Deceased--Fred Milano

Fred Milano
August 26th, 1939 to January 1st, 2012

Fred Milano, right, and his friends Angelo D’Aleo, front, and Carlo Mastrangelo, second from right, from the Bronx formed the Belmonts in the mid-1950s, borrowing their name from the borough's Belmont Avenue. They became Dion and the Belmonts after lead singer Dion DiMucci, left, joined in 1958.

"Fred Milano"

January 4, 2012

Los Angeles Times

Doo-wop singer with Dion and the Belmonts

Fred Milano, 72, a singer who made rock 'n' roll history on doo-wop hits with Dion and the Belmonts in the 1950s, died Sunday, three weeks after his lung cancer was diagnosed, said Warren Gradus, who joined the vocal group in 1963.

Milano lived in Massapequa, on New York's Long Island, and died in a hospital, Gradus said.

Milano and his friends Angelo D'Aleo and Carlo Mastrangelo from the Bronx formed the Belmonts in the mid-1950s, borrowing their name from the borough's Belmont Avenue. They became Dion and the Belmonts after lead singer Dion DiMucci joined in 1958.

They had a quick succession of hits, including "I Wonder Why," "No One Knows" and "Teenager in Love."

In February 1959, after a show in Clear Lake, Iowa, the band members boarded a bus for the next show instead of taking a charter plane that crashed that night, killing Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper.

"We didn't know what happened until 2 o'clock the next afternoon when we got to Minnesota," Milano told the Boston Herald in 2000. "It was a shock. A heartbreaker. Then when we called home, everyone thought we were dead because that's what had been reported on the radio."

After DiMucci left for a solo career in 1960, the Belmonts continued to perform and record with different lineups.

In 1967 and 1973, the Belmonts briefly reunited with DiMucci, who was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a solo artist in 1989.

Milano, who was born in the Bronx on Aug. 26, 1939, went back to school in middle age. He became a legal coordinator at New York's Rikers Island jail complex, helping inmates research their cases.

Maybe you can go back home...Dion DiMucci