Don Rondo (born Donald T. Rondeau; January 5, 1930 – January 27, 2011) was an American

singer Singing is the act of creating musical sounds with the voice. A person who sings is called a singer, artist or vocalist (in jazz and/or popular music). Singers perform music (arias, recitatives, songs, etc.) that can be sung with or without ...

popular music Popular music is music with wide appeal that is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. These forms and styles can be enjoyed and performed by people with little or no musical training.Popular Music. (2015). ''Fun ...

ballad A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads derive from the medieval French ''chanson balladée'' or ''ballade'', which were originally "dance songs". Ballads were particularly characteristic of the popular poetry and ...

s during the mid-1950s, known for his distinctive

baritone A baritone is a type of classical male singing voice whose vocal range lies between the bass and the tenor voice-types. The term originates from the Greek (), meaning "heavy sounding". Composers typically write music for this voice in the r ...

voice The human voice consists of sound made by a human being using the vocal tract, including talking, singing, laughing, crying, screaming, shouting, humming or yelling. The human voice frequency is specifically a part of human sound production in ...

Career

Rondo, born in Ware, Massachusetts, first became popular following the 1956 release of his rendition of the

song A song is a musical composition intended to be performed by the human voice. This is often done at distinct and fixed pitches (melodies) using patterns of sound and silence. Songs contain various forms, such as those including the repetitio ...

" Two Different Worlds". Released by

Jubilee Records Jubilee Records was an American independent record label, specializing in rhythm and blues and novelty records. It was founded in New York City in 1946 by Herb Abramson. His partner was Jerry Blaine. Blaine bought Abramson's half of the compan ...

in October 1956, the song spent three months on the ''

Billboard A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertise ...

chart A chart (sometimes known as a graph) is a graphical representation for data visualization, in which "the data is represented by symbols, such as bars in a bar chart, lines in a line chart, or slices in a pie chart". A chart can represent tabu ...

, peaking at #11.

Joel Whitburn Joel Carver Whitburn (November 29, 1939 – June 14, 2022) was an American author and music historian, responsible for setting up the Record Research, Inc. series of books on record chart placings. Early life Joel Carver Whitburn was born in Wau ...

, ''The Billboard Book of Top 40 Hits''. 7th edn, 2000 It eventually sold more than a million copies, and established Rondo at a time when music of his genre was facing strong competition from

rock and roll Rock and roll (often written as rock & roll, rock 'n' roll, or rock 'n roll) is a Genre (music), genre of popular music that evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s. It Origins of rock and roll, originated from Africa ...

. Among his

television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertisin ...

appearances was a 1957 appearance on the TV

game show A game show is a genre of broadcast viewing entertainment (radio, television, internet, stage or other) where contestants compete for a reward. These programs can either be participatory or Let's Play, demonstrative and are typically directed b ...

, '' To Tell the Truth''. Jubilee quickly followed the success of "Two Different Worlds" with another release, a double

A-side The A-side and B-side are the two sides of phonograph records and cassettes; these terms have often been printed on the labels of two-sided music recordings. The A-side usually features a recording that its artist, producer, or record company ...

, "The Love I Never Had" and "Don't", which was an entirely different song from the Elvis Presley song of the same name. However, this release fared less well, and a third

single Single may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * Single (music), a song release Songs * "Single" (Natasha Bedingfield song), 2004 * "Single" (New Kids on the Block and Ne-Yo song), 2008 * "Single" (William Wei song), 2016 * "Single", by ...

, "On Forgotten Street", also failed to make an impact. Changing tempo in 1957, Rondo's next release was a cheerful number, "

White Silver Sands "White Silver Sands" is a popular song. The words and music were written in 1957 by Charles "Red" Matthews, although partial authorship is also claimed by Gladys Reinhart. The song was a hit for Don Rondo in the summer of 1957, and peaked at numb ...

written Writing is a medium of human communication which involves the representation of a language through a system of physically inscribed, mechanically transferred, or digitally represented symbols. Writing systems do not themselves constitute h ...

by Red Matthews, which provided Rondo with a #7 chart

hit Hit means to strike someone or something. Hit or HIT may also refer to: Arts, entertainment and media Fictional entities * Hit, a fictional character from '' Dragon Ball Super'' * Homicide International Trust, or HIT, a fictional organization ...

. The song actually became Jubilee's biggest selling record, and another million-seller, but the

gold disc Music recording certification is a system of certifying that a music recording has shipped, sold, or streamed a certain number of units. The threshold quantity varies by type (such as album, single, music video) and by nation or territory (see ...

-winning "White Silver Sands" was to be Rondo's last major hit. On the B-side of this record was the jazz standard "

Stars Fell on Alabama "Stars Fell on Alabama" is a 1934 jazz standard composed by Frank Perkins with lyrics by Mitchell Parish. History The title of the song appears to have been borrowed from the title of the 1934 book of the same name by Carl Carmer. It refers t ...

". Other releases followed, including "There's Only You" and "Forsaking All Others", but these barely made it into the charts. Rondo appeared on the February 5, 1957, broadcast of the

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...

game show '' To Tell the Truth''. Nearly stumping the entire panel, Rondo received only one vote, from panelist

Glenn Ford Gwyllyn Samuel Newton "Glenn" Ford (May 1, 1916 – August 30, 2006) was a Canadian-American actor who often portrayed ordinary men in unusual circumstances. Ford was most prominent during Classical Hollywood cinema, Hollywood's Golden Age as ...

New York Yankees The New York Yankees are an American professional baseball team based in the Boroughs of New York City, New York City borough of the Bronx. The Yankees compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) Amer ...

baseball player

Jerry Coleman Gerald Francis Coleman (September 14, 1924 – January 5, 2014) was a Major League Baseball (MLB) second baseman for the New York Yankees and manager of the San Diego Padres for one year. Coleman was named the rookie of the year in 1949 by Ass ...

appeared as one of the other two imposters, receiving two votes. After leaving Jubilee, Rondo signed with

Atlantic Records Atlantic Recording Corporation (simply known as Atlantic Records) is an American record label founded in October 1947 by Ahmet Ertegun and Herb Abramson. Over its first 20 years of operation, Atlantic earned a reputation as one of the most i ...

, where he released another double A-side, "Malibu" / "So Did I". He also recorded songs for Carlton Records,

Roulette Roulette is a casino game named after the French word meaning ''little wheel'' which was likely developed from the Italian game Biribi''.'' In the game, a player may choose to place a bet on a single number, various groupings of numbers, the ...

and

Decca Decca may refer to: Music * Decca Records or Decca Music Group, a record label * Decca Gold, a classical music record label owned by Universal Music Group * Decca Broadway, a musical theater record label * Decca Studios, a recording facility in W ...

. Among his Carlton releases was "A Hoot 'n A Holler", while his Roulette

recordings A record, recording or records may refer to: An item or collection of data Computing * Record (computer science), a data structure ** Record, or row (database), a set of fields in a database related to one entity ** Boot sector or boot record, r ...

included "The Golden Rule". Among his Decca recordings are "Beyond The Mighty River" and "Evening Star". None of these achieved the success of his early Jubilee material, however, and musical tastes had, by then, dramatically shifted. By the mid-1960s, Rondo had moved into broadcasting. He did a number of

voiceover Voice-over (also known as off-camera or off-stage commentary) is a production technique where a voice—that is not part of the narrative (non-diegetic)—is used in a radio, television production, filmmaking, theatre, or other presentations. ...

s for radio and television commercials, including the popular jingles "Where the Rubber Meets the Road" for Firestone and "It's Us , Or Rust" for

Ziebart Ziebart International Corporation is a privately owned corporation based in Troy, Michigan, and is the worldwide franchisor of the Ziebart brand of automotive aftermarket stores. Services offered by Ziebart stores include rustproofing, paint se ...

. In his later years, he became a

radio Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmit ...

personality Personality is the characteristic sets of behaviors, cognitions, and emotional patterns that are formed from biological and environmental factors, and which change over time. While there is no generally agreed-upon definition of personality, mos ...

New Hampshire New Hampshire is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Gulf of Maine to the east, and the Canadian province of Quebec t ...

. Rondo died January 27, 2011, after a year-long battle with lung cancer.Home.comcast.net - accessed May 2009

References

External links

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Rondo, Don 1930 births 2011 deaths American male pop singers Traditional pop music singers Jubilee Records artists Carlton Records artists