#662: Danger by Vic Dana
Peak Month: June 1963
10 weeks on CFUN’s Vancouver Charts
Peak Position ~ #5
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #96
YouTube.com: “Danger”
Lyrics: “Danger”
Samuel Mendola was born in 1940 in Buffalo, New York. He told reporter J. T. Crawford “I was nine years old and had just started tap dancing,” he says. “My parents asked me if I wanted to take dancing lessons. I said I didn’t because I thought it was just for girls. I wound up taking some lessons and did some local shows. I went to the Ted Mack Original Amateur Hour, which, in those days, was like American Idol. They had variety acts, and people wrote in from all over the country and picked the winners. And I won the Ted Mack Amateur Hour.” When he was eleven, Samuel Mendola was taken to see Sammy Davis Jr. perform in Buffalo. Vic Dana recalls, “They knew I loved the way he danced. He was 27 at the time and was just making it. He didn’t even have top billing at the time. My mother talked to the master of ceremonies and told him a local boy in the crowd had just won the Ted Mack show. So he called me up and asked if I’d dance. I said no because I didn’t have my dancing shoes. My mother said, ‘Yes you do!’ and pulled them out of her purse. So I danced. Apparently Sammy was watching from the wings. When he came out, he asked me to dance with him. We did this little tap challenge. It went over so well, that he asked my parents if I could travel with him. That began a relationship with Sammy that I’ll remember forever.”