Sat / April 7, 2018

Doors: 6:00 pm / Show: 8:00 pm

Our Dinner Series is a monthly series that offers patrons dinner & a show. Columbia II Restaurant will provide a buffet-style meal.

Kathedral Event Center is currently a BYOB venue – beer & wine only. We reserve the right to check ID and coolers. Any prohibited items will be confiscated.

Concessions & artist merchandise will be available for sale before, during, and after tonight’s performance. Doors will open 30 minutes prior to dinner. For handicap accessibility information, click here.

Parties of eight (8) or larger, please call the Box Office at 856-685-6664 to make your reservation.

Tickets purchase: Click here.

The Belmonts were friends from the area around Arthur Avenue in the Bronx. They attended Roosevelt High School and hung out together. They began singing together and named themselves after Belmont Avenue in the Bronx. They recorded for the Mohawk label in 1957, making their debut with the song, Teenage Clementine.

Dion, who lived in the neighborhood, joined the group for the next recording, We Went Away. It was cut for Mohawk Records under the direction of conductor/arranger Hugo Montenegro.
The group moved to Laurie Records, newly founded by Bob Schwartz (who had been a part-owner of Mohawk) and his brother Gene and cut their label debut, I Wonder Why that made it to the top of the charts followed to the top by a pair of hits, No One Knows and Don’t Pity Me. A Teenager in Love, Where or When and When You Wish Upon a Star elevated The Belmonts with Dion to a major worldwide act. Their vocal talent as a singing group was displayed prominently on all the recordings with their collective musical tastes ranging from rock ’n roll to jazz, to country, to pop and blues, voted best vocal group of1959 by Downbeat Magazine. Of note is one particular performance at the Surf Ball Room in Clear Lake, Iowa, the night on which Buddy Holly, Richie Valens, and the Big Bopper lost their lives in a plane crash.

In 1960, Dion and The Belmonts went their separate ways. The Belmonts continued to enjoy success on the stage as well as on the charts. The group remained with Laurie Records for one single, We Belong Together, and then formed their own label — originally named Surprise, then Sabrina, and finally christened Sabina Records. The label became active (as Surprise) in March of 1961 with The Belmonts recording of Tell Me Why which rose to the top of the national charts. The follow-up record late that summer, Don’t Get Around Much Anymore, and the next release, I Need Someone, also became chart hits for The Belmonts. The group’s next hit records were Sabina singles, C’mon Little Angel, written by Ernie Maresca, and Diddle Dee Dum. In 1963 Warren Gradus, a studio musician/songwriter, joined original members Freddie Milano and Angelo D‘Aleo and the group next charted in the early ’70s amid the oldies boom. They cut an album for Buddah Records entitled Cigars Acappela Candy, on which they performed several classic oldies tracks and also applied their sound to contemporary hits like My Sweet Lord and Na Na Hey Hey (Kiss Him Goodbye). The album was hailed by Billboard magazine as “the best acappela album ever recorded”. In 1972, The Belmonts reunited with Dion for a performance at New York’s Madison Square Garden, which was not only a sell-out event but was also recorded for posterity in the album entitled Dion and The Belmonts Reunion Live at Madison Square Garden which was released on Warner Bros. Records hitting the national charts in that summer.

In 1974, Dan Elliott joined the group as lead singer. Elliott had previously performed throughout the United States and toured the Orient with The Glen Miller Orchestra. The group continued recording with the release of the Cheek to Cheek album, and in 1981 produced the hit single, on Mia Sound Records entitled Let’s Put the Fun Back in Rock N Roll on which they were teamed with Freddy Cannon of Palisades Park fame.

The Belmonts recent hit Christmas recording, The Bell That Couldn’t Jingle, written by Burt Bacharach, and the new CD entitled The Belmonts Anthology Vol. I , which includes the single A Hundred Pounds of Clay have been released on the Downtown Music Group label.