Things you didn't know about Dominick The Donkey! Behind the Christmas Hits

Was Dominick connected to the mob?  It’s time to explore the story behind one of the most polarizing Christmas songs of all time: Dominick the Donkey.

Written by Ray Allen, Sam Saltzberg & Wandra Merrell, Dominck was recorded by Lou Monte.
 
Monte grew up in New Jersey and started singing & playing guitar in clubs when he was 14. He paused his career in the early 40’s to enlist in the Army, but upon his return, business began to pick up.  He got his own radio show in Newark in 1948 and started appearing on local TV.  He went from the smaller clubs in New Jersey to the big rooms in Manhattan.  Most of Monte’s humour centred around being raised in an Italian family, which led to the nickname of “Godfather of Italian Humour.”
 
Dominck wasn’t the only Italian animal he sang about – Monte also had a hit with Pepino the Italian Mouse, which sold over a million copies. There was also Pepino’s Friend Pasqual, the Italian Pussy Cat and Paulucci the Italian Parrot.  
 
Dominick was released in 1960 and the circumstances surrounding it’s recording sound like something out of a Scorsese movie. The rumour that has not-so-quietly followed the song around from the beginning is that “made men” from the infamous Gambino Crime Family, financed the recording of the song…and then aided in it’s distribution to get it into record stores.  It doesn’t appear that Lou Monte was ever investigated to the extent Frank Sinatra was, but those rumours were there.  Now…despite whatever alleged associations it had, Dominick was not a hit.  It took a LONG time for that to happen. 
 
For decades, it was more of an underground, cult hit…with people’s initial reaction being more of surprise that the song even existed and had been around for as long as it had.
 
But Dominick officially achieved “hit” status when The Chris Moyles Show on the BBC launched a campaign to get it to #1. It came close, peaking at #2 on the iTunes chart on December 19, 2011.

In recent years, other artists and authors have tried to expand Dominick’s universe. In 2016, author Shirley Alarie released two children’s books about Dominick. And in 2018, Jersey native Joe Baccan dropped “Dominooch” – a song about Dominick’s son taking over the “family business.”
  
No doubt the song is polarizing – it frequently finishes at or near the top of “worst Christmas songs” lists. But those who love it, love it a lot and it’s hard not to appreciate its unlikely long and winding journey to becoming a “legit” Christmas hit.

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