Ernie Maresca Simply Wants to Live “The Good Life”

I first learned of Ernie Maresca through Chris Barrus‘s curated collection of 209 songs from the year 1962. Ernie had a big hit that year with “Shout! Shout! Knock Yourself Out!” and somehow I got the mistaken impression that Ernie was kind of a minor figure in pop music. But then Tom Avazian generously lent me a CD anthology of songs from the legendary Laurie label, and I quickly learned that Ernie was also a songwriter who wrote hits for friend and labelmate, Dion DiMucci (of Belmonts fame), as well as himself and others. Maresca later ran Laurie’s publishing arm.

In May 1966 Maresca released a nice little piece of rock ‘n’ soul — “The Good Life“:

“The Good Life“

Ernie Maresca (1966)

The original May 1966 single appears to have been released in a vacuum — Zero to 180 scanned all May 1966 editions for Billboard, Cash Box, and Record World but failed to turn up even a single reference to Maresca, sadly.

Recorded at Allegro Sound Studios

“The Good Life” can also be found on Laurie’s 1982 LP compilation, Collector’s Records of the 50’s and 60’s, Vol. 13.

Ernie talks a little about “The Good Life” in an interview posted on Spectropop — a snippet:

Q = Of course, you didn’t just write songs, you sang them too. ‘The Good Life’ is a good one. And weren’t you also Artie Chicago?

A = ‘The Good Life’ is a great track, it really is, but not because it’s me. That’s Tony Faranda playing guitar. He was terrific, Tony. Sal Corrente called recently to tell me that Tony had just died. They were very good friends. Tony played that guitar lick on ‘Rockin’ Boulevard Street’ and on practically every single record that I ever did. He was a bass player and a guitar player. He was fantastic. He’d just moved down to Florida and I was gonna get together with him but he passed away. Yeah, Artie Chicago, that was me singing lead with the Belmonts. I love that song, ‘Please Don’t Play Me A7‘. It was written about a bar in The Bronx that we went to after recording sessions. I also met my wife Paula there.

Q = You mentioned Sal Corrente. Can you tell me a bit more about him.

A = Sal Corrente is a cop and a real good friend of mine. He lives up in Yonkers. He was part of all kinds of groups, like The Johnny Law Four and The Traces. No (laughs), Johnny Law wasn’t a real person. They used that name because they were all cops. Sal was the lead singer. He’s been singing forever and he’s still singing now. He’s a nice guy and a rock ‘n’ roll fanatic. He sings great. He sang at my wedding. He should’ve had a hit record years ago. He did things like ‘Unbelievable’ by the Runarounds. He sings lead on that, I think. That should have been a hit. It was on Nat King Cole‘s label but he died and the whole record died.