Sonny’s influence will be felt at doo-wop concert

Advance correspondent

BRISTOL BOROUGH - Sonny Mosco’s voice won’t be heard Sept. 15, when Gary Tosti’s “Garyoke” group takes to the stage for the seventh annual Golden Oldies in the Park, but the man, who died in guly of cancer, will still be remembered.

gust days before his death, Mosco, 56, sang with Tosti at the open house for Bristol Borough’s new maintenance garage. He wowed the crowd with vintage favorites like the Capri’s “Morse Code of Love” and the Drifter’s “Dance with Me.” Listeners on that hot summer day would never have known that Mosco was suffering from cancer, high blood pressure and other illnesses, Tosti said.

“His passion for music defined his life. In my opinion, he sang the oldies and the Doo Wop music better than the original artists,” Tosti said.

Doo Wop is defined as music originating in the ‘50s and early ‘60s. Oldies are songs from the mid-60s, the ‘70s and early ‘80s.

Typical of small-town Bristol Borough, Tosti always knew who Mosco was, saw him around town. He said he never really met up with him until a karaoke night at the St. Ann’s Club on Cedar Street seven years ago when Mosco got up to sing “Morse Code of Love.” The crowd went crazy, clamoring for an encore. Later, Mosco got up to sing again and “brought the house down,” Tosti said.

“He went over so big that I suggested we team up to do Doo Wop. We went and practiced in my garage and our partnership went on from that time until guly, when he died,” Tosti said.

The two took to the “road” with regular gigs at St. Ann’s Club, the Bristol Moose, the scW on Haines Road in Levittown, the Poco Mexican food restaurant in Doylestown, and at the Moose in Willow Grove. They also donated their performances for Bristol Borough’s annual Christmas parade and for the BARC Developmental Services of Warminster, an organization that serves adults and children with disabilities.

Garyoke is now performed by Tosti, goanna Abbott and Mary Lucas. But Mosco’s influence will remain, Tosti said.

“What I’ll always remember is the few days before he died, when so many people helped him, got him anything he needed. So many people were there for him,” he said.

Golden Oldies in the Park will be held from 6-10 p.m. in the Mill Street Parking Lot. Along with Tosti, performers include The Trammps (“wing Went the Strings of My Heart,” “Disco Inferno”) and gay Siegel’s Tokens (“The Lion Sleeps Tonight”). sendors will be there to sell refreshments and spectators are encour- aged to bring lawn and blankets.

Parking will be available at the Lenox site, Radcliffe and Monroe streets, in the borough. cree shuttle buses will ferry guests between the parking area and the concert venue, said Bristol Council President Ralph DiGuiseppe.

Many people come to Bristol early to have dinner before the music starts. It costs the borough about $10,000 to put on the show, but the trade-off in business and good will is worth the expense, DiGuiseppe said.

“The council thought of this idea as a way to promote the borough, to let people know what we have here. We put (then-Councilman) Anthony Mucci in charge, and he still coordinates everything and, along with the committee, puts it all together,” DiGuiseppe said.

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