To Absent Friends - Bobby Rydell

Bobby Rydell

1942-2022

Pop singer and one time teen idol Bobby Rydell died earlier this week at the age of 79, just a few weeks short of his eightieth birthday.   You almost have to be as old as he was to remember Rydell when he was at the height of his popularity, yet, amazingly, Bobby Rydell never really went away.

Rydell, born Robert Ridarelli, came from the same South Philly Italian neighborhood as two other teen idol contemporaries, Frankie Avalon and Fabian.  Dick Clark, whose "American Bandstand" program was being filmed in Philadelphia at the time, latched on to all three of them, and they all became stars.  Their popularity came just after Elvis Presley went into the army and Buddy Holly died in a plane crash in 1959 and ended pretty much in 1964, when the Beatles came to America and essentially changed rock & roll forever.  No one will ever compare Rydell to those artists, yet during that period, he placed 34 singles in Billboard's Hot 100,  nineteen of them reaching the Top 40.  His biggest hits were Wild One and Volare.

He co-starred in the 1963 movie version of "Bye Bye Birdie" but never hung around Hollywood, saying that he was an "east coast guy."  He bought a home in a Philadelphi suburb and lived there with his wife until recent years when it just became "too big" for him, and who can't relate to that?

Like I said, though, Rydell never really went away.  In 1985, he joined up with old Philly buddies Avalon and Fabian and toured as the Golden Boys at nostalgia gigs, cruise ships, pretty much anywhere.  Despite liver and kidney transplant surgery in 2012 and heart bypass surgery in 2013, Rydell performed for the rest of his life.  Somewhere on YouTube you will find a clip of Avalon introducing him at one of these shows as his "old pal Ridarelli."  When Marilyn and I went to Las Vegas for the first time in 2002, I can remember seeing billboards for an act playing there at the time featuring Frankie Avalon and Bobby Rydell.  I always regretted that we didn't make an effort to take in that show.

Fabian, Avalon, and Rydell

"The Golden Boys"

Here's a look at an older Bobby Rydell performing his most famous song.  The audiences still loved him.

RIP Bobby Rydell.