped the clock on how they were living in Italy 80 years ago.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And now that's how we live in 2026. These are the traditions we carry in 2026. You know, a lot of people make fun of the the the uh New York, New Jersey, uh, Pennsylvania, uh kind of uh uh vernacular, yeah. Our our bastardization of the Italian language. And what it is, it's Naveladan dialect from 80 years ago being shortened and interpreted.
SPEAKER_02Exactly.
SPEAKER_00Like gabagul.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Let's talk about gabagul for just a moment. Let's touch on it. Just so just so you'll understand. Now, I try my best to say gabogol.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Right? Yeah, because I understand that it's not the 1960s anymore. However, I'm around my friends, I'm saying gabogol. Yeah. Gabogol comes from, you know, in uh old old Nabaludan dialect, right? They take the vowel at the end and put it in the front. Yep. It's like pizza becomes abit. Yeah, right? And oh gabogol, right? You take the O at the end of Capo Gola, you put it in the front, oh, Gabogola. Yeah, right. And then over time the C's, because the because the accent is very like kind of uh uh it's uh it's a little more musical, it's a little more laid back, you know. The consonants aren't as hard in Nabaledan, the C's become G's, yep, right? That's how we have Gala Mad.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you know? I know they're all fun to say, too, for sure. I'll give it that. But I like your point because I feel like not a lot of people think about even the saucer gravy thing. I feel like all these things were invented by Italians, like just becoming Americanized. It's not like another it's like I don't know anybody who calls a gravy who's not Italian, Italian American. You know what I mean? Like it's not like some other culture invented the word gravy and we like use it, like it was invented by Italians, so all that stuff.
SPEAKER_00It was a it was I know exactly where it comes from. I've I've spent a lot of time on this subject, by the way. Okay, yeah, let's hear it. I call it sauce, I think it's sauce, right? The reason why we use gravy as a term, and they'll say, oh, because there's meat in it. Yeah, that meat bases. That's bullshit, too. That's the that's completely false. Okay. What happened was on Sundays, right? It uh Italians, Germans, Irish, Puerto Ricans, we all go to church. We all go to the same mass. Yeah, right? And everyone goes back to their respective homes afterwards, okay, and they make their Sunday gravy, their turkey, their beef, their pot roast, right? And it has gravy. Okay, right? So that's our gravy. That's our Americanization of our tradition on Sunday.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_00Because gravy is brown, it goes on turkey. That's it. I will hear no more about it. That is the truth.
SPEAKER_02You're definitely gonna get some comments for that. But no matter what, like every Italians love arguing about it. The way I thought of it, because I looked like the definition of gravy is a meat-based sauce. So I was like, oh, that's why they probably always say gravy if it has meat versus sauce.
SPEAKER_00Gravy, gravy is not a sauce. Well, I mean, it is a sauce because it goes on meat, but great uh I'm a I'm a I'm a I'm a cook, right? I cook in my house. Yeah. I I a lot of people drag me because I I I told them I married my wife because she makes great chicken cutlets, and that is partially true. But uh I do most of the cooking in our house. Gravy is the drippings from a roast that are then combined with flour and sometimes butter and thickened up and brought up to this kind of thick sauce that then goes over the meat to rehydrate it if it's been cooking for a long time.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Sauce is a process. Sauce doesn't come from meat. Sauce starts from tomato paste and garlic and maybe an onion. Yeah. I'll tell you how I do mine. You tell me how you do your sauce, I'll tell you how I do mine.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I take an onion. My mother never put onion in a sauce growing up, right? Uh oh, sorry, back it up a little bit. I go to the I go to the pork store or I go to the supermarket, right? And I'll buy either pork ribs, right? Or, you know, if I'm going to the place by my house, shout out to Best Farms, little Italian supermarket, West Iceland. Real, real great. Yeah. Uh they got the little uh the pig's feet, you know, the hoofs sliced up. Yeah. That's where all the flavors are at. Right? Ribs, you brown that in the bottom of the pot, and you take it out. Yeah. Now with all that, it's called Fran, everything that's down in there, all that brown in there. That's good stuff. That's pork fat.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_00You know, and according to Emmeral Agazi, pork fat rules. It does. You take your garlic, you cut up your garlic, you take an onion. I take an onion. Like I said, my mother never did it. But I take an onion and I grate it. You know, like on a cheese grater, I grate the onion down to nothing.
SPEAKER_01Smart. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Then I throw it in with the garlic, right? Some tomato paste, and it kind of makes this base. That is where the sauce is coming from. Yeah. Gravy's not coming from the meat. I don't put I don't make bologners. I don't make a sugo with the sausage. You know, I put everything in, I brown everything and then I put it in later on to finish off.
SPEAKER_01Gotcha.
SPEAKER_00And then hours and hours and hours with the tomatoes. Yeah. Right? With uh you gotta you gotta put the basil in at a certain point to give it that that aromatic quality.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00This is not beef drippings and flour. I'm sorry. To call it gravy is is a is an insult to the to the the the labor and the love that goes into sauce.
SPEAKER_02You know, I give you credit for like how you think about yeah, for sure. Now that you say it, like you you drive a convincing argument, man.
SPEAKER_00There's no romance to gravy, right? There's romance involved with sauce.
SPEAKER_02That's hysterical. No, I feel you, it's a complete different process. That's true. I love it, dude. That's funny. But yeah, it's we don't do onions either. I don't know. It's funny. My mom didn't, you know, or I know I think sometimes we do, but it's mainly the garlic chopped real thin, you know what I mean? Like you see in frickin' good fellas or whatever. You know what I mean?
SPEAKER_00I've seen I've seen some really questionable things go into sauce to cut to cut the acidity. You know, that's what the onion's for. The onion's for sweetness. Yeah, that's it, it's gonna it's gonna bring out the the fruit of the tomato in a way. But uh a lot of people, some people add wine, of course. Uh some people I've I've seen and heard put grape jelly really in their sauce. Like some people will just put sugar, yeah, but some people will go to the length of putting grape jelly in their sauce.
SPEAKER_02You know what's good, butter. Butter works.
SPEAKER_00Butter in the sauce. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Really?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it gets rid of the acidity and it doesn't like really affect I take the uh uh Christian Petroni approach to Sunday sauce right by right towards the end, right? This is uh again, this is probably four or five hours into it, right? Right towards The end, Christian Petroni will take a bunch of parmesan, right? And then just start dumping it in. And he's he's building it up. You know, he's he's uh it's getting thicker and it and it becomes more and I think that that lends itself to a really nice pasta, you know, holding sauce as you throw in the cheese at the end. But butter, I would imagine, has a very similar effect. Yeah. Thickens it up. Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. It's nice, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Adds a little bit of saltiness too, you know?
SPEAKER_02100%. Yeah, it's Marissa, that's what she does. It's funny because like my mom has a way and she has a way, but they're both good and they know what they're doing for sure. Yeah. There's so you're right, there's so many different ways. Grape jelly is one I haven't heard I'll admit, but no, I'm gonna I'm gonna ask you a question.
SPEAKER_00All right, and you're gonna give me the right answer.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_00And the right answer isn't gonna make everyone happy.
SPEAKER_02Oh God. All right.
SPEAKER_00Whose sauce is better?
SPEAKER_02I can't answer that.
SPEAKER_00You can't answer that.
SPEAKER_02How do you answer that? I don't know because there's my grandmother's sauce too. My mom, you know what I mean? I don't know, the recipe was passed down. I mean, it's it's different. I don't know.
SPEAKER_00Like it's well, your grandmother's is different than your mother's.
SPEAKER_02It has to be a little bit, but my mom keeps it up. Like it's it tastes pretty similar. Like a lot of times people have it if they have my grandmother's, and they'll be like, wow, this reminds me of Adeline sauce. You know what I'm saying? So it's you can't answer that. That's tough. It's it's kind of like you got your memories with the you know what I mean, growing up.
SPEAKER_00It's nostalgia.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_00Like it's it's I just had a very similar conversation about pizza with a with a friend of mine, uh, Rob Savoni, owns a pizzeria called Taglio. They make Roman pizza in New York really, really good. And uh, we were talking about how like your favorite your favorite slice of pizza isn't always gonna be the best slice of pizza, but it's probably where you grew up and it's what you grew up on, and that that flavor, that mouthfeel of that specific pizza is what you carry with you for the rest of your life. And when you eat that pizza, it transports you back. Yeah. There are certain things like my uh my grandma, uh Tina, my dad's mom, uh, she made arancini, she made rice balls with no meat, just cheese and rice. Yeah, and my aunt makes them, and every time, like we're having Palm Sunday, you know, every time they come over, they ask me, What can I bring? I said, make those. Because the second I bite into it, it's like that scene in Ratatouille where the where the critic eats the eats the the the food and like he's a little boy again in his mother's kitchen. I love that. It takes me back. So it's important to have your mother's sauce. Yeah. I'll tell you. But the right answer, the right answer is your wife.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And I'll tell you why, right? Uh not because of the obvious uh saying, happy wife, happy life. Uh you're not doing it because you make her happy. It's because our fathers, right? Our fathers treated our mothers and our grandfathers treated our grandmothers with the utmost respect. You know, you you revel your mother because your father revels your mother. They revel their their parents because of the same thing.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So when people ask me, you know, I I love my mother's sauce. I love my mother's meatballs. I don't think anybody makes a meatball better than my mother.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00But my wife's uh are better just because when I have kids, that's what they're gonna be growing up on. That's what they're gonna be growing up on. And that's their mother. Yeah. And their mother makes everything the best.
SPEAKER_02I love that. And you still give your mom the meatballs, so there you go.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, well, yeah. My wife makes chicken meatballs. I don't know, I don't know, I don't trust them. I actually got to uh last last week, I made uh I made uh dinner for my wife's family came over and I combined the two methods, right? Uh she fries her meatballs, my mother baked them, right? But my mother's meatballs, uh fashioned after my grandmother's meatballs, my nun, her mother, right? They're incredibly close, but they're 50% bread.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Like literally 50% bread. You leave a loaf of Italian bread out overnight, you let it get hard. Day old bread, they call it, right? You let it get get stale. Then you you chop it up, you you re uh you reanimate it with a little milk, and then you mix it in with the I mean they're 50% bread. You cut through it, it is the fluffiest, lightest thing you've ever had in your life. And breadcrumbs go in it too.
SPEAKER_01Oh man.
SPEAKER_00So I made I made my mother's recipe, right? And because they're baked, they're even like even lighter. Yeah. They're even softer when they sit in the sauce for a while. But I fried them. I fried them first, then I put them in the sauce, and my mother-in-law looks at me, she goes, These are really, really good meatballs. I said, I know.
SPEAKER_02That's what I grew up on.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02But um, listen, dude, I want to talk about your singing career a little bit. Obviously, and first time you're on the podcast, so why don't you tell me a little bit about how you got started singing, like growing up? What music were you listening to? Like, who's your favorite Italian artist? Did someone inspire you? Let's hear the backstory a little bit.
SPEAKER_00I grew up, I grew up on the standards because of my grandma, because of my dad's mom. I call one one grandma and one nonna because my nonna was born over there, my grandma was born over here. Yeah. Both Italian, but you know, different kinds. And uh I would go to my grandma's house after after preschool, had half day preschool, but my parents both work full-time jobs. Oh, okay. New York for you.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And uh I would go to her house after school, she'd make me lunch, and then we'd go into the kitchen, and she had a radio in the corner of her kitchen, and she would uh she would play uh 1100 WHLI or 1130, the hits uh uh WNEW, right? Uh WHLI was the hits of a lifetime, right? And uh Frank Sinatra and Bobby Darren and Rosemary Clooney, I was introduced to all these Ella Fitzgerald, all these different artists, uh jazz artists and American standards artists at a at a very young age. And then naturally when I went to to school, like full-time school, you know, it was kind of whatever the kids were listening to. Yeah. But every party and every, you know, dinner and everything, I would hear this music and I'd I would obviously I love it because it's you know it's what I was brought up with. Yeah. And then when my grandmother passed away, I was 11 years old. Uh she passed from uh from leukemia. And uh that music was what I had to remember her by. The music was like the rice balls, right? Like that the second I would hear it, I would think about you know dancing in my grandmother's kitchen. Yeah. And so I I I got back into it really, really fully, and and uh something about hearing a band, a full big band, swing, just it just scratches the right part of my brain. You know, some people some people uh uh love creed and some people love Metallica and some people uh love disco because it does that for them. It it it scratches that part of their brain. Yeah, and that's what this music does for me. But it wasn't until I was like 15 years old that I opened my mouth and start to sing. I was uh I played uh uh an instrument called the baritone horn. Okay, you know? Uh another another well, most instruments are Italian, but you know, that's that's one of them. And it kind of looks like uh it looks like a trombone and a tuba had an ugly kid, right? That's what I that's what I played. And I got into the advanced concert band in high school. My mother says, I'm gonna get you some private lessons, yeah. You know, give you a leg up. And I wanted to sing the song Mac the Knife by Bobby Darren. Uh Bobby Darren, by the way, another Italian American who had to change his name, yeah. Uh, which is which is uh another another topic I wanna I want to touch on. Yeah, but uh I wanted to do Mac the Knife and I didn't know the name of the song. I could it it escaped me for some reason in that moment. So you know, the one that goes like this Oh, the shock babe has such teeth, dear, and he shows them pearly white, and the guy's like, What? What was that? I said, that was uh that's the song. Mac the knife. He goes, Yeah, I know the song. He goes, but but you you got a decent uh singing voice. And I said, uh I don't I don't think so. And he goes, You know that song? You know it well? I said, Yeah, I know the whole song. He says, uh, sing it. He starts playing it on piano. At the at the time, I don't understand that this is uh this is the sign of uh musical acumen, yeah, but there are what's called modulations. The song changes key like four or five times throughout the tune. It goes up and up and up and up, right? And uh uh I sang it through with all the modulations and everything. And he goes, You have like really great pitch. I don't have perfect pitch because I can't tell you what the note is, or I can't, you know, uh sometimes it's hard for me to find a key, but I have relative pitch. Like if someone's playing a song in the wrong key, like it it like I shut down. Like I can't, like it's uh I know it right away, and I'm like, no, no, no, that's gotta change. At the time I had no idea, and uh, you know, my mother the after the the lesson, the teacher goes up to my mother and says, uh, you know, you should really consider getting Sal's singing lessons. Wow. And my mother's from Queens, New York. All right, she don't take no no no crap from the old body. Yeah. And she goes, uh, yeah, sure. How much is singing lessons? Yeah, my son can sing it. My daughter should uh can juggle. Maybe I should send her to the circus. You know, my mother's tone deaf. I would sing in the shower, she wouldn't know what the hell she's listening. She'd bang on the door, say, I'm wasting all the heating oil, you know.
SPEAKER_02Wow, yeah. Props to this teacher, though, for recognizing that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, Dr. Joseph McKell. And uh my father was like, my father sits to me down, he goes, All right, sing. I don't even hear you sing happy birthday. Sing. I'm like, nah, it's embarrassing. You know, like I don't want to you put me on the spot. He goes, get in a car, we'll go to your uncle's house for dinner, my uncle Dean. Right? My uncle Dean had a pizzeria uh called Dino's in uh in Queens. And he would have like a singer sometimes on like a weeknight or whatever. And uh because of that simple fact, he's now like he's the he's the Clive Davis of my family, right? He's gonna he's gonna be able to tell us, you know, if I'm if I'm worth it or not.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Right. And uh uh I sang for him at his house, and he gets up, he looks at me, he goes, take that horn and throw it in the garbage.
SPEAKER_02That's awesome, bro. And you're 15 at this point?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, 15 years old. Then and then every family party they would like, they'd be like, oh, you know, you gotta sing a song, like especially the old traditional Italian songs. Yeah with Nabaledan. Uh Naples is is known for their music, you know. Uh uh Azaragina, right? Uh Tornasorriento is about returning to Sorrento, which is a beach town in Campania, right? Uh uh Sole Mio, right? I can't even tell. I've probably recorded Os Sole Mio now with with three or four different opera singers. Yeah. Uh because it's a song that I hold so dear because it's what we sang in the house growing up. I was 17 years old. Uh had a job as a pizza delivery boy, and it was my my first real job.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_00You know, and uh uh it wasn't just for a summer, you know, first real job.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And uh I was delivering pizzas in a Cadillac, which is the most counterproductive thing. And uh I I was running out of money by the time it all went in the gas tank. Yeah, my uncle Joe, who was uh, you know, an uncle through marriage, but it doesn't matter, you know. When when we're all together, when we're family, all of our elders are our uncles.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you know, I was gonna say the marriage is closer than a lot of uncles I have.
SPEAKER_00Exactly. You know, we would we would roll 25 people deep to uh you know uh to to vacation. And uh I remember him saying, I got a friend, he's got a restaurant, he'll give you a hundred dollars to go there on Thursday night and sing sing three 45 minute sets. Yeah, you know, three hours. And I was like, sure, sounds easy enough.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00My father went out and bought me a PA system for it and everything. I hooked up my laptop to the PA system.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And uh I would I started singing there and I fell in love with it. My uncle recognized that. Yeah, you know, I I would come up with Shtick, you know, you know how you see me, you see me play at uh Arcada. Yeah, you know the the whole thing. It's like, you know, I I'm I'm up there to entertain. I'm not it's not just a recital.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I mean that's how like Dean and Frank were and stuff. Sure.
SPEAKER_00And uh I I fell in love with this mode of of performance, and my my uncle Joe recognized it and said, American Idol was coming to the Nassau Coliseum in a couple the message, the message he left on my phone, I'll never forget it. I tried to save it for as long as possible, but it's since disappeared. It was uh, hey, American Idol's coming to the Coliseum in a couple weeks. Might be something you want to think about. Yeah, might be something you want to think about. So I call him up. I said, Uncle Joe. I didn't call him Uncle Joe, I called him Joe. His brother-in-law was my Uncle Joe. Yeah, and I said, Joe, you know, uh it's a popularity contest. It's not for me, it's not for the music that I do. Because that don't matter. You go there, you be you. Wear your suit, do whatever you gotta do, but be you.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_00All right? I guarantee they're gonna love you for who you are. Matter of fact, we'll make it interesting. If they don't love you, I'll give you my Range Rover for the rest of the summer. It's yours. I was like, Yeah, great.
SPEAKER_06Win-win now, yeah.
SPEAKER_00I went so confident that I was gonna get kicked off the show, cross the street to RXR Plaza. He worked for Prudential, he sold annuities and life insurance for Prudential. Yeah. Uh I was gonna walk right across the street, go to his office, grab his keys, leave him my Buick, and go home. Uh and uh I uh yeah, I I I nailed it because I was so confident.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I was so I sang Crimeer River by Julie London. Okay. Uh do you know you know that version of Crimea River? You know, you know, singing Justin Timberlake right away. Yeah, you're thinking Justin Timberlake. Uh it's a very big song, it's a very uh uh dramatic song, right? Uh it it uses uh it uses old-timey words like plebeian. Uh uh and uh I go up, I sing this song, and they like it so much that they put me right on. And I did American Idol, I made it to Hollywood week. Uh I had a had a the audition's on YouTube, you could look it up. I had a I had uh I won a bet against uh Harry Connick Jr. who bet me I didn't know the words. Uh I didn't know the real name of the song Fly Me to the Moon, which is in other words, you know. Uh I went to Hollywood and uh I got the golden ticket. I called my Uncle Joe. He says, That's great, great news. Yeah, what what'd you say to J Lo? I said, What do you mean? What did I say to J-Lo? Yes, you were in the same room with Jenny from the block, you didn't say nothing to her. So, Sal, if you don't say something to her out there, I'm gonna start rumors about you in the neighborhood. I said, All right, you know? So I get out there, I'm at the Orpheum Theater, and I'm sitting all the way in the back because I feel like a fish out of water. You know, there's all these, all these. I mean, it's great, many great artists came out of that that season. Yeah. Um, you know, Nick Fradiani, who's uh who's a Broadway star now, uh, one won that year, Jax. Jax, who is a phenomenal person, uh, a new mother. Uh, she is an amazing songwriter. She had a lot of success uh with her her song. Uh she usually recorded and wrote and recorded called Victoria's Secret. It's a great, great tune. I encourage you to listen to it. They were on my season, but you know, a lot of that is like like 50 different versions of the same, you know, the same person, the same act, you know, with the glasses with no glass in them and the skinny jeans and the kumbaya and all that, and he, you know, uh and the acoustic guitar and all that stuff. Uh I sit in the back of the theater because I I felt not a part of this group. And I was like, I see the end coming. All of a sudden, Harry Connick Jr. turns around and says, Jennifer's cold. Jennifer Lopez, she's cold. Does anybody have any suggestions?
SPEAKER_02And you know, everyone, oh turn the uh I'll play her a song, you know, like and I said Today's episode is brought to you by Bushman's growers of the finest potatoes in Wisconsin and the Midwest. You can find Bushman's with the signature select brand at your local Jewel Asco in Chicago. Thank you to Bushman's for sponsoring this podcast. Now let's get back to the episode.
SPEAKER_00Jennifer, I got a nice wool coat, but it's back in my hotel room. And I ain't from around here, so I'm gonna need a ride. She goes, Really? Like that caught her attention, right? She's a New Yorker, right? That caught her attention right away. And she's like, How old are you? I said, Jennifer, that doesn't matter. Just like the music that I sing, your beauty is timeless, right? This clip went viral. Really? I got kicked off the show the next day. I was I I made it through two auditions on American Idol, yet I was on five episodes. Riddle me that.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Wow. I call my uncle, I tell him I got kicked off the show. It's Halloween 2015, 2014. And uh I call him and I say, I got kicked off the show. And he goes, uh, I heard what happened. Your aunt Cynthia told my aunt was in the in the in the in the house as well with my mother. And she goes, You told me what happened. You did it, pal. He goes, This ain't the end. This is only the beginning for you. You see how much they love you. Yeah. They ran cameras up to your face and all that stuff. Yeah. And um I didn't believe him at the time. Uh and it's not so much that I didn't believe him, I didn't believe in myself.
SPEAKER_02You know, yeah, they were they brought it out of you.
SPEAKER_00My my parents worked their asses off to get where they're at in life. Their parents worked their asses off to get where they're at I mean, worked. Yeah. But they didn't see this as viable or, you know, and in the same way I didn't. And I didn't believe that I could pull it off. You know, I didn't believe in myself. And my uncle never even got to see uh American Idol Air. Um my uncle passed away uh in December of 2014. Uh typical typical Italian guy, Italian-American guy is too tough for the doctor. He uh he had a he had an issue that just uh it it snowballed very quickly and he passed and uh it was it was horrible. But you know, me and uh my cousin Lewis and my cousin Bianca, you know, we're all like siblings. You know, even though we're all first cousins to each other. You know, we're we're we're like siblings, and our our uncles are like, you know, second, third, and fourth dads.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Especially my uncle Joe, he's like one of my best friends. I would talk to him almost every day driving home from St. John's University in Queens, uh, sitting in traffic. I would I would call him up and he gave me a lot of advice. He got me my first gig. He he pushed me to go on that show. And even though he wasn't around to see it happen, that show and that exchange with Jennifer Lopez and that bet with Harry Conig Jr. is what caught the eye of a casting producer, Rainer Apelov, with MBC and America's Got Talent.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And they called me up. They said, We want you to come try out. Oh wow. We think we think you're gonna be great. And I brought I brought, you know, my whole family came out to witness it because I said, This is for real this time. I'm gonna take this very seriously. I got I got a vocal coach, I got, you know, uh uh Kate Baker, incredibly uh uh accomplished and uh uh really, really great uh jazz vocal coach uh out of uh Lincoln Center and the new school in New York. She's she's fantastic. And um I took it seriously and it and it paid off. I went and auditioned, I I uh I hit on Heidi Klum. My my uncle was in the room that night, everywhere around me, you know. Tommy was there, and uh it was uh it was the most incredible thing ever. And when I was about to go out there, I said, no matter what happens, right here, I still got me. And now I really do believe what my uncle said that this is only the beginning. So whatever happens, I'm just gonna leave it out there. Yeah, crank it up to 11, be yourself, you know, be a good time. That's what I did. I had a good time. Yeah. And Heidi Klum saw that. Yeah. And she made the decision that I should be, you know, in the in the the best part of the show. And, you know, that that uh that love affair that was born there has been a 10-year friendship.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00My wife and I uh uh we go to we go to a Halloween party every year.
SPEAKER_02I was gonna say I heard you go to the Halloween parties. That's awesome.
SPEAKER_00She comes with a whole family to see me in in in Bel Air at Herb Albert's club in in in LA. How cool is that? Uh she's just the best. She's a really, really solid, solid, solid person. Yeah. She is.
SPEAKER_02I love it.
SPEAKER_00And the last ten years have just been a just been a wild, wild ride, man.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. I want to get into that too, but I do remember like when we posted your clip of America's Got Talent.
SPEAKER_00Like, thank you, by the way.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, no, no problem, dude. It was like because it was probably within the first few years of us really having hardcore Italians in the page and stuff, and I just remember that being like one of the first few videos that just like really took off, especially with Italian Americans. Like everybody just loved it, dude. It was awesome. And now that you say the story about kind of how your family was involved and like encouraging you to like shoot shoot your shot and this and that, like I don't know, man. Is there like what do you think resonated with Italians on that?
SPEAKER_00Because obviously it's like the now the relationships, you know, having my mother there, my aunts, yeah, you know, uh, you know, your your friends from the neighborhood and all that, and yeah. The confidence, you know, we're we're we're confident people, Italian Americans. You know, we we go out, we we roll deep and and uh you know we we don't we don't leave anything on the table. Yeah. You know, you remember uh Bronx Tale, right? Them yelling across the street. Right, you know, like like that's uh that's a that resonates I think with a lot of Italian Americans and then just you know I I know it because I feel it, you know, when I see uh Italian Americans in in uh in successful positions in life and prominent positions, you know, we root for each other. Yeah, you know, uh I I I root for everybody, I really do, because I had that happen for me. Yeah. I felt that it was palpable. Ten years later I have a career still going. Yeah. Because I get to come back uh to to areas like Chicago and Detroit, Youngstown, Ohio, and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and and uh Boston and Wooden Socket, Rhode Island, and you know, all these different areas because there are Italian Americans who still feel that pride.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Uh and and still want to come see me and and kind of relive that moment over and over and over again.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, no, I love it. A couple things with that too. Like I hear when you come off singing from TV like American Idol and all this stuff, that it's really hard for a lot of people to have careers after because six-month shelf life. Yeah, there's so much pressure, like you have to put out an album like tomorrow.
SPEAKER_00My uh my my manager Rob, my agent Rob, uh he uh he he tells this story. It's a great story, uh, about uh when I had just come off AGT, we booked the Paramount Theater in in Long Island and we sold it out three nights. Like we we sold out three nights within minutes. Wow. It was it was incredible. And immediately he takes that that momentum and starts calling some other theaters.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And he called this theater in Florida. The guy's like, wow, my schedule's kind of filled up for the season, and and Rob goes, Well, how about next season? He goes, I'm gonna pass because the shelf life on these kids is like six months.
SPEAKER_01Wow.
SPEAKER_00Right? And I made it ten years through a pandemic and all that. You know, I think that season, especially of America's Got Talent, was incredibly special. You know, you had um Laura Briton, who's an accomplished opera singer who tours all over the world. Uh Grace Vanderwall won that year. Uh uh Grace is uh is an incredible writer. Uh she's a great vocal talent. Uh the clairvoyants do shows all over. I see they did a residency in New York, they perform at the Magic Castle in Los Angeles. Tapeface Boy is like the rebirth of Charlie Chaplin. You know, he does this this great silent act. Sophie Dossy has millions of followers on social media. Uh, she still regularly appears on the show. You know, uh she's a contortionist. She she's the one that uh fired the flaming arrow with her foot. You know, like that's it, that's incredible. Uh I mean, among among John Dorenbus, who uh uh not only is he an incredible guy, he was the long snapper for the Philadelphia Eagles, uh, he he was he did like some magic and he uses that magic now to speak to crowds, uh, you know, to to uh uh motivate them. And it's a really beautiful thing that he does. I mean, that's just a few of them. I could I could keep going on and on and on and on. Uh, but that season especially was incredible. And I think that we've all had uh we we all can attest and attribute uh the longevity of our careers to the to just that magic that happened that year.
SPEAKER_02Wow.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And how do you go from singing at your uncle's restaurant to like being on that stage? Because I imagine I was gonna say and still have the confidence. It is it is crazy.
SPEAKER_00It is terrifying. It is the it is the the the the single most uh tall hurdle to jump is knowing that you're gonna be in front of millions of people.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, because it sounded like it happened quick.
SPEAKER_00It did. It it it was like lightning. Yeah. Which is a good thing too. It happened so quickly that I didn't have a chance to really process it and then get even more freaked out by it.
SPEAKER_02Did anyone prepare you for that though? Because like you're saying, it's not like in the neighborhood everyone's got tons of experience, like, oh yeah, have you know this is a great story.
SPEAKER_00I was uh it was the first live show, it was the the uh quarterfinals of uh of America's got talent. And for the first live show, I was not singing a Sinatra song. I was singing a One Direction song that was arranged to sound like a big band tune, Story of My Life, which I had never even listened to that song before. Like I heard it in passing, like on like the musac. You walk into CVS, you hear it. You know, I'd never I'd never performed it before, I didn't, you know, never really gave it a listen. And uh I had a week to learn it, and I'm busy trying to learn the song, and then the director, uh Russ, is like, hey, you know, uh uh, you know, you gotta look at the cameras. Like you see the red light, you gotta make sure you make contact with the camera. And then the choreographer is giving me steps to make, right? And then they're they're saying, You gotta do it, you gotta do it. I I was like, What the f I sky, I need a minute, I need a minute, yeah, I need a minute, I need to go outside, need to get some fresh air. And on the way out, I see Heidi Klum and she says, What's got you so razzled? And I explained though what was going on. I told her what was going on. I told her, you know, this this is a yeah, she goes, you be you. I fell in love with you. Yeah, you didn't have any choreographer, yeah, you didn't know what camera to look at.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00You know?
SPEAKER_01That's awesome.
SPEAKER_00I f she goes, I know you can sing this song because I assume you can sing the phone book. You know?
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00You be you. It was the same message that my uncle Joe gave to me years before. You be you. Everything let everyone else do their job. Yeah, you do yours.
SPEAKER_02I love that. Yeah, it's like a good value for anybody, you know.
SPEAKER_00Once I got through that first live episode, everything else became just so easy. Yeah. Like I was having so much fun. Yeah. Everyone else was nervous, everyone else was like wound up. Uh-huh. And I'm like, I'm going out and picking up boxes of donuts for the crew and walking in. The security there is really tight. Uh, by the way, uh, Mike Buschetti with Boschetti Security, another Pizan, he's he does their their security, and uh let me tell you, he's a hell of a guy, but they keep it real tight. And I am walking through the door, handing out food to very important people, you know, from that I've just walked in with off the street, pretty much. I was just having such a good time. I think that's what attributed to me being a finalist. You know, I made it then to the top five acts. Yeah. Out of hundreds of thousands of people who auditioned for this show, arguably many, many, many, many of them even more talented than I'll ever be. Uh, and here I am in this position. And number one, I attribute it to the incredible fans out there and the Italian-American community that rallied around me and lifted me up and carried me over that finish line. Uh, number two, I attribute it to the crowds every night. I had 25 to 30 people in the crowd every night who I was directly related to. They all flew out to California, rented a house in Studio City. You know, they would like sleeping in the in the in the pool house and on the floor. My mother was cooking and everybody. They would they would ignite. They would like the Tinder that ignited the crowd every night. Every night I'd walk out on stage, they would start screaming, and it would just the whole place would erupt. Yeah. And that energy I think came through uh uh for people in those performances. And that that definitely did it too.
SPEAKER_02It's huge. I remember first starting hardcore, like all our family friends in the neighborhood would wear the shirts, and then like their friends wanted it, and it did kind of give you confidence, like, oh, people like the shirts and they like the page, and I still wear my gnocchi t-shirt. Yeah, that's one of the first ones. You're right. Yeah. I love it, bro. Thanks for always supporting. And um, like tell me a little bit more about like your tours and when you travel, where you're going. Like you said, 10 years is a lot of years, man.
SPEAKER_00Like it is a lot of yeah, a lot has happened. Yeah. You know, I've I've had the uh I've had the honor and privilege for performing anyone anywhere from you know Fortune 500 CEOs and Titans of Industry who are flying me to Bermuda and Centropei and all this, all these incredible places. Uh, I've performed for tens of thousands uh of of people throughout the country, um, doing the Belmont Stakes again this year, which is a tremendous New York thing. I've gotten to sing the anthem for the Ranger games at Madison Square Garden and and at Yankee Stadium uh and City Field, you know, like uh to for all the big New York sports teams. You know, New York is a really special place uh because of what goes on there. Um anywhere from that to you know showing up at someone's wedding because they didn't have the budget and they're just a big fan, and I had the night open and just dropping in and surprising them and you know being a part of uh the most special day of their lives, it's it's an honor. I love that, man.
SPEAKER_02Tell me how you pop in at some of these like Italian fests sometimes and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_00That's I like to drop in on Italian festivals and surprise crowds. Like I love that. I think especially because Italian festivals are going away, and like we said before, it's so important that we uh that we we support our posterity. Yeah, you know, we think about the legacy that's gonna continue, what's gonna be for our kids and their kids. It's important that we think about that. Yeah, you know, uh Italians faced a lot of adversity in this country when they first came. As a matter of fact, I'm I'm uh starring in a film called uh Lintervallo, which is about uh an Italian singer, Giovanni Di Tommaso, who was offered a contract uh, you know, to to appear in Hollywood and all this, and he gets he's reading it and he's he's you know incredibly uh uh happy. His whole family is backstage. Yeah, you know, well, such a character piece for me. I really had the Daniel Day Lewis myself into that. Yeah, it's uh his whole family's backstage, and they're all you know, they're all uh uh serving lasagna and all this, and these these record executives are sitting there, and he gets to the bottom of the contract, and the caveat is he has to change his name to Jackie Thomas. Kind of like Tony Bennett changed his name and Bobby Darren had to change his name.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Uh they had to anglicize it. A lot of a lot of uh Italians had their names anglicized right at Ellis Island. And uh the the that's the that's the conflict of the film and his whole family weighs in and chaos ensues. So I think it's important that we that we uh hold on as tight as possible and that we support each other and lift each other up in that way. That's why I pop into those things. I don't want to see them go away. I want to see them stay around forever.
SPEAKER_02No, I love it, man. But yeah, and sorry, you were saying about like your tours and the shows you got coming up and stuff.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. So uh I uh I play all over the world. You go to salhevoice ny.com or follow me on Facebook and Instagram, you'll always see shows coming up. And uh a lot of another great uh uh another bit of news is uh if you're watching this after March 25th, go stream Little Pal. Little Pal is uh is a song that was originally written by Al Joseon. It was covered by Jimmy Roselli, a fantastic Neapolitan American singer from from Hoboken, New Jersey, same same town as Sinatra, yeah uh who got uh shafted a little bit. Uh but he recorded the song and changed the lyrics to reflect uh the struggles that were going on in Italian American homes in his area, which was that a lot of fathers were going to prison. So this this song uh uh reflects that, and it's the song that makes the wise guys cry.
SPEAKER_02And uh like the song that makes the wise guys the song that makes the you're gonna love it.
SPEAKER_00The the music video comes out too, and Mario Basco played in the music video, and he cried the whole time. What an actor, what a di dynamo Mario Basco is.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Uh we had Keith uh Keith W. Richards from uh Uncut Gems, uh in the the tough guy from Uncut Gems in the uh in the in the crowd there in the video. It's shot in uh it's shot in Baby John's uh little little hangout, little speakeasy across from Cafe Palermo in Little Italy. And uh that's that's tremendously exciting as well. But live music is uh is really important to support. Come out, buy a ticket, come hang with me and the cats. Uh I play with uh I employ over 200 musicians nationwide. Uh I pick up bands wherever I go. Matter of fact, the band I'm playing with uh tonight and tomorrow night at the Club Arcada, uh, they're from Wisconsin. Uh I got to play with them at the Oshkosh Jazz Festival, if you could believe there's such a thing.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Uh this past summer. I I it's an it's an incredibly fun. I'll tell you what, I'm just gonna say from my perspective, because I've never sat in the audience at one of my shows, yeah. I have a great time. I have the most fun. That's right for that 90 minutes, two hours, nothing else matters. Yeah, I am high on the most potent drug known to man.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I hear it's like a drug when you're on stage and stuff.
SPEAKER_00It is.
SPEAKER_02One last question. When you're like, I imagine you sung my way like thousands of times, like a lot of these songs on repeat. Like, does it ever get old to you or anything? No. No, how come? Like, why do you think that is? Or do singers have a problem with that at all? I've always been curious about that.
SPEAKER_00The music is poetry, and poetry is up for interpretation. Two people can read the same poem, and it could mean two incredibly different things to each person. And I think the beauty of the poetry of music, first of all, the connection you make with the crowd, right? The nostalgia you bring back for the crowd. That that there's that. But then there is for me uh songs change meaning over time.
SPEAKER_03Really?
SPEAKER_00The song It's impossible never made me cry until I was married.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Until I until I I had a muse and understood the meaning of, and tomorrow, if you should ask me for the world, somehow I'd get it. I would sell my very soul and not regret it, for to live without your love is just impossible. That's a that's a that's a feeling a married man, only a married man can understand.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_00You know? And so just the songs change meaning. You know, my way, my way, it it's a it's a song about a comeback. It's a song about victory, about triumph over over life. Yeah, you know, uh I I've I've I've loved, laughed, and cried, I've had my fill of losing, you know, and now as the tears subside, I find it all amusing to think I did all that.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And not in a shy way. I did it my way. You know, I made it through. Paul Anka wrote that song for Sinatra at a at a pivotal point in his life. You know, he was considering retiring.
unknownUh huh.
SPEAKER_00And uh he's like, I need, I need, I need one more go at it. You know, he was he was chasing that high, you know, and and Paul Anka uh the the tune is French. Uh uh, it's a French tune. Paul Anka wrote these incredible lyrics to it, these powerful words that that uh that have resonated with people. You know, I mean the song is so powerful that the gypsy kings covered it in Spanish and had a hit with it, a mi manera. You know, it it's I it never gets old.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Performing never gets old. I still get nervous. I still get butterflies.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I think the day that I stop getting butterflies, I'll quit. Yeah. Because then it's not special anymore.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, well, you've been doing it ten years, so if you're still it sounds like you're not close. So it seems like you're gonna be doing a long time, man. So yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Also, why I'm holding this potato, our our uh food and travel show, Sal Tries Food, where I where I try some maybe out-of-the-box cuisines or try some new things with some new friends, it's on YouTube on Rec Team NY. Uh, we just cut an episode with Phil Rosenthal, the creator of Everybody Loves Raymond, uh, and of course the star of Somebody Feed Phil, which has been on Netflix for eight years. Food is so important to me. Yeah, uh uh food is such a cornerstone of my life. Uh it's it's food is my romance language. You know, you want to show someone how special they are to you, prepare them a meal. Yeah. You know, it's very important. 100%. Uh, which which, you know, we got to talk about our sponsor for today.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I was gonna say shout out to Bushman's. The potatoes are a local company and they they're at every single jewel. Look for the signature, select label.
SPEAKER_00Look at these Yukon golds. These are gorgeous potatoes. Look at this. You make a nice algratin out of these, you know, uh you slice them thin, some scallop potatoes. That that'd be tremendous. And they're soft, you know? They come, you could tell when they come right from the from the from the dirt, soft like this, they're good. And speaking of dirt, not a speck. This potato's so clean, we just took it out of the bag.
SPEAKER_02No way.
SPEAKER_00So clean, you could eat it just like that.
SPEAKER_02That's awesome. Props for that. I don't even know how you're chewing that still right now.
SPEAKER_00It's a juicy potato.
SPEAKER_02I love it. Look at that. That's awesome. Love it. Thank you, Bushmans. Appreciate you sponsoring the episode. Sal, thanks so much for coming in, man. It's always a pleasure when you're in Chicago. Thanks for having me. Thanks so much. Guys, be sure to support Sal. Go to shows, check out everything he's got going on. Like you said, he's got his website, he's got social media, be sure to follow him.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, Chicagoland. I'm at Ronal Nesti's place at least a couple times a year. We have a great time. The the staff over there at the Arcada, they're like family to me. And uh it's a it's a beautiful thing. Yeah, 100%. Shout out Ronald. Speaking of family, you're the best, Mike. We've broken bread now a couple times together. You know, I feel like I'm home when I'm here because of you and our friends here. So God bless you and thank you. I appreciate that, Sal. Thank you. See you later. I'm eating a potato.
SPEAKER_02Thank you, guys.
