Al Lambert, Staten Island's man of cars and song, can sell you a used Toyota by day and give you "Summer Wind" with his big band that evening.
"They call me Staten Island," Lambert, 67, said from behind his sales desk at Manfredi Chevrolet on Hylan Boulevard. "I'm a minor celebrity here. I can walk down the street and someone will say, 'Hey, you sang my wedding in 1968.' Then another person will say, 'You did my wedding in '77.' And another will say, 'You did mine in '81.' "
"For a lot of people here, it's the common denominator: cars and music," said Lambert, who has made quite a career selling both. For more than 50 years, he has held parallel - and equally successful - careers: car salesman and nightclub singer.
With more than 10,000 cars sold, and more than 5,000 live performances, he has become a household name from the Verrazano to the Outerbridge.
"I figure I've personally entertained two million people," he said. "Of the roughly 500,000 people on Staten Island, I'd say half of them know my name."
Lambert's Staten Island credentials are impeccable, from being born and raised - next door to his uncles' car dealership - in the Mariners Harbor section, to his current-day connections to local reality show stars. Two stars of "Jersey Shore" are family friends, and two "Mob Wives" cast members have bought cars from the dealership.
In front of his desk is a showroom of new and used muscle cars. Behind the desk are photographs of Lambert with the many stars he has performed with, including the trumpeter Chuck Mangione and the comedians Pat Cooper and Rodney Dangerfield.
The Sinatra moment
One photograph too precious to display is an autographed one of Frank Sinatra, which Lambert landed after he provided a courtesy car to run food to Sinatra on a film shoot, he said on a recent weekday.
His phone rang. It was his former saxophonist; the man had totaled his car and was looking for a new one.
"Come in Saturday morning around 11 - I should be on my fourth cup of coffee," said Lambert, who hung up and explained that people from his music world often become car customers, and new car customers often become fans.
"There's always been a cross-pollination between the two businesses," he said. "I've always made sure people knew that the guy singing at their wedding could also sell them a car."
"Back when I was building and selling homes for a short time," he added, "there was one guy: I built his house, sold him three cars and sang his wedding."
By closing time, Lambert said he had sold three Toyotas in the previous 48 hours, with deals for a Tacoma and a Camry nearly closed. He headed down Hylan Boulevard to the Annandale section for a small-band gig at Docks, an Italian seafood restaurant nestled in a shopping center.
Lambert, who looks and sounds something like Mel Torme, sometimes performs with his daughter, Laura, but usually is backed by his wife, Lenore, who this night at Docks sang backup harmonies, along with Stu Waters on keyboards and Terry Fabrizio on guitar.
Lambert sang Sinatra staples like "Fly Me to the Moon" and pop tunes like the Carpenters' "Close to You." He gave shout-outs to individual diners, many of whom had bought cars from him.
There were Rick and Toni Seaman (used Toyota). Seaman attended grammar school with young Al, who sang his first gig at age 12 at a local nightclub for $20. Young Al was already pumping gas, changing tires and washing cars for his uncles. As a Wagner College student, he was already busy singing and selling. For the next few decades, he said, he averaged 125 dates a year: weddings, anniversaries, Rotary club events, fund-raisers.
Mr Postman, too
To market himself, he would mail out 11,000 newsletters at a time, and give used Toyotas to radio station officials in exchange for commercial time. He would advertise himself in The Staten Island Advance for cars and music in the same ad.
"But I was always selling Al Lambert," said Lambert, who in the 1970s landed gigs at Carnegie Hall, the Waldorf-Astoria and the Copacabana, and worked as the opening band at Dangerfield's comedy club on First Avenue in Manhattan.
"Rodney used to say, 'C'mon folks, let's hear it for this kid from Staten Island, all right?' " Lambert recalled. Dangerfield loved Lambert's father, Dominic, who would crack up the comedian with Jimmy Durante impressions, and he would hang out with him after hours in the club. But when he asked Lambert to tour with him as his opening singer, Lambert declined because of commitments to his family, the dealership and a full schedule of Staten Island gigs.
"That's me," he said. "I've always been a big fish in a small pond."
© 2013 The New York Times News Service
