settimio soprani accordion contino model

He put Contino under contract and featured him on his weekly radio show, The Horace Heidt Youth Opportunity Hour, where the teenager became a star. True, the accordion has oftentimes failed to gain acceptance as a 'serious' instrument in certain quarters - Robert Klein probably put it best on Child of the 50's when he described the accordion as 'groovy if you're in a prisoner-of-war camp, someplace where you don't have access to 'real' instruments' - but in the mid-20th century it was popular, and Contino was its most popular exponent in a period before electric guitars were played by anyone outside of the jazz field.īorn in Fresno, California, in 1930, Contino took up the accordion as a boy and began entering talent competitions during the mid-'40s, ultimately winning first prize during 1947 in a contest run by bandleader Horace Heidt.

He had a recording contract with RCA Victor and an instrument named after him, could write his own ticket, and all of that as an accordionist.

But for about three years, from 1948 until 1951, Contino was a star attraction as a musician, earning 4,000 dollars a night. Dick Contino is remembered today for his performances in notoriously (and, one might add, enjoyably) bad movies such as Daddy-O (1959) and The Beat Generation (1960).

Settimio soprani accordion contino model