Features

June 14, 2009

Rydell makes a local splash

When his father was away serving in the military, Bobby Rydell’s mother wrote him letters saying “You know, the baby is always singing!”

His dad wrote back, “Who knows? Maybe one day we’ll have a star in the family.”

How right he was.

Fifty years after recording his first hit song, “Kissin’ Time,” the 67-year-old Rydell, known for his work with Frankie Avalon and Fabian, as well as for appearing on the Red Skelton Show and the Danny Thomas Show, is still touring and energizing crowds.

He’s set to appear Friday at Mohegan Sun at Pocono Downs as part of “Music, Memories and Medicine,” a gala with proceeds benefiting the Volunteers in Medicine Free Clinic, which also includes entertainment by DJ Joe Shaver and some professional dancers, in addition to a live auction, food and an open bar.

Rydell goes on at 9 p.m.

“We could not be more excited to have Bobby Rydell. For those of us who are vintage, he was our hero,” said Dr. Susan Sordoni, founder of the Volunteers in Medicine Clinic. “He has matured from a teenage idol to a mature performer and singer with a continuing successful career.”

“If I had any talent in me whatsoever, my dad was the first to see it,” Rydell said from his home in Penn Valley, outside Philadelphia, recalling how his father used to take him to city nightclubs and ask the owners if then 8-year-old Rydell could get up and perform.

“I said, ‘Wow, Dad, all I have to do is this, and that’s the way the audience responds?’ ”

Audiences have responded well throughout his 50-year career, which has produced hit songs such as “We Got Love,” “Wild One,” “Swingin’ School” and “Wildwood Days,” among others.

He also appeared in the 1963 version of the movie “Bye, Bye Birdie” and on an episode of “Combat” in 1964.

“Back then I was much more confined,” he said of the days when his singles were hitting the top spots on the music charts.

Nowadays his life is more subdued, and he’s able to go out to dinner with his group of friends or his wife, Linda Hoffman, who, interesting enough, bears the same name as his fan-club president.

“A friend said ‘I met a girl named Linda Hoffman for you,’ ” Rydell, a South Philadelphia native, remembered.

He assumed he was referring to the fan-club president, whom Rydell calls Linda 1. (He’s known her since 1959.)

Linda 2, his wife, is a native of Scranton, which is how Rydell ended up agreeing to perform at the benefit Friday.

That and the fact that it’s a good cause, he said.

“I really don’t call it work,” Rydell said. “I just love doing what I do.”

“I still do a lot of comedy in the shows,” he explained. “Hopefully they can laugh a lot.”

More than 85 percent of money raised likely will be used to take care of the direct needs of patients, Sordoni said.

Rydell said he will perform all his old favorites and “various other tunes that artists have recorded.”

The legend has no plans to stop anytime soon.

“If my health is fine, I’ll keep going. If my voice is still working, I’ll just try to keep doing it.”

Just like Frank Sinatra, he said.

Sordoni said the clinic’s fundraising committee hopes the theme continues in future years to “represent a different decade of culture and music each year.”

This year, attendees are invited to wear 1950s attire.

“Come as a ’50s star, or come as you are,” she said.

IF YOU GO

What: Volunteers in Medicine Fundraising Gala

Where: Mohegan Sun at Pocono Downs

When: 6 p.m. Friday

Entertainment schedule: DJ Joe Shaver (7:45-9 p.m.), live auction (8:15), Bobby Rydell (9 p.m.)

Cost: $125 per ticket (Must have been purchased in advance.)

More info or to see if extra tickets are available: 970-2864

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