Album Notes

BACKGROUND/BIO:
Andy Valvano’s family lineage can be traced back to the tiny cliffside village of Valvano, located on the Mediterranean coast of southern Italy. The village is renowned in the region for its small but highly coveted production of olive oils as well as an exquisite and extremely potent nutmeg liqueur made in a centuries-old, traditional, and time-honored fashion which bears the village’s name.

Valvano’s grandfather was forced to flee Italy at the beginning of the last century resulting from his family’s falling out of favor with the other villagers after having been accused of stealing chickens (although this was never proven). He settled in upstate New York and became a millionaire twice over; first, as the principal owner of a number of bluestone and cement quarry mining operations and secondly, as the owner of a riverboat company providing passenger service to points along the Hudson River. Tales of the elder Valvano’s reckless abandon, drunken debauchery, and questionable sanity became part of the local folklore. Both businesses ultimately ended in failure, each time leaving him penniless. His disappearance in 1936 was never explained.

Not much is known of Andy’s parents other than that they mysteriously vanished during a holiday in the Catskill Mountains when Andy was two years old. A local farmer discovered the family car parked on the roadside adjacent to a large field with Andy strapped in the child seat. No clues to the couple’s whereabouts could be found other than a large circular depression in the earth about 50 yards away. As a result of this tragic event, Andy spent his early childhood years in one of the last remaining Catholic orphanages in New York City. He quickly gained the favor of the nuns when, at the age of 5, he developed an uncanny knack for impersonating former U.S. presidents. His impressions of Abe Lincoln and Richard Nixon were crowd favorites. Signs of early ambition were evident at the age of 8 with his first job as a newspaper boy for the New York Times. He controlled the hotly contested corner of 42nd St. and Broadway and is said to have set the all-time evening rush hour record with 2,698 paper sales. Andy’s time spent in the shoeshine trade was not so successful. He left the business after three months at the age of 10 after receiving a succession of bloody noses from older boys.

Shortly thereafter, Andy ran away from the orphanage and befriended a black hobo named "Bubba Fists." Bubba schooled Andy on the intricacies of rail-riding and hoboing in general. Their friendship came to a dramatic end on an excursion to Memphis when Bubba was shot to death while playing in a high-stakes poker game on the train. In the police report, three other participants in the card game claimed to have been robbed of monies totalling $24,300. The alleged missing funds were not found on Bubba's body or among his belongings. Valvano's name was not mentioned in the police report.