Don Costa

I spent four years working in a building on Greene Avenue, a building that happens to house the studio of a local radio station, one whose programming is dedicated exclusively to sports. When I started there, 9 years ago this month actually, the station would be playing in the elevator. And you know, talk radio is bad, and sports talk radio is talk radio on steroids. So those elevators, man. (A good way to punish little children – do your homework or you go in the elevator!!)

I took the stairs a lot in those early days, before someone turned off the damn radio and lost the switch.

Elevators used to play music, that’s the point. And they don’t anymore. Muzak, it doesn’t exist, not the way it used to (though the company is still around, still providing background music). And our hero today is Don Costa, most of whose work was done as a conductor and arranger for others, like Sinatra and Sarah Vaughan. He did, though, have a few hits under his own name, and I’ve got his biggest one. And it very much elevator music.

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Don Costa:

• Never On Sunday – From the movie. The whole concept is odd if you ask me, take a day off from nookie. The theological questions are daunting, so I will leave them for some other blogger, but it’s food for thought. The song is Greek-style, with bouzoukis and all, and it was a hit for The Chordettes, with words, a few years later. Costa’s cover was a hit in the fall of 1960.