Singer never forgot roots

The Lettermen return to the area for a show at Stambaugh Auditorium.
By JOHN BENSON
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
The Lettermen singer/entertainer Tony Butala has a fondness for Sharon, Pa., the city he called home for the first 11 years of his life.
What his family lacked in finances they made up for with love, which is something Butala still preaches today.
"I was born in a five-room house, number eight of 11 children on the west hill, the poor side of town," said Butala, calling from a Lettermen tour stop in Milwaukee. "And I slept in the same bed with my brothers until I was 10 years old. I never thought anything of it. I had my share of hand-me-downs and went to Russell Street School. So when I did venture out of the neighborhood and people started teasing me about being poor, I just whistled real loud and my older brothers would come running and beat them up."
As a child, Butala's parents noticed he never stood still for more than a second. So his mother decided some extracurricular activity -- blowing off some steam -- would best suit his demeanor. Little did she know, within a few years he'd be earning the family money with his natural singing talents.
"I was probably what they'd call an ADD [attention deficit disorder] child now," Butala said with a laugh. "I was full of energy and a hellion in school. I was active and so they enrolled me in a dancing school. I went a couple of times a week and I enjoyed it."
Local sensation
Within a few years, Butala was a local phenomenon, often playing minstrel shows ("They were horrible," said the 66-year-old singer) throughout Youngstown, Warren and Niles and was even a regular on Pittsburgh radio station KDKA-AM 1020's "Starlets on Parade" show. The latter earned the then 8-year-old Butala an astounding 15 to 25 a show in the late '40s.
When a family illness required his mother to travel to Los Angeles to take care of her cousin, the dominos were starting to fall into place for Butala. Soon he was in Hollywood, joining the famous Mitchell Boys Choir and appearing in such famous feature films as "White Christmas," "Peter Pan," "War of the Worlds" and more. Still, it wasn't until he formed The Lettermen that his dream was truly realized.
"The Lettermen are different than a lot of the vocal groups because when the Lettermen started out, we were entertainers without hit records," Butala said. "We started in 1958 in Vegas and didn't record until 1960. So we are an entertainment group that happened to have hits in the '60s and '70s."
He added, "We're like Sammy Davis and Wayne Newton, that kind of an act. Not a vocal group but an entertainment package."
Humble despite success
During its heyday, The Lettermen enjoyed 25 hit singles ("Theme From A Summer Place," "Goin' Out of My Head/Can't Take My Eyes Off You," "Hurt So Bad" and more), four gold albums and toured with the era's elite, such as George Burns, Jack Benny, Bob Hope, Bill Cosby and others.
No matter how much success came Butala's way, he remained humble and always remembered his roots. It's these exact sentiments that eventually led to his interest in creating the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in Sharon. He tells a story of seeing a friend of his, a former No. 1 hit-making singer who fell on bad times, as a busboy in Las Vegas. It was right then that Butala made a promise to himself.
"I'm a little kid from the poor side of Sharon, Pa., starring with George Burns in Vegas, and I said, 'There but for the grace of God go I,'" Butala said. "Good luck and fortune smiled on me. I said then and there in 1963, somewhere, sometime, someplace, somehow I'm going to have a place to honor the greatest vocalists in the world."
While he got his friend another singing gig a few months later, it would take over three decades before Butala's dream of the Vocal Group Hall of Fame came to fruition. After talking to various entertainment organizations about the idea, it wasn't until the mid-'90s that he found a receptive ear in Sharon's business leader Jim Winner.
Youngstown show
Currently on an 18-show, 20-day holiday tour, Butala returns to the area with his beloved Lettermen for a show Friday at Stambaugh Auditorium in Youngstown. Audiences better come prepared to sing along to all of the group's hits and seasonal favorites.
"When we do the Christmas show, what we're not going to do is duplicate records on stage," Butala said. "Our reputation has preceded us. We have an obligation to make sure that the audience is truly entertained and walks out with the glow of the holiday spirit."