Word: lemongello
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Dates: during 1976-1976
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...while he was bombing in show business, Lemongello was succeeding in a lot of other fields. In Islip, he turned an egg-selling job into a distributorship, using the profits to invest in some gas stations, which he then swapped for a chain of coin-operated laundries. He was moving into land speculation and home building when he told the local Islip banker who was financing his housing deals about his moribund career as a crooner. The banker gave him an idea: If he could sell eggs and laundries and houses, why not himself...
...Lemongello and his banker chum formed a corporation and invested $32,000 in a one-shot showcase performance at the Westbury Music Fair, a theater near Islip, aimed at attracting other partners. They found six, among them the owner of a Long Island Midas Muffler franchise and an Islip doctor. The six put up $390,000, and Lemongello worked out a plan to hit the New York metropolitan-area market, as he puts it, "like a slow-release time bomb." He cut a two-record album, Love 76, then in January activated his bomb: a 13-week, $187,000 campaign...
They worked: Lemongello fans were born. One Brooklyn girl started staying up until 4:30 a.m. just to see his one-minute ad on TV. Another kissed the tube whenever he appeared. He booked a concert at Manhattan's Lincoln Center, and it sold out. Westbury asked him back for a one-week gig for $100,000. Love 76 has sold 43,000 copies, through mail orders drawn by the TV spots. Lemongello was becoming a household word of sorts-at least in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. But, as he ruefully admitted, "if you mentioned my name...
Chance to Buy. So last month Lemongello took his pitch to Los Angeles and Las Vegas with a $210,000 TV-commercial campaign. If that did not bring the record companies to their knees, promised Lemongello's banker friend, it would be on to Chicago and Texas and Florida: "We'll take him to eight or twelve cities, if necessary, to give people a chance to buy our product...
Last week Private Stock, a scrambling, young recording company that handles Frankie Valli, José Feliciano and the Troggs, signed on Lemongello. His backers in Long Island-not to mention viewers in Chicago, Texas and Florida-can relax for a while...