1. Dominick P "Don" Costa was an American conductor and record producer.
16 Facts About Don Costa
1. 2.
Don Costa discovered singer Paul Anka and worked on several hit albums by Frank Sinatra, including Sinatra and Strings and My Way.
3.
Don Costa played guitar with Bucky Pizzarelli on Vaughn Monroe's hit record "Ghost Riders in the Sky".
4.
Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme invited Don Costa to write vocal backgrounds for their recordings.
5.
Don Costa agreed and thus began an association that led to their joining a record label headed by Sam Clark, ABC-Paramount Records.
6.
Don Costa arranged and produced albums for others and released his own instrumental albums.
7.
Don Costa's hits included the theme songs from Never on Sunday and The Unforgiven.
8.
In Cash Box magazine, Don Costa was voted the best pop orchestra leader of 1960.
9.
Don Costa arranged Tony Bennett's 1965 album If I Ruled the World: Songs for the Jet Set.
10.
Between 1964 and 1968, Costa arranged four Columbia releases for Eydie Gorme: Gorme Country Style, Softly, As I Leave You, Don't Go To Strangers, and The Look of Love.
11.
Don Costa's label revived the career of popular 1950s act Little Anthony and the Imperials.
12.
In 1963, Don Costa discovered Trini Lopez working at PJ's, a Hollywood nightclub.
13.
Later in the decade, Sinatra again called on Don Costa to become his arranger, and Don Costa's work with Lawrence and Gorme abated.
14.
Don Costa was conducting for Sinatra in Las Vegas as well as arranging his records when Don Costa suffered a heart attack and required bypass surgery.
15.
In 1980, Don Costa received his fourth Grammy nomination for orchestrating what became another signature song for Sinatra, "Theme from New York, New York".
16.
Don Costa then scored a hit in 1981 with his daughter Nikka, titled "Out Here on My Own".