Guy Lombardo, 'Mr. Freeport,' will be first voice heard by thousands to start 2024

At midnight Sunday, as the ball drops in Times Square and ushers in 2024, the New Year's Eve anthem of “Auld Lang Syne” will broadcast for the tens of thousands in attendance and the millions watching at home.

And the first voice they'll hear is Guy Lombardo, who popularized the Scottish folk song and is known to many in the community he called home as “Mr. Freeport.”

The legendary big band leader, alongside his Royal Canadians orchestra, entertained New Year's Eve audiences on the radio, and later on television, for nearly five decades at the Roosevelt Hotel and the Waldorf Astoria in New York City, and was once as synonymous with the holiday as Dick Clark or Ryan Seacrest.

“I love that old style of music and a tradition I wish was still around,” said Pastor Richard Ishmael, a Christian hip-hop musician who lives in one of the five homes built on the Freeport property where Lombardo lived for nearly four decades. “He's a big part of our history, and I don't think he gets enough credit. He's fading as a memory and I’d like to see some things to keep his memory alive. He was a staple of Freeport.”

While the road running along the Freeport Long Creek Marina, where the dashing entertainer lived, was later renamed Guy Lombardo Avenue, and a historical marker notes the house he shared with his wife, Lilliebell, there are scant other reminders in Freeport of the original “Mr. New Year's Eve.”

'Freeport's favorite son'

The Lombardos came to Long Island in 1933, living on the boat “Tempo” for the summer season on Freeport's Woodcleft Canal and eating at Otto’s Sea Grill on what is now known as the Nautical Mile. In 1940, they moved into a large estate on South Grove Street. The couple, who met at a Lombardo show in Cleveland, were married 51 years and did not have children. 

“He was Freeport’s favorite son, and he was a really nice guy and a good citizen,” said Regina Feeney, a historian at the Freeport Library who recalled that Lombardo would park Tempo under his home, which was demolished about 30 years ago. “He seemed to be at everything.”

Katherine Boulukos, a former president of the Long Island Arts Council, lived just a few homes from Lombardo, who died in 1977 at the age of 75, in Freeport.

“He was a great individual, polite and lovely,” Boulukos recalled. “His wife would clutch their dog as they would travel up and down the streets in their convertible. But his driver would go 20 miles per hour. And if you got stuck behind him, it would aggravate people to no end.”

But it wasn't just on New Year's Eve where Lombardo left his mark on Long Island.

Along with his brothers Carmen, Lebert and Victor, Lombardo produced hugely popular musical extravaganzas in the mid-20th century at the then-Jones Beach Marine Theater. He led orchestras during Broadway-style shows and would continue to play on for crowds dancing after the show, said George Gorman, regional director of Long Island state parks.

“He was an absolute fixture of the Jones Beach Theater Marine Stadium,” said Gorman, who owns a framed photo of Lombardo, Walt Disney and Robert Moses together at the popular outdoor amphitheater that Moses built. “There was no orchestra seats on the water and a moat between the stage, so he would drive his boat into crowds. Theatergoers loved the grand entrance.”

State officials created a monument to Lombardo at the entrance to the theater, featuring his catalog and years of shows, Gorman said.

“Guy Lombardo was woven into the fabric of Jones Beach,” he said. “The theater is one of the most important attractions for Jones Beach. Guy Lombardo and Robert Moses laid the foundation through the building and management of Marine Stadium to what we have today.”

'The original Dick Clark'

The Royal Canadians would go on to play at the inaugural balls of every U.S. president from Franklin D. Roosevelt to Dwight Eisenhower, and for Ronald Reagan in 1985.

Tom Needham, who sits on the board of the Long Island Music and Entertainment Hall of Fame, which inducted Lombardo in its inaugural class in 2008, said younger audiences may not understand his significance as an artist.

“He was a huge musical star and TV celebrity long before Dick Clark,” said Needham, who hosts a music-themed podcast. “His New Year's Eve specials were watched by tens of millions of people and at that point he was selling millions and millions of records. It's almost hard to imagine.”

In his later years, Lombardo's impact on Freeport would grow even further.

He led the Salvation Army Band for the groundbreaking of the group's Church Street facility, would kick off the village's annual canoe race and, in 1975, was named Freeport’s Man of the Year, Feeney said.

Lombardo also purchased a Freeport seafood restaurant at the foot of South Grove Street and renamed it Guy Lombardo’s East Point House.

Freeport Mayor Robert Kennedy said Lombardo also deserves credit for helping create the village's recreational boating community.

“He was instrumental in Freeport becoming so big,” Kennedy said. “He started with a vacation home, and everyone came to Freeport for a vacation and saw it as the beautiful asset the way he did.”

It's important, Needham said, that Lombardo's accomplishments — both on New Year's Eve and the rest of the calendar year — are not lost to history.

“He's the original Dick Clark,” he said. “And he really represents a different era … He was in so many people's homes for New Year's Eve and they shared it together. So, people have a close emotional connection to those memories.”