No Wonder My Happy Heart Sings...

Hi everybody!!...Well my family reunion went much better than expected. When me and my brother Mark got to the party, I was quite suprised to see my baby brother Matt had driven up all the way from Virginia. I say Baby brother.... he was born the same week JFK got shot!!!
But to Me, is my baby brother!! Matt is also a U.S.Navy retiree, and when he was stationed in the Phillipines he married a Phillipino girl named Nanette. He had 2 beautiful children, and they are now 17 and 14. I had never met either of my nieces, and he brought the youngest up with him..Wow!! What a beautiful child....we have talked lots over the years, and I was always that "Crazy Uncle Galen" that had a Harley! So all in all, it was grand...I hugged and kissed cousins and aunts that I had not seen in 30 years, and they were all glad to see me!!
We exchanged many stories of our wasted youth, and lamented over the relatives that are no longer with us. On the way home we were playing the Oldies station, (What Else?) and an old song by Bobby Rydell came on the radio named "Volare". My brother asked who sang it, and I told him... he said that he thought Dean Martin had sung it, I said he did! I also told him that I thought that the guy that played "Johnny Fontaine" in the 1st "Godfather" had a version of it.
So of course that got the Old G-Man thinking of my Musical Monday post, I did a little research, and this is what I came up with.....

The original version of "Volare" was in Italian. It was sung by Dominico Modungo, and was a Million seller in the U.S., and was the #1 record in 1958. The original title however was not called "Volare", but "Nel Blu, Dipinto di Blu"(Literal translation:" the blue, painted in blue")..
The lyrics told a story of a man dreaming he was flying through the air with his hands painted blue.....When Modungo's record started selling in the U.S., American artists started clammering for an English-Version of the song. So a fellow by the name of Mitchel Parish wrote new lyrics, retitling the song "Volare". About a dozen versions were released right away, and combined sales in the U.S. alone were about 8 Million...The best-selling American renditions were:
Dean Martin's (#12 in 1958), Bobby Rydell's (#4 in 1960), Al Martino's (#15 in 1975)...
Shoot, even Chrysler named a car after the song, in fact, I owned a 1979 Plymouth Volare...
I remember that car well, because I put an Alpine stereo system in it with a 40 watt power booster, and 2 twelve inch Jenson Speakers. Each speaker had a 20 OZ Magnet, and for the time was kick-ass!!!!!....Hahahaha, by today standards it would seem very wimpy....
Have a great week.....Peace!