Dominic Anthony Catoggio was born in Flushing, Queens in 1910. His family moved to Albany around 1918, when Catoggio would have been eight years old.

In 1927, his father purchased a small house at 339A Madison Avenue, just west of Swan Street, in Albany.

Family lore has it that Catoggio spent the entirety of his first paycheck on a violin. He did not know how to play a violin, as his immigrant father quickly pointed out in a huff. But, evidently, he took the violin up to his bedroom and learned to play it. He went on to learn to play the bass, guitar, and banjo.

We don't know if Catoggio was self-taught, or if he might have taken lessons.

By the 1930s and 1940s he was playing in a couple of orchestras. He played guitar in the Jimmy D'Angelo Orchestra. He also played guitar, and later bass, in the Francis Murphy Orchestra. Our newspaper research for the period of 1938 through 1942 revealed numerous gigs for both of these bands.

The 1940 US Census reported that Catoggio earned $900 in 1939. The median income for that year was roughly $1350. The Albany City Directory has him living at 339A Madison, his parent's house, with his wife (married in 1938) up until he entered the Army in 1943.

In October 1943 he was drafted. He served as a medic in General Patton's Third Army and saw action in eastern France, including the Battle of the Bulge. He was wounded in action in February 1945 and was removed to a military hospital in Massachusetts until June 1945.

We have a photograph of him back with the Francis Murphy Orchestra circa the late 1940s - early 1950s.

He obtained employment with the State of New York in Albany upon the birth of his son in 1950.

He played a regular gig at the Petit Paris Restaurant on upper Madison Avenue up to his death. He also gave music lessons out of his house during this period.

And as a seven year old, I had the pleasure to see him play in the Francis Murphy Orchestra on a warm May evening in Hawkins Stadium in Albany.