Joe Scalissi was born Giuseppe Giovanni Scalissi on September 16th, 1966 in Madison Wisconsin to Biagio (Ben) and Donnatella (Donna) Scalissi.

Through out most of his young life Joe was surrounded by music. His father was the lead singer in his own band for almost twenty years. "Everyone in my family was musical, and very good," recounts Joe. "I thought there would be no way I could ever measure up to the talent surrounding me. So, I decided to get into sports".

In 1978 he took up boxing and fell in love with the sweet science. Eight years, 116 fights and seven broken noses later he decided it was time to hang up the gloves and move on. But before he would end his boxing career, Joe would rack up 2 national Golden Glove titles and be eliminated from the 1984 Olympic trials by Frank Tate, the junior middle weight gold medal winner.

Joe's boxing coach was a correctional officer, so Joe followed suit. Seven years in a double maximum security prison was long enough. A big change in his career path was about to unfold.

It began at his parents' wedding anniversary party in 1993. Joe was persuaded to take the stage and sing his mothers favorite song "Volare". "I was so scared; not once in the ring or working in the prisons was I ever so afraid!" he said.

The audience's reaction sealed his fate. "At the end of the song they applauded - but I thought they were applauding because I was done," Joe says with a wink. "But that very night I booked my first show. A couple in the crowd asked me if I would perform at their wedding."

And so it began. A couple of odd jobs mixed in with a show here and there was how Joe sustained himself in those beginning days of entertaining. In 1998 Joe made the leap and became a full time entertainer. Since then he has crisscrossed the United States performing to packed show rooms taking with him only his warm baritone, a joke, and of course his love of entertaining people.

On June seventh, (Dean Martin's birthday) 2003, Joe married Deborah. On June 20th, 2006 they celebrated the birth of their first child, a boy, Biagio (after Joe's father) Giuseppe (after Joe) Scalissi.

Joe and his family reside in Madison, Wisconsin.

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