Reflections from Tommy DeVito
April 2nd, 2008In today’s Las Vegas Sun, Jerry Fink has an in-depth interview with Four Seasons’ founder Tommy DeVito, who has called Las Vegas his home since 1970. DeVito talks to Fink about his tough upbringing in Belleville, NJ, his chart-topping success as an original member of The Four Seasons, his post-Four Seasons life in Vegas, and Jersey Boys. Here’s a preview of the story:
DeVito grew up in Belleville, N.J., the youngest of nine children of Italian immigrants. During the Depression his family lived with an uncle in a cold-water flat in a tough neighborhood. “You did anything to survive,†DeVito says. “You’d steal milk off of porches.â€
At 8, he taught himself to play his brother’s guitar by listening to country music on the radio. “I was so small I couldn’t hold the guitar in my lap so I put it on the floor on its side and leaned over and played it that way,†he says.
By the time he was 12, he was playing for tips in neighborhood taverns. “My parents were elated that we were bringing home eight bucks a night or so. That’s basically how I got started in music.â€
He quit school after the eighth grade. (Belleville High made him an honorary graduate last year.) By 16 he had his own R&B band and was making $20 or $25 a night.
