Some argue that Tony Mottola was extra legendary than well-known. In a profession spanning 50 years, the guitarist logged 1000’s of studio dates and made tons of of live performance and tv appearances. A primary name for dozens of artists together with Frank Sinatra, Perry Como, Johnny Mathis, Rosemary Clooney, Billie Vacation, Connie Francis, and others, he was additionally revered as a pioneer for his compositions within the early days of dwell tv.

Living proof are his atmospheric creations for the groundbreaking CBS live-suspense drama “Hazard”; the music he created for the present from 1951 to ’56 is studied by critical gamers and avid college students, and its long-out-of-print folio showcasing his licks, methods, and worksheets is extremely sought-after.

Because of his affiliation with the audiophile label Command Information, Mottola emerged as a preferred artist in his personal proper within the ’50s and ’60s. His 50-plus albums have been maybe second in reputation solely to these of Chet Atkins; his debut, Mr. Huge, is a commemorated basic of ensemble jazz guitar and his best-selling Roman Guitar obtained Silver certification from the Recording Trade Affiliation of America (RIAA).

Mottola obtained an Emmy for his rating for Two Childhoods, a TV documentary that chronicled the early lives of U.S. Senator and Vice President Hubert Humphrey and author and activist James Baldwin.

Curiously, younger Mottola needed to turn out to be a saxophone participant, however circumstances conspired. Too younger to take the bus to a sax instructor’s home in Newark, his father as a substitute tutored him on guitar; the repertoire being restricted, he additionally taught himself by slowing the household’s Victrola whereas listening to information by Eddie Lang, Nick Lucas, and Django Reinhardt. As his taking part in improved, a faculty instructor acknowledged the boy’s expertise and would showcase him at college board conferences, PTA assemblies, and some other event the place he might show his reward.

At 12, Mottola received first prize in a expertise competitors at a neighborhood movie show. It included a one-week engagement on the Brandford Theater and a test for $125. That cash obtained his father’s consideration, and he took his son to the Epiphone showroom in Manhattan, the place Tony was rewarded with an Epiphone Broadway.

Mottola continued to play all through highschool, after which he and fellow guitarist Al Caiola shaped a bunch modeled after Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grappelli’s Sizzling Membership Quintet.

His skilled profession started in earnest at age 18; a couple of years later, buddy and saxophonist George Paxton organized an audition with George Corridor’s society orchestra in New York Metropolis. Quickly after, the younger guitarist was touring ballrooms across the nation. His recording debut got here in ’39, with singer Dolly Daybreak on her hit single, “Shine.” After two years, taking part in in Corridor’s band had taken a toll and the younger guitarist returned to New Jersey, the place in ’41 he landed a job as a employees musician for the CBS Radio Community. It was there that Mottola was mentored by the 2 busiest studio guitarists of the period, Carl Kress and Dick McDonough. Along with their reputation as a guitar duet, Kress and McDonough labored nearly across the clock for Burns and Allen, Kate Smith, Jack Benny, Fred Allen, Groucho Marx, Betty Grable, and the cadre of CBS’ radio and recording stars.

Mottola started by sitting in on rehearsals for Kress and McDonough and making ready their charts for varied broadcasts. However quickly, he was not simply taking on the slack, however making a reputation for himself by dealing with the reveals’ guitar chores with actual aplomb. As well as, he quickly grew to become a constitution member of bandleader Raymond Scott’s CBS Orchestra. Shortly after, Mottola was tasked with creating the guitar soundtrack for “Hazard,” a present incessantly directed by abilities corresponding to Yul Brynner and Sidney Lumet. The present additionally featured future stars James Dean, Lee Grant, Rod Steiger, Sal Mineo, and Eva Marie Saint. As well as, scripts for “Hazard” have been usually created by extraordinary writers like Paddy Chayefsky, Rod Serling, Sal Mineo, and Eva Marie Saint.

At CBS, Mottola established a long-lasting affiliation with Frank Sinatra, who requested Mottola fill the guitarist spot on his first radio present. The 2 maintained a friendship, and from 1980 till his retirement in ’88, Mottola toured with Sinatra and was often spotlighted by accompanying the singer in solo spots. The 2 carried out at Carnegie Corridor, the White Home, and at a Command Efficiency for the Queen of England at Royal Albert Corridor.

Theirs was a full-circle friendship, having first met as youngsters at radio station WAAT in Jersey Metropolis.

“I used to be 14 and Frank was 17,” Mottola recalled in a 1997 interview for the Tv Academy Basis. “I used to be a daily on a Sunday morning present that featured younger musical artists. Nobody obtained paid greater than carfare, nevertheless it led to membership dates with Frank. My profession revolved round realizing him. Later, after I wound up my profession, I spent my final six years touring with him.”

It was additionally on that present that Tony met his future spouse, Mitzi.

From ’58 till ’72, Mottola was the guitarist for the unique “Tonight Present” on NBC, the place he was a lso available for different prime time packages together with the “The Perry Como Present.”
Curiously, the primary time Mottola noticed tv was when he was on it. Within the late ’40s, he was suggested by a contractor at CBS that the corporate was going to start out an hour of experimental programming; Mottola inquired and was made chief of a trio (with singers Johnny Desmond and Shea Cogan) for a 15-minute present known as “Face the Music.” Mottola’s on-air demeanor was likable sufficient for execs to characteristic him as a de facto host and provides him scripts written by songwriter Bob Merrill, who penned “Individuals” for Barbra Streisand, “Honeycomb” for Jimmie Rodgers, “My Really, Really Honest” for Man Mitchell, and “How A lot is that Doggie within the Window?” for Patti Web page, then created the Broadway reveals Carnival, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, and Humorous Lady.

Mottola went on to work on the CBS choices “Sid Caesar’s Your Present of Reveals,” “Howdy Doody Time,” the sport present “Beat The Clock,” and even the weird ’60s basic “Sing Alongside With Mitch.” In 1954, he emceed “Melody Avenue,” a lip-sync present that required the guitarist to play intros to widespread songs of a given period. He’d say a couple of phrases concerning the tune then play an intro that led to singers appearing out a vignette of the tune. Mottola might properly have been the most-heard on-air instrumentalist on the time.

Amongst his friends, Mottola commanded super respect. His longtime buddy and colleague, Bucky Pizzarelli, admired him as somebody who might learn any piece of music.

“He’d interpret one thing and make it very ‘Mottola’ – put his stamp on it,” Pizzarelli recalled. “His sound was very heat, tender, and expressive. And he by no means hit a foul notice in his life.”

In actual fact, his taking part in was so good that it as soon as stopped a taping on Como’s “Kraft Music Corridor.” One scene required Como, sporting a prop guitar, to fake to serenade Italian actress Gina Lollobrigida whereas Mottola performed a fiery romantic passage. The taking part in was so extraordinary that Como, as a substitute of delivering his line, seemed over his shoulder at Mottola and stated, “Don’t you ever make a mistake?”

After all that was an incredible praise, however Mottola stated, “I’d labored on that piece and had by no means performed something higher in my life. Then I needed to play it over again.”

His well-known moody composition for “Hazard” was the primary guitar-driven tv soundtrack, lengthy earlier than Mottola’s buddy (and West Coast counterpart) Bob Bain performed the “Peter Gunn Theme” with Henry Mancini.

The “Hazard” chord was an E minor Main seventh, and Mottola composed an eight-/16-bar theme for the central character and the present’s heavy. He retained the motifs and expanded on them, saying, “I’d use a theme and its variations; bridges from one scene to a different, and curtains to finish a scene.”

The opening chord complemented the noir visible, with a knife thrown right into a fence; it grew to become often known as the “Hazard chord.”

Mottola additionally recalled a circus-themed present “The Killer Scarf,” which was carried out at Madison Sq. Backyard whereas he remained within the studio. To approximate a hurdy gurdy impact, he used a pocket comb dragged throughout the strings as a substitute of a decide for his composition “Carnival Time.”

“I don’t know why we simply didn’t rent a calliope participant,” he laughed.

Nonetheless, his “Hazard” folio is brimming together with his artistic soundtrack concepts. In actual fact, a couple of of his compositions have been recorded later for his MGM albums. Actors together with James Dean, Paul Newman, JoAnne Woodward, Basil Rathbone, Grace Kelly, and Anthony Quinn appeared on the present.

“Everyone was studying, and no person was a star apart from Rathbone,” Mottola recalled.

Good friend Sidney Lumet, one other director who incessantly labored the present, recalled how Mottola additionally appeared on it, and remembers the fascinating double obligation. “He was so simpatico with the music, and so very intense,” he stated.

Mottola was amazed that Lumet remembered a motif he’d written on “Hazard” and requested him to make use of it once more to attain his 1988 movie, Operating on Empty, starring River Phoenix and Judd Hirsch.

Mottola finally recorded his Hazard album on MGM and later labored as a sideman for producer Enoch Mild’s Grand Award label, which later grew to become Command Information. That led to his recording Tony Mottola and his Orchestra, which additionally featured heavyweights Dick Hyman, Doc Severinsen, and Urbie Inexperienced.

“Due to that, I’d constructed a status on the easy-listening stations as a result of, in these days, there have been lots of deejays taking part in that sort of music,” he recalled. “This was lengthy earlier than the Beatles. Enoch Mild offered that firm to ABC Information and later shaped Mission Three Information, the place I additionally served as an A&R man. So, if I had any status within the recording trade, Enoch Mild was chargeable for it. He was a real pioneer of stereo recording.”

Mottola handed away August 9, 2004, leaving a palpable affect and influence on most of the music trade’s best gamers.

“My guitar instructor steered I hearken to Tony’s Roman Guitar album. His sound, phrasing, in-tune bends, and normal method and preparations have been beautiful,” stated studio legend Mitch Holder. “My very own phrasing and melodic therapies have been very influenced by him. He was a busy studio musician, and one in every of his shut guitar-playing cohorts, Bucky Pizzarelli, instructed me, ‘I by no means heard Tony hit a flawed notice.’ And, Tony didn’t play it protected. He went for it, and his readability and perfection in execution was a testomony to Bucky’s assertion. Pure sonic and technical perfection. Look into what he left us. You received’t be sorry.”

“All artistic sorts will let you know they host a wide range of deceased heroes who sit on their shoulders and approve or disapprove of no matter’s being tried in the meanwhile,” added session veteran and Nashville producer Richard Bennett. “Tony is a kind of for me, and he’s perpetually shaking his head in disappointment. No shock, how does anybody dwell as much as that expertise, his bell-like tone, all of the years of demanding radio and tv work, the 1000’s of file dates? What about his albums as a frontrunner, significantly these on Command and, later, Enoch Mild? They’re quintessential examples of brilliantly recorded sound. In the course of all of it is Tony’s beautiful guitar taking part in, arranging and tone. By no means a glib notice, at all times so listenable. No matter you do, don’t miss his 1955 MGM recording of the ‘Hazard’ theme; guitar noir if ever there was. Yep, there’s Tony Mottola, at all times on my shoulder, saying, ‘You’re doing all of it flawed child,’ and me smiling again saying, ‘Thanks, Tony.’”

Mottola was 86 years previous when he handed away after battling double pneumonia and struggling a stroke.

Particular due to Tony Mottola, Jr.

This text initially appeared in VG’s October 2024 subject. All copyrights are by the creator and Classic Guitar journal. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.