How a neighborhood takes to a tribute is as important as the tribute itself. It's one thing to erect a statue of Rocky. But who in the Art Museum area loved that?

The seven artists on the north wall of Anastasi's Cafe at East Passyunk Street are a different story.

"We looove youuuu, Jerrrry," yells a gaggle of South Philly lilies.

Like the mural, theirs is a living tribute.

These women in their green windbreakers screamed more than a few times during Oct. 8's rain-soaked mural dedication for South Philly musicians Frankie Avalon, Al Martino, Chubby Checker, Fabian Forte, Bobby Rydell, Eddie Fisher and Jerry Blavat.

"I love you too, sweetheart," says Blavat, rakish in a grey leather cap. He ain't Geator-ing.

These Fab Four get hands-on treatment from old friends and family. Checker sings Martino's "Spanish Eyes" to a gent who says they went to Settlement together. I get brushed off by a woman who speaks with Avalon about a certain cousin Josephine. "Ahhhhh, you!" she yells at me when I try to talk to her.

"You know how many jobs I held down here?" queries Martino. "I worked at Bob's Grocery Store on Eighth and Tasker. Worked there until I joined the Navy at 14. Do you know how many miles I logged on this block from the time I could walk?"

I didn't know.

"I lived all over too," chimes a tan Avalon. "Born on Ninth and Wharton. Moved to Moore, McKean, Earp, Mifflin."

"Think about this," says Blavat — a native of the 1900 block of South Bancroft Street — sitting next to Councilman Frank DiCicco, cozy in Geno's private orange leather back booth. "You're a kid. Here's your mother and your grandmother. They shop at Ninth Street. You're always with them. Everybody, citywide, shops here. Now imagine it's today, and your grandmother is alive and she looks up and sees her grandson's face"

Blavat pauses to extend his arms, as if to say, "C'maaan, pallie."

"Priceless," he says.

Blavat, a prime mover in getting Checker, Martino and company along for the ride, knows they could've put this mural on Broad Street.

"But to be at the foot of the Italian Market"

Another "C'maaan" look.

Geno's owner Joe Vento, a neighborhood guy since the 1940s, when his current location at Ninth and Passyunk was surrounded by a graveyard and his father's Jim's Steaks, can't believe it took this long. "These men made this block." But so did guys like Joe, who started cheesesteaking in 1966. "But I didn't make any records," he says, smiling.

"Listen, I was playing here when Joe's Steak was the first guy — and he was charging a quarter," says Avalon.

"Joe Marrone," states Blavat, definitively.

Though born in South Carolina, Earnest Evans' life started on Ninth Street. "I got my name Chubby here. Tony Anastasio on Ninth and Christian named me that. When I started plucking chickens for Fresh Farm Poultry, Henry [Colt] took me into the studio. This area — it's me."

"Besides," says Martino, "it's better to be on this wall than to be on one in the post office."

"It's my back yard," says DiCicco, an 11th Street guy who lives on the block where he grew up. "Literally, I look out my window and see this part of Ninth Street all lit up."

DiCicco, a prime mover of the mural project (and another one based on South Philly vocal groups like the Four Aces, for which he asks, "Know anyone with a spare wall?") sees the mural as something that lets novice Ninth Streeters know what came before — that there's history beyond South Philly's crimes and misdemeanors, something to honor and not detract from.

This tribute outside the newly built, stucco Anastasi's is four stories tall and 85 feet long. Each of its faces measures about five by seven feet.

"We wanted this mural to be along a busy corridor," says Jane Golden, boss of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program (PMAP). "By engaging people in the making of a large-scale work of art — and this mural did that in the design process — the residents call attention to their community in a really positive way." Muralist Peter Pagast worked from photographs taken of each man in his youth — a colorful shot of Avalon in a black-vested jumpsuit; Martino suave in white tux and black tie; Blavat a cool sports-jacket wearing daddy-o — turning the wall into his own take on restaurants that hang celebrity photos. "I wanted it to look as if it were "hung' on the neighborhood," says Pagast of the Ninth and Washington "backdrop" to his faces.

"And with all the lights, you can see our handsome faces at nighttime," chimes Blavat.

Since its start in 1984, PMAP has honored heroes. But to take on the living embodiment of a specific location as this Ninth Street mural has, is pretty sweet to all participants. "We could've been anywhere," says Blavat, knowing his face could've adorned the Avenue of Arts. "But being here is — you're right — sweet."

With the help of WXPN, PMAP's dedication to mural-izing all the Sounds of Philly — the Dixie Hummingbirds in North Philly, Georgie Woods and the Uptown Theater, Grover Washington and John Coltrane at the Clef Club — is set to get sweeter still.

The South Philly Musicans Mural is located at 1231 E. Passyunk Ave. at Anastasi's Cafe. The Dixie Hummingbirds Mural, across from the Second Pilgrim Baptist Church, will be dedicated on Sun., Oct. 30 at 2 p.m. at 851 N. 15th St.