The $390,000 Man

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Lemongello and his banker chum formed a corporation and invested $32,000 in a one-shot showcase performance at the Westbury Music Fair, a theater near Islip, aimed at attracting other partners. They found six, among them the owner of a Long Island Midas Muffler franchise and an Islip doctor. The six put up $390,000, and Lemongello worked out a plan to hit the New York metropolitan-area market, as he puts it, "like a slow-release time bomb." He cut a two-record album, Love 76, then in January activated his bomb: a 13-week, $187,000 campaign jamming all six New York City TV channels with 70 to 100 commercials a week.

They worked: Lemongello fans were born. One Brooklyn girl started staying up until 4:30 a.m. just to see his one-minute ad on TV. Another kissed the tube whenever he appeared. He booked a concert at Manhattan's Lincoln Center, and it sold out. Westbury asked him back for a one-week gig for $100,000. Love 76 has sold 43,000 copies, through mail orders drawn by the TV spots. Lemongello was becoming a household word of sorts—at least in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. But, as he ruefully admitted, "if you mentioned my name in Philadelphia, no one would know me." He realized that unless he could get a recording contract, his instant success would evaporate.

Chance to Buy. So last month Lemongello took his pitch to Los Angeles and Las Vegas with a $210,000 TV-commercial campaign. If that did not bring the record companies to their knees, promised Lemongello's banker friend, it would be on to Chicago and Texas and Florida: "We'll take him to eight or twelve cities, if necessary, to give people a chance to buy our product."

Last week Private Stock, a scrambling, young recording company that handles Frankie Valli, José Feliciano and the Troggs, signed on Lemongello. His backers in Long Island—not to mention viewers in Chicago, Texas and Florida—can relax for a while.