Joe Lala

Friday, February 27, 2015

Joe Lala

Joseph Lala (November 3, 1947 â€" March 18, 2014) was an American musician, actor and voice actor, notable for dubbing Kun Lan of the video game Killer7 and as a drummer and percussionist who worked with Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Manassas, The Bee Gees, Whitney Houston, Joe Walsh, Andy Gibb and many others.

Born in Ybor City, Tampa, Florida, to parents from Contessa Entellina (one of the Albanian minority communities in Sicily), Lala started out playing the drums in several Florida bands, before forming the band Blues Image in 1966. He also occasionally sang lead vocals, most notably on the song "Leaving My Troubles Behind". He accumulated 32 gold records, and 28 platinum throughout his career. He played on the movie soundtracks of Saturday Night Fever, Staying Alive, D.C. Cab, Streets of Fire, All the Right Moves, Breathless, Defiance, The Lonely Guy and Airplane!.

A severe case of carpal tunnel syndrome ended Lala's career as a percussionist, but it opened the door to acting.

His films included Active Stealth, Sugar Hill, On Deadly Ground, Deep Sleep, Havana (with Robert Redford), Out for Justice, Marked for Death, Eyewitness to Murder, and Born in East L.A., plus many more. Lala made many appearances on TV shows like Miami Vice, General Hospital, Melrose Place, Seinfeld, Hunter, and Who's the Boss?, and starred in a summer replacement show named Knight & Daye. He portrayed another native of Ybor City, Dr. Ferdie Pacheco, in Ali: An American Hero, and co-starred with Andy Garcia in For Love or Country: The Arturo Sandoval Story.

Lala also guest-starred on several animated shows; Batman: The Animated Series, Pinky and the Brain, Quack Pack, The Angry Beavers, The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius, Johnny Bravo, Superman: The Animated Series, The Woody Woodpecker Show (the 1999 version), and many more.

Joe Lala died suddenly from complications of lung cancer on March 18, 2014, at approximately 7:00 AM, at the age of 66.