fredrick anthony picariello was born on dec 4 1940 in revere, ma. he begin his singing career when he formed a band and begin playing around the boston area in 1957. cannon like most perfomers when they are first getting started must have a day job to pay the bills. freddy drove a truck in boston and the surburban community making local deliveries. he was working at a nite club in boston, disc jockey jack mcdermott came in with some friends and was impressed with freddy’s performance. mcdermott told him he should consider a professional career in music, and get a recording contract. that was what he had in mind and with that encouragement he took a song his mother had written titled “tallahassee lassie” to a recording studio in boston recorded the song and sent the demo to “swan” records in philadelphia. frank slay and bob crewe were impressed with the demo however they knew it needed some spicing up before it could be released commerically. slay and crewe sent freddy several 45′s and told him to take one to disc jockey arnie ginsberg at wmex in boston and have him play it and get his reaction. when ginsberg played the record on the air the phone lines lite up with callers asking ginsberg please play that song again. the huge positive reaction to the song was tremendous. the phone lines stayed busy for the rest of ginsberg’s air shift. ginsberg told cannon you better call that record company and get a bunch of records pressed, you got youself a “hit” record. in may of 1959 fredrick picariello gave notice to his trucking company this was his last week. and it was his last week as fredrick picariello, freddy “boom boom” cannon had been born. “tallahassee lassie” was a “smash hit” and sold records into the million’s. everyone began to call him “boom boom” because of the driving drum in the recording. very quickly the “freddy cannon” sound became his “trademark”. freddy yelled, screamed, and hollered, in his recording’s and everyone loved it. the hits just kept coming, “okefenofee” “way down yonder in new orleans”, “the muskrat ramble”, “palisades park”. from 1959 to 1963 swan records released 17 singles and 2 albums on freddy cannon most became hits. freddy toured and made personal appearances all over america. in 1964 he signed with warner bros and had another big hit with “abigail beecher”. he made two more recordings on the warner bros label. when his his contract with warner bros expired in 1966 he became semi-retired at a young age. freddy lives in calif., and still performs occasionally. the late shorty horton who was the orginal bass player for link wray, told me freddy cannon’s rise to stardom was so fast it was beyond belief. shorty said we were playing in boston one weekend freddy introduced himself to us and asked us for our autograph. the next weekend we were playing in cleveland asking him for his autograph. such memories of shorty he truely was a “jem” of a person. those were the days people those were the days, the really sad part is they an’t never coming back.

~ Widmarc Clark