Vale showed his love of Italian music with his albums, I Have But One Heart (1962) and Arrivederci, Roma (1963), full of Italian standards such as "Amore, Scusami", "Ciao, Ciao, Bambina", "Arrivederci, Roma", and "O Sole Mio". His renditions of "Volare", "Innamorata (Sweetheart)", and "Al di là" became classic Italian-American songs.
Vale was born Gennaro Louis Vitaliano in the Bronx, New York, to Italian immigrant parents, and grew up in the Wakefield section of the Bronx which at the time was composed mainly of Italian-American families. In high school, to earn money, Vale took a job shining shoes in a barbershop, singing while he worked. His boss, Vito Veneziano, liked the sound so well that he paid for music lessons for the boy. Vale started singing in high school musicals and at a local nightclub. Still a teenager, he left school to work in a factory as an oiler alongside his father.
Vale's early nightclub performances led to additional shows in the early 1950s, including one lasting for three years at the Enchanted Room, a club in Yonkers, New York. When Paul Insetta (road manager for singer Guy Mitchell and hit songwriter) heard him there, he signed him to a management contract and further coached him. Insetta arranged for Vale to record some demonstration records of songs he'd written, and he brought them to Columbia Records. Guy Mitchell introduced Vale to Mitch Miller, then head of A&R at Columbia Records. Vale signed a recording contract, with Insetta as his manager for many years to come.

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