Santo & Johnny

Santo & Johnny were an American rock and roll music duo from Brooklyn, New York, comprising brothers Santo and Johnny Farina.

They are known best for their instrumental melody "Sleep Walk", one of the biggest hits of the golden age of rock 'n' roll, which became a regional success and eventually scored the top of the Billboard pop chart when it was released nationally during 1959.

At present, Santo is semi-retired and Johnny currently tours and records new material with his own band. Johnny is also the president of Aniraf, Inc., an international record company based in New York.

Career

Early life

Santo and Johnny Farina were born in Brooklyn, New York; Santo on October 24, 1937 and Johnny on April 30, 1941. Their father was drafted into the Army while they were children and was stationed for some time in Oklahoma. After hearing a steel guitar by radio, he wrote to his wife, "I'd like the boys to learn to play this instrument".

Upon returning from World War II, the boys' father found a music teacher who gave the boys steel guitar lessons. When Santo was a teenager, he was able to get a local music store to modify an acoustic guitar, allowing him to play it like a steel guitar.

Santo

Rodolfo Guzmán Huerta (September 23, 1917 – February 5, 1984), more widely known as El Santo (The Saint), was a Mexican Luchador enmascarado (Spanish for masked professional wrestler), film actor, and folk icon. El Santo, along with Blue Demon and Mil Máscaras, is one of the most famous and iconic of all Mexican luchadores, and has been referred to as one of "the greatest legends in Mexican sports." His wrestling career spanned nearly five decades, during which he became a folk hero and a symbol of justice for the common man through his appearances in comic books and movies. He is said to have popularized professional wrestling in Mexico just as Rikidozan did in Japan. Guzmán's son followed him into wrestling as El Hijo del Santo, or 'Son of Santo'.

Biography

Born in Tulancingo in the Mexican state of Hidalgo, to Jesús Guzmán Campuzano and Josefina Huerta (Márquez) de Guzmán as the fifth of seven children, Rodolfo came to Mexico City in the 1920s, where his family settled in the Tepito neighbourhood. He practiced baseball and American football, and then became interested in wrestling. He first learned Ju-Jitsu, then classical wrestling.

Sleep Walk

"Sleep Walk" is an instrumental steel guitar-based song written, recorded, and released in 1959 by brothers Santo & Johnny Farina. (The BMI Repertoire database and the original release credits three Farinas as composers including sister Ann.) It was recorded at Trinity Music in Manhattan, New York City, New York. "Sleep Walk" entered Billboard's Top 40 on August 17, 1959. It rose to the number-one position for two weeks in September (the 21st and the 28th) and remained in the Top 40 until November 9. "Sleep Walk" also reached number four on the R&B chart. It was the last instrumental to hit number one in the 1950s and earned Santo & Johnny a gold record. In the UK it peaked at number 22 on the charts. The Brian Setzer Orchestra recording of "Sleep Walk" received a Grammy Award for Best Pop Instrumental Performance of 1998.

Cover versions

One of the first covers was by Betsy Brye (stage name of Bette Anne Steele), also in 1959. It was released on a single by Columbia Records as catalog number DB 4530. Although Santo & Johnny wrote lyrics for "Sleep Walk", they never recorded a version with the lyrics; Brye's version includes these lyrics.

Johnny

Johnny and Johnnie refer to:

People

Blue moon

A blue moon is an additional full moon that appears in a subdivision of a year: either the third of four full moons in a season, or a second full moon in a month of the common calendar.

The phrase has nothing to do with the actual color of the moon, although a literal "blue moon" (the moon appearing with a tinge of blue) may occur in certain atmospheric conditions: e.g., when there are volcanic eruptions or when exceptionally large fires leave particles in the atmosphere.

Definition

The term has traditionally referred to an "extra" moon, where a year which normally has 12 moons has 13 instead. The "blue moon" reference is applied to the third moon in a season with four moons, thus correcting the timing of the last month of a season that would have otherwise been expected too early. This happens every two to three years (seven times in the Metonic cycle of 19 years). The March 1946 issue of Sky & Telescope misinterpreted the traditional definition, which led to the modern colloquial misunderstanding that a blue moon is a second full moon in a single solar calendar month with no seasonal link.