PISCOPO: CHANNELING ‘THE OLD MAN’
Joe Piscopo at Retromedia Sound Studios with Joe Muccioli, left.
We spotted Joe Piscopo trolling the rainy streets of downtown Red Bank earlier this week.
Hunched over the wheel of an enormous black vehicle with a license plate that proclaims his essential Jerseyness, Piscopo appeared lost. His darting, googly eyes, and slow speed, were dead giveaways.
Soon, though, we were climbing the stairs together to John Noll’s Retromedia Sound Studios, where Piscopo had come to record a radio ad touting his Dec. 12 concert at the Count Basie Theatre.
Um, concert? That right. Joe Piscopo, the former Saturday Night Live comedian who killed with his broad aping of Frank Sinatra, is a legit singer now, an entertainer. And he’s doing his ‘Sinatra’s Birthday Bash’ on the 92nd anniversary of the late singer’s birth in the town of Basie’s birth. He’ll be backed by the 17-piece Red Bank Jazz Orchestra, led by Piscopo’s longtime music advisor, Red Bank’s own Joe ‘Mooch’ Muccioli.
A father of four who lives in Hunterdon County, Piscopo is going through his second divorce and “closing in on my third,” he says. “I’m looking for the future ex-Mrs. Piscopo.” He took time out from the hunt, and from show rehearsals, to talk to redbankgreen about his lifelong love of Sinatra.