AV: Are you working on any new album projects currently? If so, please let us know about your new project or projects.
PB: I am so glad you asked. I’ve just recently finished and released an album of tribute to the fabulous Ink Spots, the seminal crossover black group who inspired the Mills Brothers, the Platters, and other great groups who would follow. They had so many big hits that were both R&B and pop, including, If I Didn’t Care, You Always Hurt the One You Love, We Three, and Java Jive. Millions of us love those songs and the group that made them so popular but they’ve been gone for years now. So I have recorded them with the help of Take 6, the equally fabulous a-cappella group out of Mississippi. It was incredible fun for all concerned and it’s tasty, historic and entertaining. And on one track, you hear me singing with Ella Fitzgerald, who recorded, Cow Cow Boogie, with the original Ink Spots and joins us posthumously on my record. You’ll get a kick out of it, I guarantee.
AV: Will you be speaking at any events in Northern California in the near future or in Southern California?
PB: I am heavily involved in this monumentally important political campaign. I’m doing robo-calls, video emails, and articles for World Net Daily, News Max and the Washington Times. I will do as many speaking events as I can and I am hosting our third annual Beverly Hills Tea Party event in front of the Beverly Hills sign on Santa Monica Blvd. We’ve had five or six hundred Beverly Hills residents at the first two and are expecting an even bigger crowd in October for this next one.
AV: Are you hoping for a positive change in November with the upcoming election?
PB: I’m hoping and praying, and hoping some more! In the last four years our national debt has tripled to over sixteen trillion dollars – a debt there’s no reasonable way to think we can pay – and has taken over healthcare as a government Big Brother program, while promising to take over five hundred billion dollars out of Medicaid. These are insane policies and programs but he manages to make them sound attractive. So millions and millions of us are praying for responsible leadership, a sensible and rational approach to keep us from becoming enslaved to our debts and becoming a prosperous free society again. Obviously, the Romney / Ryan ticket is the only alternative to the “wrack and ruin” current administration.
AV: How do you feel about the music business today?
PB: I love the diversity in the music business; anything goes today. I am concerned about the subject matter and lifestyles of some of our big music headliners, however. Young kids tend to emulate the stars and many of them aren’t wholesome examples, to say the least.
AV: What do you think your greatest accomplishment has been since the beginning of your career in music and acting in films?
PB: My biggest accomplishment is staying active and relevant in each of these fields of endeavor for over fifty years now. I’m still recording, doing television, and turning down movie scripts – until I get the right one.
AV: Will you be visiting the San Francisco Bay Area any time soon?
PB: I’m looking for excuses and reasons right now – maybe there will be a political one or two.
ALIVE and Antonia Venezia thank Pat Boone and his assistant, David Diggs, for making this interview possible.
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