Videos  (click to watch)

CD- A Crooner Christmas

CD

The Bobby Gadoury Trio

Featuring Dale LePage

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING

Sinatra, Buble, LePage
Three of a kind
 Guarantees a full house!
“Don’t miss”
 Dale LePage
&
The Bobby Gadoury Trio
Dee Swan (Events Director) Southgate Theater

"Dale LePage is a talented singer and entertainer.  Dale sets the mood of the night or event, whether singing under the stars with The Bobby Gadoury Trio or at a fashionable outdoor restaurant, or entertaining guests at prestigious fund raisers.
I have been to events all over the world. And we are fortunate to have our very own talent Dale LePage with his melodic voice that make us feel as if we have been transported to some of the best music venues in the world. "
  - Christina Andrianopoulos, Radio & Television Talk Show Celebrity 

"The Bobby Gadoury Trio featuring Dale LePage were fabulous! I've already booked them for another performance,
Dale is a great entertainer with a captivating style and charm.  He has a natural ability to woo his audience and had them in the palm of his hand the entire evening.
Bobby Gadoury is one class act and an extremely talented pianist.  Along with Thomas Spears a fantastic drummer that had the whole auditorium hopping.
I felt lucky to have had them perform because they are one of those acts you know will go places.  We just hope not too far! " 
  - Anita Thomas, PR Director, Birches Auditorium, Worcester MA.

"As soon as I began planning the recent Cole Porter tribute at Nick’s in Worcester I knew we needed a dynamic group of highly skilled performers to bring to life more than four dozen of Porter’s Broadway and Hollywood songs.
With his smooth crooning Dale LePage was the perfect choice for our program. And Bobby Gadoury and Tom Spears brought impressive professionalism and versatile musicianship to their lively accompaniment.
To this talented combo I must give credit for our revue selling out 100% for four consecutive shows, breaking the house record. "
  -  Frank Racette, Berklee College of Music, Music Director- All Through the Night; A Tribute to Cole Porter

"Time is suspended with the music of the Bobby Gadoury Trio, featuring Dale LePage.  They perform such classics as the Very Thought of You, Cry Me a River, and my personal favorite, My Funny Valentine arranged in new and interesting ways.  The very talented Bobby Gadoury is on piano and Thomas Spears on drums, with the entertaining Dale LePage telling stories and providing banter in between some of the numbers.  Their live performances always make for a great time and their CD is no different."
  - Tracy C. Dill, Manager of Events and 1825 Society, EcoTarium

" BRAVO!
To Dale LePage and The Bobby Gadoury Trio"
- Craig Semon, Worcester Telegram and Gazette

Catch these guys before I say
"I told you so"
- Doreen Manning,   Worcester Magazine, Nightlife

"A love of romance permeates the new release from The Bobby Gadoury Trio, featuring vocalist Dale LePage.
Filled with tunes that fans of the Great American Songbook never tire, Dale LePage sails through his vocal interpetations with the resonance, phrasing and confidence of the professional that he is.
Bobby Gadoury's direct, melodic piano bounds joyously, sighs tenderly, and remains ever true.
Solid support from Tom Spears' drumming keeps the project flowing and grounded. All in all a great batch of tunes, handled with love and style (including two selections recorded live at "Nick's") that will live in the libraries of lovers for a long time."
 - Vince Lombardi, Host "A Tasteful Blend" 90.5 FM WICN Public Radio

ARTICLES

     When Dale LePage spins the tale of how he became one of Worcester’s most popular crooners, with a monthly gig at Nick’s Restaurant & Bar now in his already packed datebook, it almost seems like the script for a vintage black and white film.

     Scene one opens to a young boy on the shore, crooning French songs with his grandfather, fishing rod in hand. Although young boy dislikes the art of fishing, it’s his vocal time with his grandfather that he comes to love.
Scene two cuts to a young teen, still crooning, now a star of school plays in his hometown of Templeton and weekly gigs on a Gardner radio station. Upon graduation, young man decides to move to the big city – in this instance Worcester – to pursue a musical career.
Scene three fades to young man working at a Worcester eatery that frequently hosts entertainers from throughout New England.
While singing in the kitchen (sort of like singing in the shower), visiting pianist Jack Swan overhears the back room melody, peeks behind the kitchen door and yells, “Hey man, why don’t you get out here and give us a couple of songs?” And so a star was born.
“From that moment it snowballed into a career. [Swan] hooked me up with pianist who was looking for someone to replace a singer and a very good agent. I learned about 50 songs in about two months – it was grueling – and we were off playing the circuit from Maine, the Cape, Boston and R.I.,” recalls Lepage.
At the height of his career, gaining notoriety and a name for himself – including a nomination for Entertainer of the Year from now defunct Boston publication Esplanade magazine, Lepage was suddenly struck with a career stalling case of stage fright. When his anxiety turned to panic, Lepage took a leave of absence from the limelight, determined to make a future comeback.
Fast forward 15 years and Lepage is ready to make that comeback on the cozy stage at Nick’s – a favorite hangout for singers who embrace the great American songbook – something that Lepage easily handles with favorites from Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Ella Fitzgerald and others.

On stage with Bobby Gadoury and Thomas Spears, whom Lepage calls “two of the best musicians I have ever worked with,” stage fright in his back pocket and a melody on his lips, Lepage is ready to take his career to the next level.
“It feels like I am truly in the moment when we are on stage. The three of us have a great and fun chemistry,” says Lepage. “It is nice to be able to do what you feel you do best and have others enjoy it too.”
Lepage, who is also a children’s book author and illustrator, hooked up with Gadoury while on a search for a pianist to accompany him during a creative lecture at Assumption College. “I was going to talk about my art and my children’s book series Strange Gifts, but I also thought it would be the perfect opportunity to try and sing again,” Lepage says.
Having been impressed with Spears and Gadoury after seeing them one night at Nick’s, Lepage asked Gadoury to accompany him during his Assumption lecture.
Later, Gadoury scored Lepage an audition with Nicole, co-owner of Nicks, and landed a monthly gig with Bobby Gadoury Trio throughout 2010. “We packed the house for five Sunday in a row. It was such a rush!” says Lepage.
Having just left the studio with Gadoury and Spears for a future Bobby Gadoury Trio release, Lepage looks forward to picking up right where he left off 15 years ago, with success just around the corner. “Just wait until you hear the arrangement of my funny valentine Bobby Gadoury came up with for me … he and Thomas were brilliant,” says Lepage.
Yes, you guessed it, I’m now telling you to not take my words for granted. Catch the Bobby Gadoury Trio with the second chance crooner Dale Lepage at Nick’s 5 p.m. June 27. Success stories are hard to come by these days, so catch this one before you hear me say, “I told you so.” For more information go to myspace.com/NicksWorcester or look up Dale on Facebook.

Doreen Manning
Worcester Magazine
Night life

_________________________________________________________________________________________________

DaleLePage is back!
 with new CD
Gadoury Trio set for release party Sunday

By Craig S. Semon TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF

A serious case of stage fright kept Dale LePage offstage for more than 25 years.

After 25 years of self-imposed exile due to debilitating panic attacks and extreme stage fright, Nick’s comeback kid, Dale LePage, is once again taking center stage and knocking them dead with his new disc, “The Bobby Gadoury Trio featuring Dale LePage.”

“It’s the light at the end of the tunnel,” the Templeton native said inside his castle (and I mean castle) in the Tatnuck area of Worcester, as he reflects on his topsy-turvy, sometimes stomach-churning career and his big (and reportedly sold-out) CD release party with The Bobby Gadoury Trio from 5 to 9 p.m. Sunday at Nick’s, 124 Millbury St., Worcester.

LePage’s early introduction to music was him innocently singing ribald French songs with his Canadian grandfather when the two used to go fishing. And to this day, LePage credits “Paps” for teaching him how to sing, an artistic trait that definitely ran in his family.

“Most of the songs that I was taught by him are not suitable for the public,” LePage said with a knowing laugh. “They were all racy. I didn’t know what I was singing. I was 10.”

While it was his grandfather who instilled the love of music in him, the adolescent Le-Page was too shy to sing for the bulk of his stay at Narragansett Regional High School. Then he scored one of the male leads in “The Sound of Music” his senior year.

“I really only sang in my senior year because I figured it was now or never,” Le-Page recalled. “I was just to shy, painfully shy.”

Although he shows a kinship to Sinatra (and will be one of the artists performing as part of “The Sinatra Songbook” celebration on Dec. 2, 5, 12 and 19), LePage’s “little town blues” were very Springsteen-esque.

“I moved to Worcester when I could drive. I needed to have a career in music. You couldn’t do that in Templeton,” LePage said. “When I drove down Park Ave., from Templeton to Park Avenue, I said out loud, ‘This must be what Las Vegas is like.’ There was no going home after that.”

LePage lived in his car for about a month, At night, he would park his car close to a convent because he thought that he would be “really safe” (turned out that he was). He got himself a job at a now defunct Worcester restaurant that would regularly have great live entertainment coming in from Boston.

One night, pianist Jack Swan heard LePage crooning in the kitchen and checked to see what was cooking. The piano player coxed him out of the heat of the kitchen for the real heat of the stage lights, and LePage belted out a few tunes. From the strength of the impromptu performance, Swan set up a business proposition for another pianist, James Harlow, who just lost his lead vocalist for his lounge act. LePage, still a teenager, passed the audition and, in turn, had to learn 50 songs in two months.

“It was like in those 1940s movies about being discovered. That’s exactly what it was like,” LePage recalled. “James Harlow and I traveled from Maine down to Florida, singing and playing. We hit all the great clubs. By the time we’d gotten back from Florida, I had learned that I was nominated (Esplanade magazine’s) ‘Entertainer of the Year’ for Boston.”

Immediately, LePage’s career took off. The nightclubs were getting ritzier, and the crowds were getting larger. For a good two years, it looked as if there would be no end to his meteoric rise. And then, during an Al Jolson medley, everything came to a crashing halt.

“I was performing in this enormous nightclub. I got up on stage, biggest night of my career so far. I started my spiel like I always do and the sound goes off during the middle of one of my big numbers. It goes on again and there’s nothing but feedback in the whole place. I couldn’t take it. I walked right off the stage. And that was it,” LePage painfully recalled. “I tried a few little clubs after that but it was never the same … And then the panic attacks started. Anxiety was first. I couldn’t even go on stage. I would be physically sick and crying before I went on. And I went on. And once I went on. I was OK but it was that getting there.”

As a result, LePage was absent from the stage for more than 25 years. After a deep, personal loss that showed him how precious and fleeting life was and an out-of-the-blue call from Assumption College asking LePage, who spent more time hanging around convents than college campuses, to speak on “The Voice of the Artist” (about being a top-notch watercolor artist and successful children’s book author), he decided that it was time, once again, to take the reins of his singing career.

A friend put him in touch with pianist Bobby Gadoury. Together in September 2009, LePage and Gadoury went to Assumption College for his presentation (20 minutes of children’s book, 20 minutes on watercolor painting and 20 minutes on singing) and it was his first time performing in front of an audience since the early ’80s.

With his confidence building, LePage auditioned in front of proprietor Nicole Watson for a regular gig at Nick’s Restaurant & Bar.

“It was just Nicole. That was nerve-racking. I didn’t know she was this sweetheart I know today,” LePage recalled. “I sang, “Somebody to Watch Over Me” and she gave me the best compliment…‘I feel like I’m watching “Star Search”’.”

LePage made his triumphant return to the stage on Nov. 21, 2009, at Nick’s.

“I was a nervous wreck,” LePage said. “I was literally shaking. I was vibrating, but luckily they probably thought it was a strong vibrato.”

LePage has nothing but praise for fellow band mates, Gadoury, Tom Spears and Brian Sampson (who sits in on occasion and is featured on tracks 9 and 10 of the new disc). He describes their stage chemistry as being reminiscent of The Rat Pack.

“The first time around, my piano player, my agent, it was all about the money,” LePage said. “And these guys are truly doing it because they love it, not because of the money. And, this time, I’m on board for wherever this ride takes me.”

“The Bobby Gadoury Trio featuring Dale LePage” disc is a new spin on some old standards, including gems from Cole Porter (“Night and Day,” “I Get a Kick Out of You,” “All of You” and “I Love Paris”), Johnny Mercer (“Day In, Day Out”), Rodgers and Hart (“My Funny Valentine” and “The Lady Is A Tramp”) and a heart-wrenching “Cry Me a River,” which LePage has to make the last song of his set because it emotionally wears him out. The disc is $10 and is available at Nick’s.