Don Costa

Dominik P. "Don" Costa ( born June 10, 1925 in Boston, Massachusetts, † January 19, 1983 in New York City ) was a successful American musician and music producer and has worked with stars like Frank Sinatra, Paul Anka, Barbra Streisand and Dean Martin together. Don Costa is the father of Nikka Costa.

Life

Don Costa was born on 10 June 1925 as the youngest of five children in Boston. When he was 8 years old, he taught himself to play the guitar. At 15, he was a member of the CBS Radio Orchestra in Boston, but his real career began as a studio musician in New York. He and Bucky Pizzarelli played the guitar behind Vaughn Monroe among others, whose biggest hit ( Ghost ) Riders in the Sky. His big break came when the Vokalduo Gormé Eydie and Steve Lawrence anheuerten him as an arranger. Costa, Gormé and Lawrence switched to ABC - Paramount, and Costa became the leading Hausarrangeur and producer. During his time at ABC - Paramount Costa discovered the young Paul Anka; So there seems to be no coincidence that Paul Anka later wrote the lyrics for Frank Sinatra's My Way. Don Costa arranged and produced from 1957 for Paul Anka, inter alia, the hits Diana and Lonely Boy.

1959 Costa joined with Lawrence and Gormé the newly founded United Artists label, and Costa released several albums under his own name. His cover version of Never On Sunday sold over a million copies and was the most successful adaptation of the song. The arranger and jazz trombonist Billy Byers called him the " Puccini of Pop", and meant that his music is full of melody, usually stocky with a choir.

In the early 1960s Don Costa founded his own production company, Don Costa Productions, and arranged many recordings, among others with Trini Lopez and Little Anthony & The Imperials.

To recognize Costas main instinct, the music of the time and arrange, also impressed Frank Sinatra. Sinatra hired him for the first time in 1961 directly from Lawrence and Gormé as his arranger, later also as producers of various, partly also from Costa -arranged albums and singles on his newly established label Reprise.

Don Costa was working in the 1970s, partly as a tour leader with Sinatra together, but had to back in 1975 after having suffered a heart attack in Frankfurt during a European tour from this post withdraw and then was limited to studio work. The last arranged by Costa pieces for Sinatra emerged in 1982.

Don Costa arranged over 200 musical successes, including with Barbra Streisand and Dean Martin, in such diverse genres as pop, jazz, swing, disco and film music.

In addition to the well-known albums that he arranged with Sinatra, as Cycles ( 1968) or My Way (1969 ), he was also a producer of Ol 'Blue Eyes Is Back (1973). 1960 increased his single Theme From ' The Unforgiven ' ( The Need For Love ) in the U.S. 30 charts, and with Never On Sunday, he won an Academy Award. He also composed, inter alia, the film music for the following films: Rough Night In Jericho (1967 ), Madigan (1968) and The Impossible Years ( 1968).

In 1981, two years before his death, he released the single ( Out Here ) On My Own, arranged by Don Costa and sung by Nikki Costa, his 10 - year-old daughter. The song has sold over 3 million copies.

How can you describe Don Costa? " Very simply, Costa was a genius ," says producer Denny Diante. " He had great ideas, just as he was an incredible arranger. He knew what sells and what does not. He also had a vast knowledge when it comes to songs. "

Filmography

246156
de