Hiding in plain view: how a convicted murderer became a rock star.

[The Great Saiyaman]

First up, this is the band Sha-na-na, a Doo-wop band from the fifties who are still going strong today. They played the Woodstock festival on the insistence of Jimi Hendrix who had been a fan of theirs.

You might also know them as being the band who played in the Prom scene in the movie “Grease” for which they wrote a couple of songs, including “Greased Lightning” and “Sandy”




And this is Vincent Taylor, AKA Daniel “Danny C.” Catalano a former member of Sha-na-na. Except he isn't, the guy in the picture is Elmer Edward Solly and that picture you're looking at isn't a glamour picture either, it's a mug shot.

See, back in 1970 Mr Solly in a drunken stupor took the life of the two-year-old son of his then girlfriend and turned himself in to the police the very next day. He was convicted of manslaughter received 20 to life and was sent to prison. After transferring to another penitentiary in 1974, Solly was granted the time off from jail to visit his mother. But pulled a fast one on his guardian and ran off.


This is Sha-na-na guitarist, Vincent Taylor. To make things clear, this is the REAL Vinnie Taylor, who died in 1974 from an overdose.

Sha-na-na in the early seventies, Taylor is the one on the far right wearing the shades and the striped shirt.

Solly, who apparently was a big fan of Doo-Wop, saw this as an opportunity, he assumed Taylor's identity, had a forged certificate of birth and social security number made and as Taylor began to play live shows. But when people started calling him out on the scam, he said that the real Taylor's death had been a cover-up. But just to make sure, Solly made up the story that Taylor had assumed a new stage name.


As Daniel “Danny C.” Catalano, he again began doing live shows under the false pretense that he was a former member of Sha-na-na. Of course when the band's management got word of this, they objected but took no legal action since that would have given Solly free publicity.


For over 25 years, Solly played festivals, recorded albums and worked for charity and all that time people were none the wiser who this nice man with the silver mane and the golden voice really was. Heck he even posed with police officers on pictures taken in his new home town of Orlando.

But people began to notice signs that the legendary “Bad boy of Sha-na-na” had something strange going on, his girlfriend would state that he was being extremely paranoid and urged her not to mention Sha-na-na to anybody in the audience. Also, when people who booked Danny C. contacted Sha-na-na's management to book him for another show, they were told “He's a fraud, he has nothing to do with us.”

Meanwhile, Solly's mother had died and with her death the veil of secrecy around where her son had gone after his escape was lifted. Because Solly's stepfather told the police that all he knew was that Solly was performing under the name of “Danny C.” A search of the local bars turned up nothing but when they typed in the name into World Wide Web, they hit pay dirt.

That final day of freedom back in 2001 began very normally, Danny C. came out of his apartment, fishing gear in hand, greeted his neighbor and made his way to the pier. He sat down, got his rod out and felt a hand on his shoulder.

“Say Eddie, isn't it time you went home?” came the voice of Lt. Lou Kinkle of the New Jersey State police.

His neighbors were baffled, as were the members of Sha-na-na, that this guy was a con man was one thing but that he was a convicted murderer was quite something else.

Solly sat out the remainder of his sentence until his release 2003 on account of good behavior and died in 2007 in a Welfare hotel in New Jersey where he had been living.

[Sumac]

That's a story worthy of a movie.

[AquaParade]

Crazy story!