Tony Bellus is a vocalist and musician

Musician

A musician is an artist who plays a musical instrument. It may or may not be the person's profession. Musicians can be classified by their roles in performing music and writing music.Also....* A person who makes music a profession....

 whose first recording were with Shi-Fi Records in 1958. His greatest best known song

Song

In music, a song is a composition for voice or voices, performed by singing.A song may be accompanied by musical instruments, or it may be unaccompanied, as in the case of a cappella songs...

 is the Robbin' The Cradle, a self-composed ballad

Ballad

A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads were particularly characteristic of British and Irish popular poetry and song from the later medieval period until the 19th century and used extensively across Europe and later the Americas, Australia and North Africa. Many...

 he recorded in Chicago in 1959.

The recording

Sound recording and reproduction

Sound recording and reproduction is an electrical or mechanical inscription and re-creation of sound waves, such as spoken voice, singing, instrumental music, or sound effects. The two main classes of sound recording technology are analog recording and digital recording...

 of Robbin' The Cradle contained a number of styles and musical combinations. It combined an Italian

Italian people

The Italian people are an ethnic group that share a common Italian culture, ancestry and speak the Italian language as a mother tongue. Within Italy, Italians are defined by citizenship, regardless of ancestry or country of residence , and are distinguished from people...

 pop

Pop music

Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...

 singer playing an accordion

Accordion

The accordion is a box-shaped musical instrument of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone family, sometimes referred to as a squeezebox. A person who plays the accordion is called an accordionist....

 à la Dick Contino

Dick Contino

Dick Contino is an American accordionist and singer.Contino studied accordion primarily with San Francisco-based Angelo Cognazzo, and occasionally with Los Angeles-based Guido Deiro. Early on he exhibited great virtuosity on the instrument...

, being backed with a basically country

Country music

Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...

/rockabilly

Rockabilly

Rockabilly is one of the earliest styles of rock and roll music, dating to the early 1950s.The term rockabilly is a portmanteau of rock and hillbilly, the latter a reference to the country music that contributed strongly to the style's development...

 band

Band (music)

In music, a musical ensemble or band is a group of musicians that works together to perform music. The following articles concern types of musical bands:* All-female band* Big band* Boy band* Christian band* Church band* Concert band* Cover band...

 augmented with a background Latino vocal group. Upon hearing Bellus perform the song in Chicago, NRC Vice-President Boots Woodall

Boots Woodall

Dennis "Boots" Woodall was a country musician active from the 1930s to early 1960s in the American South and Midwest. After participating in a number of bands and serving in World War II, he formed the Radio Wranglers, whose name was changed to the TV Wranglers in 1949...

 leased the master for the NRC label, and the song hit the Top Forty, staying on the charts

Record chart

A record chart is a ranking of recorded music according to popularity during a given period of time. Examples of music charts are the Hit parade, Hot 100 or Top 40....

 for 26 weeks.

Attempts at follow-ups were hampered when the original National Recording Corporation

National Recording Corporation

-Early years:National Recording Corporation was incorporated in Atlanta in 1958. Founders were Bill Lowery, at the time the number one Country Music disc jockey and already a successful music publisher, and Boots Woodall, whose band recorded for Capitol, King, and Bullet Records and performed on...

 went bankrupt 27 April 1961. The company reappeared in 1962 under the aegis of Georgia

Georgia (U.S. state)

Georgia is a state located in the southeastern United States. It was established in 1732, the last of the original Thirteen Colonies. The state is named after King George II of Great Britain. Georgia was the fourth state to ratify the United States Constitution, on January 2, 1788...

 theatre magnate Frederick Storey. The reorganization and a stint in the Army

United States Army

The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...

 took the momentum from Bellus' career. Many critics claim that Bellus was a one shot artist who never again recorded anything that was a hit.

Bellus has returned to the NRC label with a CD

Compact Disc

The Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage , write-once audio and data storage , rewritable media , Video Compact Discs , Super Video Compact Discs ,...

 release of the 1959 album

Album

An album is a collection of recordings, released as a single package on gramophone record, cassette, compact disc, or via digital distribution. The word derives from the Latin word for list .Vinyl LP records have two sides, each comprising one half of the album...

 that followed the single

Single (music)

In music, a single or record single is a type of release, typically a recording of fewer tracks than an LP or a CD. This can be released for sale to the public in a variety of different formats. In most cases, the single is a song that is released separately from an album, but it can still appear...

's success. The old NRC music library was purchased by Georgia music historian and producer Johnny Carter in 2004, and a second Bellus CD was shortly in the works, at a new state-of-the-art digital facility dubbed "The NRC Studio". The second CD has a "Now & Then" theme, including the best of the NRC singles not previously available on CD, plus new music written by Bellus.

Bellus resides in Florida with his wife Tammy, also a songwriter

Songwriter

A songwriter is an individual who writes both the lyrics and music to a song. Someone who solely writes lyrics may be called a lyricist, and someone who only writes music may be called a composer...

.