Tony Bulsara
Tony Bulsara is a Palestinian-American lounge singer and entertainer associated with the greater Chicagoland music and nightlife scene. Born Tariq Bulsara, he is best known for his elaborate self-reinvention as an Italian-American crooner, complete with a carefully cultivated New Jersey accent, open-collared shirts, gold jewelry, and a meticulously maintained pompadour.
| Tony Bulsara | |
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| Full name | Tony Bulsara |
| Aliases | Tariq Bulsara |
| Born | August 7, 1963 Gaza Strip, Palestine |
| Occupation | Lounge Singer |
| Associated locations | Cicero, Illinois; New Jersey; Turkey |
| Status | Alive |
Despite his frequently exaggerated stories and performative personality, Bulsara is a genuinely talented singer and has spent much of his adult life scraping together a career through lounge performances, weddings, banquet halls, VFW events, and other small-scale engagements.
Early life
Bulsara was born into a Palestinian family and was raised in a Muslim cultural tradition. He rarely discusses his childhood or Palestinian background and has spent most of his adult life avoiding questions about it.
Details of his early adulthood are fragmentary. According to information pieced together by his attorney, Tony "No Nose" Catellini, Bulsara spent a period of time nearly destitute while making his way through Turkey. Bulsara himself claims that he became a popular performer there, though the scale of his success is difficult to verify.
His singing ability appears to have been instrumental in his survival during this period. He frequently obtained meals, lodging, transportation, and occasionally passage by entertaining patrons, tourists, hotel guests, or whoever else happened to be present. Although Bulsara has embellished these years considerably, there is little doubt that he genuinely worked as an itinerant singer.
Bulsara eventually left Turkey for the United States, claiming that he "wanted more." He settled in New Jersey for several years, where he deliberately developed the persona he would later use professionally.
Tony Bulsara persona
During his time in New Jersey, Tariq gradually reinvented himself as Tony Bulsara, constructing an identity around mid-century Italian-American and American lounge culture.
His principal musical inspiration is Frankie Avalon, along with Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and other singers associated with the Rat Pack era.
Bulsara trained himself to speak with a New Jersey accent and adopted the mannerisms, clothing, speech patterns, and social habits he associated with Italian-American entertainers. His standard appearance includes:
- an open-collared shirt, usually exposing substantial chest hair;
- a gold medallion or chain;
- carefully styled dark hair worn in a pompadour;
- dress jackets, lounge wear, and other clothing modeled after older nightclub performers.
Bulsara takes the persona seriously and does not consider himself to be performing a joke or parody. In his own view, "Tony Bulsara" is an identity he consciously created and earned.
Actual Italian-Americans generally recognize quickly that Bulsara is not Italian. His performance is convincing enough in casual situations, but he occasionally makes cultural mistakes that expose the limits of his knowledge.
Cultural slips
Despite his efforts to suppress his Palestinian background, Bulsara occasionally reverts unconsciously to habits from his upbringing.
One recurring example is his tendency to use lemon and olive oil as instinctive additions to food. During a dinner at the Catellini family home in Elmwood Park, Bulsara drew confused reactions after adding olive oil and asking for lemon while eating a heavy Italian-American Sunday meal. The behavior was not an attempt at sophistication; it reflected culinary habits from his Palestinian upbringing.
His Arabic also occasionally surfaces without warning.
During the same visit, after consuming several glasses of Chablis, Bulsara affectionately referred to Tony Catellini as "habibi". Bulsara immediately realized what he had said and attempted to explain it away.
Catellini subsequently adopted "habibi" as a nickname for Bulsara and periodically uses it in public specifically to embarrass him.
Bulsara has very little alcohol tolerance. Although he aspires to the drinking culture associated with Italian-American Catholic and Rat Pack imagery, his Muslim upbringing left him with comparatively little practical experience with alcohol. Even modest amounts of wine can noticeably affect his accent, emotional restraint, and ability to maintain his persona.
He has also been known to say "inshallah" in a completely natural Arabic accent before quickly returning to his New Jersey speech pattern.
Musical career
Bulsara is a struggling musician, but unlike many performers in his social circle, he is highly committed to his craft.
He regularly rehearses, performs vocal warmups, carefully prepares his clothes and stage appearance, and treats even small engagements as serious professional performances.
His repertoire primarily consists of American pop standards, lounge music, and romantic songs associated with the 1950s through 1970s.
Songs frequently associated with his act include:
- That's Life
- I've Got You Under My Skin
- My Way
- Strangers in the Night
- Can't Take My Eyes Off You
- Venus
- Volare
Bulsara performs at venues including VFW halls, banquet rooms, weddings, suburban restaurants, casino lounges, and local festivals.
One documented engagement was an appearance at a Cicero VFW, where his performance was scheduled between two bingo games.
Although his career has never produced significant financial success, Bulsara is widely acknowledged to be an excellent singer. Even people who consider his personality ridiculous generally stop mocking him once he begins performing.
Stories and exaggerations
Bulsara is notorious for telling stories about his supposed connections to famous musicians.
His claims are usually impossible to verify and tend to grow more elaborate over time.
A typical Bulsara story involves a famous performer supposedly seeking his advice before achieving success. Had he been old enough during Journey's early-1980s peak, he would be entirely capable of claiming that Steve Perry wrote Don't Stop Believin' after spending a week with him in Atlantic City.
Other stories involve:
- musicians he claims to have mentored;
- performers who supposedly wanted him to tour with them;
- unnamed casino executives who allegedly tried to recruit him;
- periods during which he claims to have been "huge" in Turkey;
- famous people whom he may have met only indirectly, if at all.
Bulsara tells these stories with complete confidence and often includes enough specific details to make listeners briefly question whether they might be true.
Relationship with Tony "No Nose" Catellini
Bulsara is a client of Cicero attorney Tony "No Nose" Catellini.
Catellini is one of the few people who knows substantial portions of Bulsara's real history and is aware that his Italian-American persona is fabricated.
Catellini does not appear to object to the deception and generally finds Bulsara's commitment to the role amusing.
Their relationship has developed beyond a normal attorney-client relationship, with Bulsara occasionally attending family functions at the Catellini home in Elmwood Park.
Catellini is also responsible for piecing together much of what is known about Bulsara's travels through Turkey and his early years in New Jersey.
Association with Carl Bird
Through Catellini, Bulsara became acquainted with Carl Bird, rhythm guitarist for the hard rock band Redline.
Although both men are struggling musicians, their attitudes toward music are very different.
Bulsara treats music as a serious vocation and devotes considerable effort to rehearsing, presentation, and maintaining his voice. Carl, while competent enough to perform regularly with Redline, is substantially less disciplined and often approaches music as an extension of drinking, socializing, and whatever opportunity happens to be available.
The two nevertheless share a degree of mutual professional respect. Carl recognizes that Bulsara can genuinely sing, while Bulsara acknowledges that Carl possesses enough musical ability and stage presence to remain employed as a working guitarist.
Their most infamous collaboration occurred during a suburban Italian-American festival, when Bulsara spontaneously invited Carl onstage during his lounge set.
Carl did not know the arrangement, had been drinking, and attempted to improvise rhythm guitar through Strangers in the Night. After accidentally engaging a distortion pedal, he turned the performance into an improvised hard-rock arrangement.
A Redline drummer eventually joined in, producing an unintended hybrid of lounge music and arena rock.
Bulsara was furious.
The audience loved it.
For several years afterward, attendees reportedly asked whether the "Sinatra metal" performance would return.
Personality
Bulsara is vain, theatrical, romantic, ambitious, and deeply committed to self-invention.
He is highly conscious of appearance and presentation and regards professional entertainment as a serious calling even when performing for extremely small audiences.
His greatest weakness is his tendency to mythologize himself. Bulsara constantly reconstructs his own life into something more glamorous, significant, or cinematic than it actually was.
At the same time, his persona is not entirely fraudulent.
He really did survive for years through charm and musical ability. He really can sing. He really did cross countries while nearly broke. He really did spend years refining an act.
The exaggerations mostly concern scale.
Where Bulsara says he was famous, he was probably popular in one particular bar.
Where he says a celebrity sought his advice, he may have spoken briefly with someone adjacent to that celebrity.
Where he describes himself as a major entertainer, he was more likely a talented working singer continuously one successful booking away from stability.
This mixture of genuine ability, relentless aspiration, and self-created mythology has allowed Tony Bulsara to remain convinced that his breakthrough is still possible.