TAYLOR MILL, Ky. — Michael Soldano Sr. began singing in the Catholic Church when he was 8 years old. He sang on radio programs and at religious events and helped record original liturgical music with Omer Westindorf, founder of the World Library of Sacred Music in Cincinnati.

        Mr. Saldano died Friday of congestive heart failure at Three Rivers Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Miami Heights. The Taylor Mill resident was 73.

        The South Fairmont native was born in 1928 to Severio and Lucia Soldano. After graduating from the Central Vocational School, he joined the U.S. Navy in 1946. He served four years and was stationed aboard the USS Wright aircraft carrier in Pensacola, Fla.

        In 1950, he married Nikki Impagliazzo.

        In the early 1950s, Mr. Saldano, along with Buddy LaRosa and other partners, ran Papa Gino's, a pizza business on Boudinot Avenue in Westwood.

        In 1954, Mr. Saldano opened Papa Gino's at the corner of Harrison Avenue and Race Road in Bridgetown. After 27 years, he sold the business and went to work as a Realtor.

        An avid golfer, Mr. Saldano later left real estate to work as a ranger for Neumann Golf Course in Mack.

        In 1986, he and his second wife, Joyce Newman, moved to Clearwater, Fla. Three years later, he moved to Price Hill.

        In 1994, he moved to Taylor Mill to live with his son, Joe, and worked at the Kenton County Golf Course in Independence.

        Throughout his years in the Cincinnati area, Mr. Soldano, a tenor soloist, sang at a number of local parishes, and non-Catholic churches, funerals, weddings and children's Masses.

        He served in the eucharistic ministry and on the bereavement committee at St. Bonaventure Church in Fairmount. He helped start the Christ Renews His Parish movement there.

        “Back in the 1960s, when liturgical reform came into the church, he was one of the first cantors,” said a lifelong friend, David Allen, director of the Cincinnati Metropolitan Orchestra and music director at Elder High School and St. William Church in Price Hill.

        Joelina Lecture, pastoral musician at Holy Family Church in Price Hill, often accompanied Mr. Soldano on the organ.

        “Mike made the presence of God so real and tender in the hearts of his listeners,” she said. “He got to be a conduit to making God very real.”

        Mr. Soldano's son, Joe, said his father got his three children involved in music, too.

        Mr. Soldano was preceded in death by a daughter, Maria, a brother, Sam, and a sister, Carmella Hoffman.

        In addition to his former wives and son, survivors include his brother, John “Bap” of Price Hill; and another son, Mike of West Chester; five grandchildren and one great-grandchild.

        Visitation is 10:30 a.m.-1 p.m. Monday at St. William Church in Price Hill, followed by a Mass of Christian burial at 1:15 p.m.

        Memorials: American Diabetes Association, 8899 Brookside Ave., West Chester, OH 45069; Right To Life of Greater Cincinnati Inc., 802 W. Galbraith Road, Cincinnati 45239; or Hospice of Cincinnati, 4310 Cooper Road, Blue Ash, OH 45242.

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