Mr Rydell’s death was confirmed by marketing and event coordinator Maria Novey, who said he died Tuesday afternoon at Jefferson Abington Hospital. He said Mr Rydell’s death was unexpected, although he had many health problems, dating back to 2012, when he underwent a double transplant to replace a liver and a kidney. Philadelphia DJ Jerry Blavat had booked Mr. Rydell to appear at the Kimmel Center in January, but the singer was unable to appear due to ill health. The cause of death was pneumonia complications unrelated to COVID-19, according to Novey. Mr Rydell’s wife, Linda J. Hoffman, was at the hospital next to him, Blavat said. Along with Frankie Avalon, Chubby Checker and Fabian Forte, Mr. Rydell was one of four South Philly teen idols to reach a national audience in the late 1950s and early 1960s through Dick Clark’s television show in Philadelphia. American Bandstand. On Twitter, singer Tommy James called Mr. Rydell “a good friend and one of my idols. He will miss her a lot “. Adam Weiner of the Philadelphia band Low Cut Connie called him a “South Philly legend. “Bobby made the best version of ‘Volare’ ever.” Born Robert Ridarelli, he won a talent contest at Paul Whiteman’s TV Teen Club performance in 1950 and shortly thereafter changed its stage name to Rydell. Before he was a teenager, he was an international star, touring Australia with the Everly Brothers in 1960 and becoming the youngest singer to ever lead the Copacabana in New York in 1961. His successes were many, starting when he signed with Philly’s Cameo Records (which would later become Cameo Parkway) in 1959. His first was “Kissin ‘Time”, followed by “We Got Love”, his first seller “Little Bitty Girl”, his second, in 1960, with a cover of Domenico Modugno’s “Volare” and “Wildwood Days”, in 1963, became a celebration and nostalgia song for generations of Jersey Shore fans. of the Philadelphia area. That same year, she starred opposite Ann-Margret and Dick Van Dyke in the film version of the musical. Bye Bye Birdie. His name was so closely associated with the vintage rock and roll era before the British invasion that the school’s 1971 musical and 1978 film Grease was known as Rydell High. Of all the teenage singers, “he had the best blowjobs,” Blavat said Tuesday. “He could do Sinatra, he could do anything. Listen to “Volare”. He could do comedy. He was playing drums. He was a great imitator. It was up The Red Skelton Show many times. “He could be as big as Bobby Darin, but he did not want to leave Philadelphia.” Mr. Rydell’s father, Adrio, started taking him to South Philadelphia nightclubs such as the RDA Club and the Erie Social Club when he was 7, asking if his talented son could sit and play drums with his band. of the house. He started out as a fan in his early teens, before becoming a rock-and-roll sensation that, along with Avalon, Fabian and Checker, helped fill the void left for passionate teenage heartthrob when Elvis Presley’s career came to a halt when went. the Army in 1958. “I was not really a rock and roll singer,” Rydel told The Inquirer in 2016, when his memoirs were published. Teen Idol on the Rocks: A Tale of Second Chances. “It simply came to our notice then. I’m an American Songbook guy. “ If asked for his favorite song in his repertoire, Mr. Rydell would answer without hesitation. It was the “Wildwood Days”, the ode to the seaside town where, when he grew up in a dollhouse on 11th Street in South Philly, he could escape. His grandmother had a boarding house there. “It’s the national anthem of the Jersey Shore,” he said. When Mr. Rydell’s career took off in 1961, his father resigned as a foreman at Electro-Nite Carbon Co. to become the road manager. A few years later, Mr. Rydell moved his parents and grandparents to a house with him in the Penn Valley, where he lived until he moved to Blue Bell in 2019. Big hits stopped coming to the Philly teens in the mid-1960s, after Bandstand moved to Los Angeles and the Beatles arrived. But Rydel kept playing. “[I] I can not believe the vocal ability [Rydell] has, “said Avalon in 2016.” As an actor, as a comedian, as an impressionist, he has a relationship with the public, he is without a doubt one of the most talented human beings of my entire generation. “ The title of Rydell’s memoirs referred to his struggles with alcohol, which he said began in 1992 when his first wife, Camille, who died in 2003, was first diagnosed with breast cancer. “I had no right to feel sorry for myself,” he wrote Teen Idol. “I knew very well how I got here. Decades of drink had ruined my body and destroyed my liver and kidneys. “I had no one to blame but really yours.” Mr. Rydel married Hoffman, a nurse and X-ray technician, in 2009. After a 20-hour double kidney and liver transplant in 2012, he underwent heart bypass surgery the following year. However, Mr. Rydell, whose face adorns murals in South Philadelphia and Wildwood, continued to play, especially with Forte and Avalon. With the Golden Boys and as a solo performer, Mr. Rydell averaged about three dozen performances a year before the pandemic began. The trio returned to the stage in Lancaster in August, but Mr. Rydel was unable to do a show in Florida in January. He was completed by the singer Lou Christie. A show at the Golden Nugget Hotel & Casino in Atlantic City, originally scheduled for March, was rescheduled for June, “and we hoped he would get his strength back to be able to do this show,” he said. Novey. Novey first met Rydell and Hoffman on a Malt Shop Memories cruise where he played “and just sat and talked and took pictures with everyone,” Novey said. “He was just a guy from Philadelphia who never forgot where he came from. I have never seen him reject an autograph request and I mean never. We would wait for the car and sign an autograph on the roof. He was just so grateful and he was definitely not selfish. “ In addition to his wife, Mr. Rydell has survived his daughter, Jennifer Dulin, and his son, Robert Ridarelli, and five grandchildren. No arrangements have been made for the funeral or memorial service at this time.
