Frankie Valli on the Early Days, His Career, and Jersey Boys
November 8th, 2006Columbus Dispatch’s Aaron Beck has an interesting Q&A segment with the legendary Frankie Valli, who will be performing in concert at the Palace Theatre in Columbus on Friday, November 10. Beck talks to Valli about growing up in Newark; his life as a young, struggling singer; his phenomenal success with the Four Seasons, and of course, the Tony-Award winning story of the Four Seasons, Jersey Boys.
Here’s a bit of what Valli told Beck:
Q: So the story goes that your mother hadn’t heard you sing until you were getting ready to sign your first recording contract in New . . .
A: Oh, my mother heard me sing. That may be the story, but I was always singing. I didn’t one day wake up and there I was singing. I loved to sing ever since I was a little kid at school recitals. I couldn’t have been in more than the second grade. I can remember singing “White Christmas” on the stage a cappella.
Q: So how is life then for someone who will be in Columbus next week singing some of the same songs he’s sung for more than 40 years? Are you sick of singing “Sherry”?
A: I look at my career, and I think to have been able to do the variations of everything from a Sherry to a Can’t Take My Eyes Off You to a Swearin’ to God to a Let’s Hang On to a Dawn to a December 1963 to a Who Loves You — you know most people are in a bag, and that’s where they are. They do a particular kind of music, and they do that, and it sounds all the same and they never leave that place. I’m very, very lucky.
Q: When the people who came up with Jersey Boys came to you, how apprehensive were you about the idea?
A: You never know how good anything is going to be, but I liked it very much. There were anecdotes from our lives, and they told the story very well.
