{"id":1243,"date":"2013-11-04T13:07:11","date_gmt":"2013-11-04T13:07:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/?p=1243"},"modified":"2014-12-23T18:36:21","modified_gmt":"2014-12-23T18:36:21","slug":"bobby-vinton-orchestra-at-a-wilkinsburg-sock-hop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/2013\/11\/04\/bobby-vinton-orchestra-at-a-wilkinsburg-sock-hop\/","title":{"rendered":"Bobby Vinton Orchestra at a Wilkinsburg sock hop"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\" <\/a> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Vinton <\/a>
Vinton with Guy Lombardo. <\/div> <\/div>
\"Vinton <\/a>
Vinton in an undated photo with his father. <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Vinton <\/a>
Vinton at age 4. <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n

The picture that leads this blog post was taken in the third month of what would prove to be a very turbulent decade. Within ten years we would become familiar with assassinations, wars and riots. We\u2019d witness the British Invasion and the Hippie movement. But in March 1960, teenagers in Wilkinsburg were still wearing bobby socks, putting grease in their hair and acting like the 50s would never end.<\/p>\n

Like wow, daddy-o.<\/p>\n

And the music? The kids were bopping to the Bobby Vinton Orchestra. That\u2019s right. Vinton and his crew can be seen in the back of the image, behind the shy boys watching everybody else have all the fun.<\/p>\n

Vinton at the time was 24 and two years away from his first hit single, \u201cRoses are Red.\u201d When that record was released in 1962, Vinton bought 1,000 copies and got a young woman to deliver a disc and a dozen roses to every record spinner in town. By July of \u201862, \u201cRoses are Red\u201d topped the charts. The \u201cPolish Prince\u201d had arrived.<\/p>\n

A year later came Vinton\u2019s most famous song, \u201cBlue Velvet,\u201d which topped the charts in September 1963. It was still popular on the airwaves when news of President John F. Kennedy\u2019s assassination was broadcast in November of that year.<\/p>\n

Beatlemania came to America in 1964. Then came Herman\u2019s Hermits, the Dave Clark Five, the Rolling Stones, and countless other British bands. Many of Vinton\u2019s contemporaries \u2014 Connie Francis, for example, and Ricky Nelson \u2014 fell from the charts. Vinton, though, continued to produce hits like \u201cPlease Love Me Forever\u201d (1967) and \u201cI Love How You Love Me\u201d (1968).<\/p>\n

But before all of that, before the hits and the fame, Vinton was a kid from Canonsburg, the son of band leader <\/span>Stan Vinton and his wife Dorothy Studzinski Vinton. Vinton was the kid who formed a band at age 15 and went on to play gigs around town to help finance his education at Duquesne University. And he was the band leader who provided the musical backdrop to bunch of teenagers from Wilkinsburg who simply wanted to dance on a March evening in 1960.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The picture that leads this blog post was taken in the third month of what would prove to be a very turbulent decade.<\/p>\n

Look at the picturesBobby Vinton Orchestra at a Wilkinsburg sock hop<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":1244,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"gallery","meta":{"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[948],"tags":[962,986,1266],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/tumblr_mvnrm0TdMH1rr5swxo1_1280.jpg?fit=1280%2C944&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6292,"url":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/2016\/01\/13\/teachers-strike-in-the-wilkinsburg-school-district\/","url_meta":{"origin":1243,"position":0},"title":"Teachers strike in the Wilkinsburg School District","date":"January 13, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Classes were cancelled and the high school became like \"a ghost town.\"","rel":"","context":"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/Digs.Wilkinsburgh007.jpg?fit=1200%2C890&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":8814,"url":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/2018\/06\/12\/picturing-the-drug-raids-of-the-just-say-no-era\/","url_meta":{"origin":1243,"position":1},"title":"Picturing the drug raids of the ‘Just Say No’ era","date":"June 12, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"If there\u2019s one thing all middle-schoolers learn in health class, it\u2019s that you don\u2019t have to do drugs to be cool. 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