Jimmy Angel: Rock & Roll's Last Mafia Appointed Rebel
Wild Bop Cat turns 90, Roars On at Gale Force
Unbelievable. That word keeps coming to mind anytime the subject of rock & roll paragon Jimmy Angel arises. A vigorous, rafter raising showman with steely tenor pipes, and wild stage moves lovingly hijacked from Jackie Wilson and JB, Angel looks nothing like a man who has spent the last 65 years shouting the big beat gospel and he sure as hell doesn’t look 90, yet he is.
Angel’s preternatural drive is almost superhuman—the singer’s piercing blue eyes require no corrective lenses and his war cry pipes rings as authoritatively clear, true and powerful as they did when he began making records generations ago.
His career path is equally improbable yet all verifiably true: plucked from obscurity circa 1959 to become the teen idol protégé of infamous Mafia Don Joe Colombo (who took control of the Profaci Family in 1963), Angel was a fixture at the Copacabana, Peppermint Lounge and a million other joints. One of them, Fun City, was where he opened for Jimi Hendrix, the very night Colombo rival Crazy Joey Gallo dispatched a couple of goons who opened fire on Angel from the dancefloor. They missed him, killed an innocent bystander and got away clean—just another day at the office for Jimmy.*
While Angel’s involvement with Colombo was always either strictly on the bandstand and recording studio or on social terms (and events like picketing outside the FBI’s Manhattan bureau—long story), the pair formed an intensely close bond. Jimmy called him Pops and Joe Jr. was like a brother.
The singer led the life of a prince. He had access to four swank townhouses, a lavish rock ‘n’ roll wardrobe, the keys to a small fleet of luxury cars, but after Colombo was gunned down in Columbus Circle on live television at one of his notorious Italian American Civil Rights League events—featuring Angel, Sammy Davis Jr. and Tom Jones—Jimmy faithfully paid his dues as caregiver for Colombo, who lingered in a semi-conscious state for the next several years.
After returning the house and car keys—and a suitcase full of cash—to Joe Jr., he was allowed to separate from the Family. He did time in Nashville, Hollywood and spent decades in Tokyo, where he worked at Yakuza afterhours clubs, did halftime shows at Tokyo Dome and sang ballads at Tokyo Disneyland while Mickey and Minnie skated together. Returning home after the Fukushima disaster, Jimmy never missed a beat, rocking all over Los Angeles and forming a critical alliance with the killer-diller Jason Gutierrez trio.
The long-standing Angel agenda is as simple and direct as the man himself: “My dream is to bring the 50s back. That’s what Pops wanted too, but he got shot before we could do it.”
The bond remains ever present: “I can never repay the Colombo family for what they did. Never. I would have been washing dishes somewhere. I could barely read or write—they saved me. And they made me a teen idol.”
His live shows remain chronically electrifying, particularly his long-running every-fourth-Saturday residency at old school Burbank movie star hang the Smoke House.
“The Smoke House is the closest thing to the Copa,” Angel said. “We just broke the Captain and Tennile’s attendance record there—when we play it’s boob to boob and booty to booty by 8 p.m., there’s no place to sit or even dance.”
“I want to go out rockin’, not on my knees.”
Jimmy Angel & the Jason Gutierrez Trio appear the Smoke House, 4420 W Lakeside Dr, Burbank, CA; every fourth Saturday, 9 p.m. No cover. All ages. (818) 845-3731
I have a vague memory of Art & I watching a documentary about him. Was there one, or am I thinking of someone else? (very unreliable memory these days....)