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“I can’t get enough of what I do,” Tommy DelCorio Jr. said last week of his infatuation with singing. “I’m like a fat man at a buffet.”
The 58-year-old product of the 500 block of Wilder Street will gorge on appreciation for his musical forbearers Sunday night when he joins three other crooners for a Swingin’ the Standards concert at the Adrienne Theatre. In making his debut at the Center City playhouse, he will use the evening to commend time-tested tunes’ influence on his artistry, which includes an irrepressible infection by the acting bug.
“My interests cover the gamut of the music world, but the standards are the best, and I believe they’ll be around for another 100 years, at least,” the Dickinson Square West native and Williamstown, N.J. resident said. “I’m happy to have any opportunity to help people to love them even more.”
Finally able to synchronize schedules after a few discussions, DelCorio and his peers each will handle four songs at the Adrienne, which holds bimonthly shows celebrating contributions to the Great American Songbook, with the former South Philly dweller to honor Frank Sinatra with his selections and other artists through their finale. DelCorio has won many audiences over for his treatment of the legendary performer’s catalogue, including praise from patrons at the 2011 Count Basie Theatre-situated Sinatra Birthday Bash in Red Bank, N.J. Lauding the deceased figure for his impeccable choice of composers and arrangers, he delights in his duty as an interpreter and enjoys each occasion to thank him and his contemporaries for their example.
“The subjects and themes of the standards are so simple, yet the structures, with 17-piece orchestras, can be complicated, but no matter the material, a large part of whatever you do is showing up and giving it your all,” DelCorio said. “That’s what this and every other show is about for me.”
With gigs throughout Philadelphia, Atlantic City, Las Vegas, Los Angeles and New York City to his credit, the troubadour has logged 20 years as a standards-bearer, with the last eight being especially intense. A proponent of such artists as Alice Cooper and Black Sabbath when providing lead vocals for a rock band three decades ago, he has gone from bellowing to mellowing and can foresee taking more dips in the melodic fountain of youth.
“When I turned 50, a light went on and now I’m to the point where I feel on fire,” DelCorio, who is working on his third album, said. “I’m always looking to be creative and true to my inclination, and it’s fun to ponder where that might take me.”
The Garden State inhabitant began his odyssey as a boy, when trips to the entertainment-heavy Palumbo’s Restaurant, formerly Ninth and Catharine streets, with his mother Angelina and treks to his grandmother Josephine’s house helped to transform him from spectator to performer. Summer proved especially formative, with time at Atlantic City’s Steel Pier letting him rub elbows with such luminaries as Sinatra, Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis, Stevie Wonder and Frankie Avalon, another South Philly son. Seeing The Beatles at the Atlantic City Convention Center in 1964 also helped him to consider chasing the limelight.
“Girls were screaming and yelling for them, and I thought ‘Wow, wouldn’t that be great to do!’” DelCorio said.
Deeming his youth a great era to mature in because of its creative possibilities, he acquired instrumental prowess at Eliza B. Kirkbride School, 1501 S. Seventh St. Though still an occasional fiddler with guitar and piano, he has favored his pipes for the duration of his adulthood and cherishes its receptivity to his preferred pieces.
“My favorite instrument is the voice,” the Philadelphia Boys Choir product said of his note producer. “It’s helped me to meet great people and make amazing discoveries about myself.”
DelCorio attended South Philadelphia High School, 2101 S. Broad St., where he added acting to his creative output, yet he gave music and the stage a rest as a communications major at Temple University, through which he envisioned becoming an announcer. Changing his focus to finance and business, he then completed his master’s curriculum at the University of Pennsylvania, with the Ivy League school helping to yield his vocation as a Washington Township, N.J.-based residential mortgage company branch manager.
“As with all good things, you find your way back to home, to your heart,” he said of returning to his childhood passions.
Regardless of his endeavor, DelCorio approaches each task with abundant energy and acknowledges being genuine as his chief charge.
“I want to give off that sense of awareness and maturity, especially with acting, which, because of its nature, some assume is fake, but it doesn’t have to be,” the budding thespian, whose filmography includes Martin Scorcese’s ’93 release “The Age of Innocence,” 2008’s “Sleeping with the Fishes,” with direction by his cousin and Queen Village resident Peter Defeo, and last year’s “Inside Pocket,” said. “There has to be that allegiance to the audience’s sensitivities. With a movie, people are looking for the human-interest aspect. I can’t imagine music is any different than that.”
Having come a long way from his boyhood days of singing and dancing at family weddings, DelCorio, husband of 23 years to Jean and father of 21-year-old Anjelica, retains his penchant for wholesome examination of the human condition courtesy of melodies. Like Bobby Darin, another of his heroes, who declared “There’s nothin’ in the world can hurt me long as I’m singin’ my song,” DelCorio plans to remain confident that music can shape lives.
“It’s molded mine,” he said, “and I love honoring the benefactors of my formation.”
For tickets, visit swinginthestandards.com.
Contact Staff Writer Joseph Myers at jmyers@southphillyreview.com or ext. 124.
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