Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, April 17, 1993 TAG: 9304170338
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: B9 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
THE PEOPLE COLUMN
Three reputed mobsters were on trial but Frank Sinatra momentarily stole the show: His name came up in a secretly taped conversation that the government placed in evidence.In the tape, Lorenzo Mannino asks Giuseppe "Joe" Gambino if he would "talk to Frank Sinatra [about] getting a few jobs for Al Martino in Las Vegas." At another point in the tape, made in October 1988, Mannino indicates that such a request might be futile. "Sinatra can't stand Al Martino, Joe," he says. Gambino responds: "Yeah, I know."
Martino appeared in the movie "The Godfather" as singer Johnny Fontane, a character many believe was meant to suggest Sinatra.
Gambino and his brother, Giovanni, are being tried in New York City on charges that they engaged in racketeering, murder and drug trafficking.
\ Joey Buttafuoco, answering a 19-count indictment charging he had sex with an underage Amy Fisher, Thursday issued a defiant "not guilty" to the charges inside a courthouse in Mineola, N.Y., his bearing ramrod straight and his voice giving each word a distinct emphasis.
Then, after being released without bail, Buttafuoco walked arm-in-arm with his wife, Mary Jo, down a corridor before pausing briefly inside the front door, a crowd of more than 100 people waiting outside.
They leaned closely toward each other, their eyes meeting as if they were actually in one of the three network television movies made about the case, and he spoke softly to the woman who has supported him throughout the now 11-month-old investigation.
"You OK? You still love me?" Joey asked.
"You know I do," she replied.
\ First there were "The Basement Tapes." Then there was "The Bootleg Series." Now come the storage-room tapes, a treasure trove of unreleased recordings from Bob Dylan and other artists.
A federal bankruptcy judge in Trenton, N.J., cleared the way for release of 2,800 tapes when he dismissed a lawsuit filed by Sony Music Entertainment Inc. claiming ownership of the material.
Record producer Clark Enslin said he got the tapes from a couple who paid $50 for a storage room full of apparent junk at a Nashville, Tenn., warehouse auction.
Among the items were tapes containing alternate takes and other unreleased material recorded from 1953 to 1971 by Dylan, Johnny Cash, Charlie Rich, Roy Orbison, Tammy Wynette and Bobby Vinton.