The Family
This all started in Sayreville, New Jersey… a middle class neighborhood. The Bonjiovi family were all musically inclined. This family as much like mine with my father, mother and sister all playing instruments and three of four, played by ear.
Tony Bonjiovi
The uncle of the famous, “John Bonjiovi” or “BONJIOVI” was a super music creator named “Tony Bonjiovi”.
Toni loved R & B music and was so talented that he contacted Motown Records in Detroit, Michigan in 1965. He seemed to convince the engineers or Berry Gordy Junior, himself, that he would make Motown a nationally-famous name company.
John would go out for coffee and get other food for the engineers and musicians and was assigned to do other menial tasks. John did this just to be present in a recording studio and get the ‘feel’ of what it was like to do what he loved to do, play music and, eventually, create his own band.
Gordy was ready to bust out nationally at that time and just when Tony contacted him, Tony created the sound behind all the monster Motown hits. Artists such as : The Temptations, The Miracles, The Four Tops, Martha & the Vandellas, The Supremes and more became household names throughout the entire world in a matter of a few years.
Tony, after his stint at Motown, came back to the East Coast and worked as an engineer at Media Sound. The huge number of artists who worked with Tony are already the biggest names in music throughout the music world.
My late partner, Gene Allan and I had worked with Tony a few times and on one occasion, we brought a tape of a song recorded by John Kelly a policeman from Philadelphia who had a sound which was just like Smokey Robinson of the Miracles. Our recording was much too long. It was supposed to be under 3 minutes and was more like 3 1/2 minutes long. We asked Tony to try to cut out about a minute without his “Cut” sounding like an obvious edit.
Tony did exactly as we asked. I don’t understand to this day how someone who did not read or play a note of music could edit a recording to sound like a natural part of the original recording. Gene and I were absolutely amazed. We consider Tony Bonjovi a genius … the most innovative, talented engineer ever!
In the meantime, Tony, who hated Hard Rock music missed out on his cousin’s world-wide success.
Among Tony’s talents, he was an accomplished light airplane pilot, a recording studio designer (Power Station, New York) and one of the most talented pioneers of the music business during the period from the 1960s – to the present.