OldMan Zeke
2009-04-16 23:38:35 UTC
Capone's last hit could be a tender love song
The Associated Press
3:12 PM EST April 16, 2009
A=C2=A0framed photo of Al Capone and sheet music for=C2=A0his song
"Madonna Mia," written in pencil by the crime boss while he was at
Alcatraz prison, is up for sale for $65,000.
=C2=A9 AP
He never sang to the feds, but it turns out Al Capone had a song in his
heart. All it took was a stint in Alcatraz to bring it out.
Now, more than 70 years later, the tender love song that the ruthless
crime boss penned while sitting in the pen is being recorded and
released on CD. And an inscribed copy of the music and lyrics to
"Madonna Mia" is up for sale at $65,000.
"It's a beautiful song, a tearjerker," said Rich Larsen of
Caponefanclub.com, who helped line up musicians and singers to record
it.
The story of "Madonna Mia" begins in a cell in Alcatraz, where Scarface
was sent after getting pinched for tax evasion. Capone, who loved opera
and jazz and whose speakeasies hired musicians like Louis Armstrong,
apparently had time to kill.
Capone could read music and liked to play a banjo and a mandola, which
is like a mandolin, only bigger. According to Larsen, who is working on
a documentary about Capone's influence on music in the 1920s and '30s,
the gangster begged the warden for permission to form a small band. The
warden relented, the inmates sent away for instruments, and Capone made
music behind bars.
Enter Vincent Casey. As part of his training to become a Jesuit priest,
Casey would visit Alcatraz to offer spiritual counsel to prisoners in
the 1930s. Casey and Capone talked in the mobster's cell every Saturday
for two years, becoming good friends, said Casey's son, Mike Casey, a
retired airline employee in Temecula, Calif.
"My father spoke very highly of him," Casey said. "It was incredible.
This criminal murdered many people, but he told me when you got to know
the man in the cellblock on Alcatraz, he was very humble and polite and
courteous."
1=C2=A0of=C2=A03Next>
http://news.mobile.msn.com/en-us/articles.aspx?afid=3D1&aid=3D30250301
The Associated Press
3:12 PM EST April 16, 2009
A=C2=A0framed photo of Al Capone and sheet music for=C2=A0his song
"Madonna Mia," written in pencil by the crime boss while he was at
Alcatraz prison, is up for sale for $65,000.
=C2=A9 AP
He never sang to the feds, but it turns out Al Capone had a song in his
heart. All it took was a stint in Alcatraz to bring it out.
Now, more than 70 years later, the tender love song that the ruthless
crime boss penned while sitting in the pen is being recorded and
released on CD. And an inscribed copy of the music and lyrics to
"Madonna Mia" is up for sale at $65,000.
"It's a beautiful song, a tearjerker," said Rich Larsen of
Caponefanclub.com, who helped line up musicians and singers to record
it.
The story of "Madonna Mia" begins in a cell in Alcatraz, where Scarface
was sent after getting pinched for tax evasion. Capone, who loved opera
and jazz and whose speakeasies hired musicians like Louis Armstrong,
apparently had time to kill.
Capone could read music and liked to play a banjo and a mandola, which
is like a mandolin, only bigger. According to Larsen, who is working on
a documentary about Capone's influence on music in the 1920s and '30s,
the gangster begged the warden for permission to form a small band. The
warden relented, the inmates sent away for instruments, and Capone made
music behind bars.
Enter Vincent Casey. As part of his training to become a Jesuit priest,
Casey would visit Alcatraz to offer spiritual counsel to prisoners in
the 1930s. Casey and Capone talked in the mobster's cell every Saturday
for two years, becoming good friends, said Casey's son, Mike Casey, a
retired airline employee in Temecula, Calif.
"My father spoke very highly of him," Casey said. "It was incredible.
This criminal murdered many people, but he told me when you got to know
the man in the cellblock on Alcatraz, he was very humble and polite and
courteous."
1=C2=A0of=C2=A03Next>
http://news.mobile.msn.com/en-us/articles.aspx?afid=3D1&aid=3D30250301