BOBBY Rydell is adamant: his upcoming tour billed as his swansong won't be his last.
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"I don't know who came up with it being a farewell tour, but I've been coming to Australia since 1960 and this is going to be somewhere around my 20th visit, so hopefully it's not a farewell tour," he says from Philadelphia, reflecting on his faithful antipodean fans, who have supported him through a career that spans six decades and encompasses music, film and television.
The singer born Robert Louis Ridarelli, now 71, has not wavered in his lifelong love for music, but he admits he doesn't know how his voice has remained so strong since he released his first hit in 1959.
"I'm a smoker - I'm not proud of it, but I've been smoking, my God, since I was 10 - and God has blessed me.
"My chops are really wonderful; I think they're stronger today than they've ever been - maybe it's the new parts."
Rydell is joking about the organ transplants he underwent in July 2012 to replace his liver and kidneys, which forced him to cancel his last planned tour of Australia. His tone becomes more serious as he explains how he will use his coming trip to speak about organ donation.
"My donor was a 21-year-old girl who was, unfortunately, hit by a car and not only did she save my life, but she saved seven other people as well - she's my angel and her name was Julia.
"It's a cause very near and dear to me, because it saved my life; it really is a gift."
Rydell has been singing for as long as he remembers and has correspondence about his three-year-old self that was exchanged between his mother and father.
"My mum would say 'The baby's always singing' and my father wrote back 'Who knows, maybe one day we'll have a star in the family'," he said.
Rydell's father was a fan of big bands and would later take his young son to Saturday matinee performances at the Earl Theatre to see [Tommy] Dorsey, Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw.
"I remember when a gentleman by the name of Gene Krupa was playing drums for Benny Goodman and I said to my father 'I don't know who he is, Daddy, but I want to be him, I want to be that guy behind the drum set' and I started playing the instrument at around five or six years old."
When Rydell was about eight, his enterprising father would take him to small clubs around their hometown, asking proprietors if his son could sing and perform imitations for guests.
"The audience would applaud and I would say 'My God, all I have to do is do this and they do that?' " he said.
"What a wonderful feeling that was."
Rydell was still a child when he won first place and a regular role on amateur talent television series Paul Whiteman's TV Teen Club, staying with the show for three years.
He later joined local bands and played as a teenage drummer alongside Frankie Avalon in Rocco and the Saints.
Inspired by big band singers, including Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby and Perry Como, he released his debut single Kissin' Time with Cameo Records.
Rydell said he knew he was on the precipice of something extraordinary when he was asked to perform at the revered Copacabana in New York in 1961.
"It was the epitome of cabaret in New York City and throughout the whole United States," he said.
"When people later asked why they called the school in Grease Rydell High, well, who knows - it could have been Everly High, Presley High or Fabian High, who knows, but it was a very nice gesture."
He says "the feather in my cap" was Paul McCartney's disclosure that Rydell's first million-album seller We Got Love inspired the Beatles' 1963 single She Loves You.
Rydell would later record the McCartney-penned A World Without Love, which was released by English duo Peter and Gordon as their first single in February 1964.
Rydell's career features 34 top-40 singles, including Wild One, Little Bitty Girl, Swingin' School, Ding A Ling, Forget Him and his "signature song, my walk-on music and my bow music", Volare.
More than half a century after first tasting success as a teenager, Rydell does not hold back on his thoughts on today's adolescent idols.
"My upbringing wasn't very stern, but it was kind of strict in a way, and my early management told me at a very early age, when I had my first hit record: 'Remember, you meet the same people going up as you do coming down'."
Bobby Rydell plays Wests Leagues Club on February 12.