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Merlino, Gene (30 November 1928 – Present)

Vocalist born Mario Gino Merlino in San Francisco, California, who started out in the Camp Curry dance band while he was attending San Francisco State University.  After graduation, he moved to Los Angeles, where he embarked on a career as a studio musician, singing on the soundtrack of South Pacific and supplying the vocals for Franco Nero’s Lancelot in Camelot.

Gene spent a lot of time as a pop singer, as well, recording a number of songs like “Did You Ever See A Dream Walking?”, “Life is Just a Bowl of Cherries”, and “Love is Good for Anything That Ails You” that eventually wound up on the soundtrack of the 1981 lip-synched musical, Pennies From Heaven.

He has worked with a wide variety of artists and groups, including Julie Andrews, Ray Anthony, Pat Boone, The Carpenters, Cher, Harry Connick, Jr., Vince Gill, Arlo Guthrie, Harry James, Waylon Jennings, The Anita Kerr Singers (with whom he won a Grammy award for their recording of “A Man and a Woman”), Rod McKuen, Bette Midler, Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, and Barbra Streisand.

Along the way, he became involved in the “song-poem” industry, recording more than 10,000 tracks for aspiring lyricists, solicited by those ubiquitous classified ads in magazines and newspapers, offering the vague promise of a hit song.  Some of these would-be “hits” include “I’m a Ginseng Digger”, “Jimmy Carter Says Yes!”, and “Three-Eyed Boy”.  He started out doing these for two bucks a song, but it has become a big business, and the topic of a 2003 documentary entitled Off the Charts.  At one infamous session, he laid down eighty-two tracks in four hours.

His more mainstream contributions to popular music include performances on a number of soundtracks, including Charlotte’s WebGreaseHeidi’s SongThe Little MermaidLost HorizonMasadaThe Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm, and The Young Girls of Rochefort (in which he also appeared).  He also crooned “South of the Border” on a 1992 episode of The Simpsons.  It was not his first foray into television, having supplied his dulcet tones to Alien NationDavy CrockettGilligan’s Island, and Rawhide.

On 16th May 2004, he helped organize a reunion of his alma mater’s concert band in San Francisco.

Sources:

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