Friday, March 7, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.
Bobby Vinton owes it all to Branson, the Missouri hamlet where has-beens are hip.
"I went down there because, with the entertainment business the way it is today, you start figuring, 'Maybe it's gone by me, you had your day, I'm not what's happening,' and I find out that's where I'm happening. I play to half a million people a year in Branson."
Vinton opened his own theater, the Blue Velvet, four years ago and performs 12 shows a week there from April through December.
Visitors routinely fill the 2,000-seat theater, he says. Word of mouth about his family-oriented variety show generates interest when he plays elsewhere -- for instance, this weekend at the Riviera.
"It's a paradise for my type of entertainment," he says of Branson, "the way Vegas used to be. It's done wonders for me."
And to think "The Polish Prince" initially balked at the opportunity.
"I had a one-nighter there four years ago, and I didn't want to go," he says. "I said, 'Isn't that country people down there?' But I went in and saw these elaborate theaters with great sound and thousands of people standing in line waiting to be entertained."
That cinched it for Vinton, who was seized by a "Field of Dreams" moment.
"I started building a week after I was down there."
And they've been coming ever since.
"We have 6,000 people booked for December already," he says in a phone interview from Los Angeles.
The attention he's getting now is unlike any he has ever received, he says -- even in his '60s salad days, when he was recording hit singles and hosting his own television show.
"I never sold out when I had a No. 1 record," says Vinton, who attributes his popularity to longevity. "After 30 years, its like, 'This guy's got to have something. He's got to have more than a hit record from the '60s going for him.' I think a lot of people are looking for wholesome entertainment, to be honest."
Vinton, whose wife and daughter sing in the show and whose son Robbie manages the theater, gives his fans everything from a "Phantom of the Opera" medley to "Blue Velvet," which ranks with "Roses Are Red," "Mr. Lonely," "Blue on Blue" and "My Melody of Love" on his hit parade.
But "Blue Velvet" seems to have taken on a life of its own, as evidenced by the 1986 David Lynch film of the same name (featuring Vinton's vocal) and a commercial for a blue-tinted skin cream in Great Britain (featuring Vinton's vocal).
The commercial, in fact, catapulted "Blue Velvet" to No. 1 in England a few years ago and made Vinton an alternative sensation.
"The kids in England think I'm hip," he says. "In England, it's hip to like ('Blue Velvet') because the parents hate it. They grew up listening to the Beatles and the Stones."
Vinton says he's been around so long that he's come full circle.
"You start questioning yourself. 'Am I good? Am I bad? Is it over with?' For me to get a call from the BBC (informing him that 'Blue Velvet' was No. 1) ... well, I didn't even know the record was out. I thought it was a joke."
Vinton's singing career began when his band-leading career fizzled. Until then, he had recorded 32 big-band albums and led the NBC orchestra for a time in the early '60s.
"What happened was, they (Columbia Records) were dropping me from my contract. The band wasn't making it."
But the company still owed him two sides from a 14-song contract. They directed him to a stack of records -- the reject pile -- and told him to pick out a few.
"They completely ignored me for the first hour. I'm sitting in this big room and I started playing records, and most were real bad. Then I heard 'Roses Are Red' and thought, 'God, I don't know much about pop music, but that sounds like a song they'll play a lot of.'"
Vinton figured he had a pretty good handle on what would sell and what wouldn't from his days as a band leader, when his orchestra would back such hit-makers as Fabian, Brenda Lee, Chubby Checker and the Everly Brothers on tour.
"I was conducting for all the No. 1 singers of the day," he says. "I knew what the public wanted to hear. I could see the reaction of the crowd. Some hits went over better than others."
When he put "Roses Are Red" on the turntable, he told the record execs, "I think you're throwing a great song away."
Vinton recorded three songs that day: "Roses Are Red," "Mr. Lonely" and "You and I."
"The record company thought ('You and I') was the hit and that the other two were bums," he says. "That's when I found out record companies don't know what they're doing."
He was doubly convinced when Columbia promoted "You and I" rather than "Roses Are Red," which was on the B side and, Vinton felt, the better song. Putting his money where his mouth was, he became a one-man promotional band.
He purchased 1,000 copies of "Roses Are Red" and put them in a record store. Then he took about 100 copies and bought 10 dozen red roses, put them in his car and drove to every radio station in Pittsburgh, his hometown. Vinton had the idea of presenting disc jockeys with copies of the song and a dozen roses as incentive to play it.
He saw the futility of it on the first attempt.
"The first guy ignored me," Vinton says. "He thought I was weird."
He found himself back on the street outside the radio station when he saw a young woman "with great legs" wearing a tight dress heading his way.
"I told her, 'Honey, I've got my whole life invested in this song. Would you walk in and hand it to the disc jockey?' When this guy saw her legs and that dress, it was a different story. He put that record on the radio."
Vinton begged her to repeat the process. She agreed. The disc jockeys fell one by one, and "Roses Are Red" became a hit.
"When we checked the store, the record was gone."
Today, Vinton says, "I wouldn't know how to get started. Stations won't even play a record unless the record company is about 100 percent behind it. They could like a record, but if your company is working on three records and yours happens to be the fourth or fifth, you're not going to get put on."
Nevertheless, Vinton says, he's better than ever.
"I do over 400 shows a year. I'm in better shape that I've ever been as a performer. My voice is so strong by doing four hours a day (two hours a show). I wish I was this good 20 years ago, when I was happening."
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