Italian Takeover At The PAC

Italian crooner Patrizio Buanne is no stranger to music collections in Asia, South Africa, Australia and Europe. But the Holy Grail for him has always been the United States—and now he’s finally made it into the American scene.

Five years ago, the international singer tapped the American music industry, which he characterized as a “hard cookie” during a telephone interview last week. And this Saturday, May 26, will mark Mr. Buanne’s inaugural visit to the East End, where he’ll play the Westhampton Beach Performing Arts Center.

“America’s the entertainment capital of the world, and I’m here to show it what I do,” he said, his native Italian accent rolling off every word. “When you have Ricky Martin and those Latin artists, they present that kind of lifestyle. I present the European kind of thing. What else would I do? That’s what I am. There’s no point to anything else. That would be very unnatural.”

What has always come naturally to Mr. Buanne is music. As a young child, he’d sit on the floor of his home in Naples, Italy, playing with his toys while listening to his parents’ old vinyl records—romantic and fun pop standards from the Italian Songbook—that they had recorded onto cassettes and also played at their restaurant, Pizzeria da Franco, which was in Vienna, Austria.

“I’d sit there for hours, listening to that stuff because the music is so catchy. Oh my God, it’s so catchy,” the now 33-year-old said. “My father would catch me, 3 years old, start playing around with my voice.”

He stopped and sang an Italian lyric in a high-pitched squawk, mimicking his younger self.

“Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison, Elvis suddenly started playing,” he continued. “I started moving like them and performing, not knowing one word in English.”

He paused again, and then dropped his voice down an octave, impersonating Elvis Presley’s tone as he sang another lyric.

“That’s how you wake up a child’s interest and passion,” he said. “I’ve been driven to become entertaining for people, and I love to entertain myself.”

During his high school years, he played guitar in a band, latching onto some of his childhood heros—Elvis and Jerry Lee Lewis—while also discovering The Beatles and Chuck Berry. At this point, he was also fluent in half a dozen languages: Italian, German, English, French, Spanish and Polish.

At just 17, Mr. Buanne landed his huge break. He was invited to sing a song—half in Italian, half in Polish—in front of Pope John Paul II and 85,000 spectators during an official visit to Wroclaw, Poland.

But shortly afterwards, Mr. Buanne’s life changed forever. His father died of cancer. He was 58.

“I was like, ‘Damn, I can’t believe what’s going on here,’” he recalled. “Then what happened is, I dropped this rock and roll thing and started to sing those songs I heard while sitting on the floor, humming and playing with my toys, the ones my father would turn into cassettes from his records. I started from scratch all over again. That first record released in February 2005 in England. The album became gold in seven days. The rest is, as they say, history.”

Mr. Buanne, who splits his time between Manhattan and Europe, has turned a new leaf. His newest album, the self-titled “Patrizio,” combines the best of his worlds by mixing his trademark Italian music with interpretations of American Songbook classics and original songs.

He says the upcoming concert at the Westhampton Beach Performing Arts Center will mirror just that.

“People ask, ‘What can we expect from the concert?’ and I say, ‘Nothing,’” he laughed. “Because the more you expect, the less the surprise. Or as Shakespeare would say, ‘Expectation is the first step to heartbreak,’ or ‘is the root of all heartbreak.’”

Mr. Buanne got it right the second time; though his performance will be far from heartbreaking, he said. The romantic, Italian love songs may summon a few tears, he said, but the rest have a “fun, entertaining, ‘let the summer begin’ vibe,” he said.

“Patrizio wants to cook his audience just like Italians cook their pasta: I want to make them hot,” he said. “They’ll be like meat, falling off the bone. And then I’m going to eat you. Tell the women, I’m going to eat you.”

He chuckled, and hesitantly added, “Too much?”

Patrizio Buanne will give a concert on Saturday, May 26, at 8 p.m. Tickets range from $40 to $70. To buy tickets or for more information, call the box office at 288-1500 or visit whbpac.org.