My Funny Valentine: Steve Lippia Returns with Classics from the Crooners
David Lewellen
PUBLISHED
Tagged Under: 2025.26 Season, Guest Artist, Pops
Steve Lippia’s career maintains the tradition of the great American songbook — partly from his style of singing and partly from the wisdom he absorbed from his elders.
Lippia will perform a Valentine’s Day weekend set of concerts with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, singing favorites made popular by Vic Damone, Nat “King” Cole, Bobby Darrin, and more. His interpretations are formed by decades of his own experience, plus the insight of the people he hung out with.
“I was lucky to be on the tail end of the people who lived that life,” Lippia said recently by phone, referring to the touring big bands of the 1940s and ’50s. “Tino Barzie, who used to be the manager for Tommy Dorsey, was also my manager, and he would tell hundreds of stories about Dorsey, Frank Sinatra, Paul Anka, and I got to be a fly on the wall for all of those stories.”
Lippia also worked with music directors and publicists who remembered that era, and they pushed him to do better. “I had a team of guys who knew the business from a very high end,” he said. “I would do what I thought was a great show, but they would always raise the bar for me. They didn’t give compliments very often.”
The term “great American songbook” gets used a lot, but the definition of what belongs in it is imprecise. “It’s definitely not fixed,” Lippia said. “It moves as the calendar moves, and you can say, ‘well, that’s a classic, too.’” Most of the songs in that repertoire were written from the 1930s through the ’50s, by songwriters who did not perform as singers. But there are always exceptions; Lippia will be performing Billy Joel’s “Just the Way You Are” as part of his MSO Valentine’s concert.
“They’re sung by everyone, and for a good reason,” Lippia said. Although most of the songs are not closely identified with one singer, there are exceptions — Lippia will perform Sinatra staples “Strangers in the Night” and “My Way” with the MSO. “My voice happens to sound similar to Sinatra,” he said, “but it’s me singing.”
He does happen to have a Sinatra tribute concert in his repertoire, but he said, “Once I’ve got them in the room, I have to deliver.” Singing songs that the audience knows from recordings with other singers, he has to build a rapport of his own. For instance, he’ll tell the story of how “Strangers in the Night” was meant to be recorded by singer Al Martino (another acquaintance of Lippia’s) before Sinatra slipped in ahead of him.
Lippia is part of the baby boom generation and grew up listening to rock and roll. “I can cover rock, but nobody knows that,” he said. Instead, the music of the previous generation has become his niche. But as the original fans have died off, appreciation for “the standards” has been passed down. Lippia thinks that teenagers who dismiss the big band era as uncool often come back to it as adults “with bigger ears and a different mindset.”
Symphony orchestras are only one venue for Lippia, who also performs with big bands or small combos. “Very few singers get to work with an orchestra at all, and I never take it for granted,” he said — before adding that he has performed with 150 different orchestras.
To vary the pace and the texture, however, he will perform some numbers with only the wind section (similar to a big band) and some with just a rhythm section of piano, bass, and drums. “Milwaukee has a great talent pool, and I know the right people,” he said.
Lippia’s last appearance with the MSO was at the Riverside Theater, before the symphony’s move in 2021 to their own home in the Bradley Symphony Center. However, he was in town on unrelated business last October and stopped by to visit and get a tour. “It’s beautiful,” he said. “I look forward to working with these great musicians again.”
