The musical barber of James North
Santo Randazzo was a popular North End barber and band leader
These days the four Randazzo brothers, who practically grew up in their father’s barbershop, find themselves not so much emptying out his house (upon his passing) as shoring up their own hearts — with as much of what remains to them of him as they can lay hold of.
He’s gone now — Santo Randazzo, barber, musician, community builder, whose name so many will smile at the mention of. (He was 88 when he died Jan. 22, ushered from this world on a continuous stream of well-wishers and mourners at his visitation and funeral.)
Gone, but somehow he’s still timelessly weaving his music through a thousand Hamilton wedding albums — maybe yours is one of them — in his ’50s saddle shoes, playing sax in the middle of the dance floor. That was his style.
“See?” says son Vince, showing me a prized photo. This trim, handsome man, 1950s vintage, at one of so many Sicilian and Italian weddings for which the Santo Randazzo Orchestra provided music.
“He was doing it (wandering into the crowd to play) long before it was common.”
When he wasn’t gluing together his community with music, Santo cut their hair.
“Look,” says Nick, showing his father ’s business card. “We found this,” among his things. Santo’s Barbershop, the card says. Opened in 1952.
“It has the old phone exchanges,” I say, pointing to the JA before the numbers.
“Ha ha,” the brothers laugh, remembering. “That was JACKSON,” says Vince.
Vince and brothers Nick, Charlie and John meet me at the house, the one they’re going through, where their parents lived. Santo’s beloved wife Carmela, the brothers’ beloved mother, predeceased him. The halls and walls are filled with mementoes and pictures — the grandchildren, the brothers, family, Santo and Carmela. There’s a picture of the four brothers from the ’70s. Oh, the hair! “Don’t put that in the paper!” they protest, laughing.
By then, Santo must’ve been used to it, the longer hair. But back in the ’60s, while luring them with some hinted-at Beatles style, he’d slip a crew cut over on them.
THE BARBERSHOP. It was something to behold, the way the brothers describe it. “We kind of grew up there,” says Vince. “There were seven chairs and no appointments.” The men would just linger, talking until a chair came open. Sicilian networking.
“The expressions they’d use, that older generation,” says Nick. “We (the brothers) would laugh our heads off. They would talk about The Beatles, how they ruined everything,” with the toll they took on barbershop patronage.
But Santo was resourceful, adaptable, and while many left the trade, he became a hair stylist.
THE MUSIC. It was something to hear, the way the brothers describe it. “He played everything,” says Charlie. “Trombone, sax, guitar, baritone tuba. Self-taught.” And he was a true entertainer. “Hamilton’s Ricky Riccardo,” says Nick.
Santo played with the Hamilton ItaloCanadian Band in the ‘60s. Later he was director of Gruppo Folkloristico Racalmutese di Hamilton. In 1988, he was first president of an organization to preserve the festival of Maria Santissima del Mon- te of Agrigento. You’ve seen the parade, with its medieval roots, along James Street.
THE MAN. Now he was really something, the way the brothers describe him.
Born in Racalmuto, he came here in 1949, aged 21, on the Saturnia, a famous Italian ocean liner. There’s a picture on board. Another treasure found, in going through the house. Santo came with nothing. He built so much. In retirement Santo would visit Pure NV, a salon/spa owned by Vince and Nick, who followed in his footsteps. He’d drink espresso, chat with staff. He loved driving his grandkids to school and babysitting. Oh, and cooking. He was exceptional at Italian cuisine.
“We’re finding so much we didn’t know he had,” says Vince. His appointment books, a vinyl record of his orchestra. Photographs. Souvenirs.
As we talk at the table and memories pour forth, from time to time eyes glisten, voices halt, with an ambush of sudden feelings, unbidden but tumbling out anyway, irrepressibly of their own accord, in this place over which Santo still seems to preside, the air almost vibrating with the tender, wounded joy of reminiscence, bittersweet, like wine.