Mike Sterlacci: About The Artist

A successful career in music always makes for an exciting story. When that career spans fifty years, and when the artist in question somehow keeps hitting a fresh and more exciting stride with each new decade, something closer to sheer wonder is called for.

Mike Sterlacci - songwriter, entertainer, lounge pianist, recording artist, vocal stylist - has been around, yes, that long. He would be the first to say so, with a gleam in his eye. Along with the select others of the breed, he knows that the years are no drawback. They provide the space needed to truly become one with the craft you have loved from the beginning. Mike's start was a black-and-white movie. He was a Jersey City boy in a time when boys had to be men by the time they started shaving. A mile down the street was Hoboken; this was Sinatra and Roselli land, a world of Italian immigrants, shouting, quick wits, and dreams. There was, of course, no money. Mike's father had been a professional musician but the needs of raising his family dictated a job as a railroad brakeman. Music in the Sterlacci home was limited to the radio. But the radio then was an extraordinary thing. The very young Michael Sterlacci was not the first boy in hard circumstances to find magic within it. Times were hard and the family was growing. Yet astounding songs by Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, and Harold Arlen were coming into their home, carried by the incomparable voices of Ella Fitzgerald, Perry Como, Jo Stafford and the other greats of the era. By the age of ten Mike was begging his father for piano lessons. In six months, three teachers had given up on him. He had no ear, they said, and didn't take to the instruction. They were half right. Mike taught himself to play.

At sixteen Mike was performing at dinner dances, church events, and political clubs in the neighborhood. The pay was dinner - maybe - and there was school the next day. The pianos on which Mike played were unfailingly ancient, out-of-tune uprights. Keys were broken, his fellow high school musicians were playing chords part of no recognized scale, and Mike's back was always to the audience. It was a musical baptism of fire. And Mike loved it, and was loved by the crowds.

At twenty-one Mike Sterlacci was an accomplished piano man, entertaining at saloons and restaurants, dives and smarter nightclubs in New Jersey and New York. His talent, charm and already extensive repertoire kept him in demand. He was learning all the time, finding his music, exploring the glorious standards of the day, and understanding his audiences. He was also working full-time days and attending college classes at night.

Mike's first band, "Mike Robin and The Robins", was formed when he was twenty-five. They brought home two dollars for their first engagement. Within six months they were booked at the most popular clubs of the area. Mike became the band's lead vocalist. He had to. No one else could sing, and a baritone that has steadily grown in scope and distinction was born. "Mike and the Robins" became a regular attraction at the Fountain Cocktail Lounge in Fairview, opening for a succession of top Motown acts. "Jay and The Americans", "The Chirells", "The Duprees", "The Chiffons", "The Happenings": these were the huge names of the day. Mike Sterlacci, alias Mike Robin, would accompany these artists after opening for them.

Years of steady work followed. Mike wrote songs - "So Glad I'm Crying", "Now That I've Found You", "Come Back and End These Blues" - and he and the Robins recorded them on the Clarity label. "Come Back" charted well in cities in the Northeast, and more and better engagements for the band came. Mike had as well a thriving business career in New York and a family to care for. It was a life that today would be classified as an overachiever's. Then, Mike was merely doing what a man did. And making time, somehow, for his music. "Mike Robin and The Robins" disbanded in 1967. It was, ironically, the band's success that brought Mike to this decision. People couldn't get enough of Rhythm and Blues, of Rock 'n Roll. The Robins did these genres superbly, but Mike's heart was with the standards he'd grown up with. It was with Dorsey and Sinatra, and with the enduring songs of Gershwin and Mercer. Like any artist, Mike needed to be close to what he knew and loved best. So he explored other venues, returning to saloon playing and singing in New York and New Jersey clubs. A business dinner in 1973 found Mike at what would become his second home for four years: Puddings, at Lexington Avenue and 91st Street, in Manhattan. It began with Mike wandering over to the old upright that first night and playing around with a song or two. Before long, Friday nights at Puddings belonged to Mike Sterlacci. A devoted following filled the place each week, with guest musicians joining in now and then, and glowing recommendations from New York entertainment guides such as Cue and Best Bets.

In 1978 Mike opened his own place, Sir Robin's, in Jersey City. His restaurant enjoyed full houses and stellar reviews, and the clientele packed the space to hear Mike perform with his brother Victor and Margaret Ann, Mike's daughter. Selling Sir Robin's in 1986, and after freelancing in the metropolitan area until 1992, Mike turned to the Hamptons of Long Island. Montauk - beautifully celebrated by Mike in a song he composed - became another home to him, and his playing and singing was embraced by the town. The name Mike Sterlacci drew people to the West Cove, Rushmeyer's Restaurant, the South Fork Country Club and other popular Hamptons' spots because they knew the name of Mike Sterlacci was synonymous with musicianship, a way with a gorgeous tune all his own, and an excellent evening's entertainment.

Mike had as well fallen in love with Arizona, this would eventually be one of his main residences. His appearances at the Bistro Provence, El Chorro and the Avanti of Phoenix - to name only a few and to ignore his many private bookings - are as eagerly anticipated by the people of Phoenix today as when Mike first won over the city.

The two seemingly contrary locales shared one element, other than Mike's sought-after performing in them: his earnings from his appearances were, from the early nineties on, donated to East Hampton's Animal Rescue Fund or to The Arizona Humane Society. They still are. Aside from the tens of thousands of dollars Mike Sterlacci has contributed in this specific way, less trackable are the many checks he has requested simply be made out, not to him, but to the organizations themselves. Other artists save and prize favorable reviews. Mike Sterlacci's own scrapbook is heavy with cherished letters of thanks from these charities he has been so pleased to help.

Fifty years, give or take. Fifty years of perfecting a style, of learning nuance, of exploring the rich legacy of American popular music at its finest. Of reading and delighting each crowd in a smoky bar in Manhattan, in a bistro on the dunes of Long Island, or at Caesar's in Atlantic City. Of becoming an unparalleled interpreter of the very best songwriters, from Irving Berlin to Billy Joel.

In 2004 Mike released "The Hungry Years". In this astounding CD, it all comes together. The moonlit charm of his own "Old Montauk", the kick of "Route 66", the wit and heartbreak of "Everything Happens to Me", the bittersweet echo of the title cut, "The Hungry Years". This kind of craft, this level of pure musicianship, calls for at least fifty years behind it. And there's new work on the horizon. As Mike himself would croon, giving a sly spin to a Cy Coleman classic, "the best is yet to come".