Not just the food is Italian

We all know that the food at Clarksburg’s West Virginia Italian Heritage Festival is as Italian as spaghetti and meatballs.

But so is the musical entertainment, for all of the festival’s 39 years.

Only Italians or Italian-Americans are invited to perform.

The guy in charge of entertainment, Steven Pishner, makes sure of that. That’s Pishner as in Diane Pishner Walker, Clarksburg’s author of “Spaghetti and Meatballs,” about growing up in an Italian family.

 

This week the music will be provided by Moreno Fruzzetti at 6:30 p.m. Friday and 6 p.m. Saturday, The Diamonds at 8:15 p.m. Friday (“Little Darlin’” and “The Stroll” and Sal Valentinetti, finalist on “The Voice,” on Saturday.

I scoured The Diamonds’ roster but I didn’t seen an Italian name on it. Gary Owens, Jeff Dolan, Jerry Siggins and Sean Sooter.

But then, I have a Polish name, Olesky, but my mother was born in Pellizzano, Italy so I guess one of those guys has Italian blood, too, if not a name with a lot of vowels, like me.