Vincent LaGuardia Gambini Sings Just For You

MARTIN SCORSESE must have one hell of a case (or one muddafucka of a case, as Tommy out of GoodFellas would undoubtedly have put it) of screenplay-writer's block at the moment. For how else can you explain the fact that Joe Pesci has taken it upon himself to go into a studio and record an album of well-worn standards and originals?

For his recording debut, Pesci has assumed the alter ego of Vincent "Vinny" LaGuardia Gambini (hence the title). His immersion in this character is carried out to the point where "Vinny" is given songwriting and co-production credits in the sleevenotes instead of Pesci himself.

You'd hardly expect someone with Pesci's CV to use precious studio time to record a CD full of Keats sonnets set to classical music, and so it proves here. For most of the 14 tracks, he adopts the persona that has made him and several film studios millions of pounds over the past decade or so - that of the faintly psychotic Italian short-arse whose one-liners are laughed at out of fear rather than amusement. On one song, the feuding-lovers dialogue of 'I Can't Give You Anything But Love', he is aided and abetted by Marisa Tomei, of all people, who, on this evidence, couldn't carry a tune if she had four stretcher-bearers and a forklift truck at her disposal.

Not that Pesci himself will ever be troubling George Michael in the Best Male Vocal Grammy stakes. The guy sings the same way that he talks, and as you'll know if you've ever seen any of his films, a speaking voice akin to melted honey is not uppermost among his thespian attributes. During 'If It Doesn't Snow For Christmas', in particular, he sounds like a soprano elf, which is an especially disconcerting state of affairs when he's delivering lines like "I sent him a nice long letter/and I hope it's not in vain/I really would feel much better/If the fat fuck drove a plane".

Elsewhere, when he tries to rock out and scream his head off, as on the crassly enjoyable 'Take Your Love And Shove It', he resembles David Lee Roth circa 'Just A Gigolo'. Pesci actually sounds best on the soft-spoken rapping of 'Wise Guy', which rolls along at a perfectly relaxed, easy pace, facilitated by the funk-scat guitar of producer T-Bone Wolk.

If nothing else, Vincent LaGuardia . . . is rather better than the last Fun Lovin' Criminals album, with which it shares a lot of similar stylistic and lyrical terrain, as well as a penchant for liberal use of the word "motherfucker". I'll let you decide whether that's an endorsement of its content, however.