December 1, 2005

Time Magazine Applauds Four Seasons Music & Jersey Boys Production!

December 1st, 2005

Journalist Richard Corliss’ article provides a fabulously detailed account of Frankie Valli and the 4 Seasons’ music (including the stories behind Sherry, Big Girls Don’t Cry, Walk Like a Man, and Dawn), a Four Seasons chronology (from 1953 to Jersey Boys), and a marvelous review of Jersey Boys!

Here’s a sampling of what Corliss said:

…But Valli wasn’t just kidding with his falsetto. It was not pure, not angelic, like the sweet-child voices of Brian and Carl Wilson on such Beach Boys tracks as “In My Room” and “God Only Knows.” Valli’s had a raspiness that gave his romantic pleas gravel, gravity, balls…

…Gaudio was the Seasons’ Brian Wilson: a writer-performer who defined the group’s tight-harmony sound but soon tired of the road and stayed home to become a full-time pop composer. The moment in Jersey Boys where the Gaudio character hears Valli and says, “I gotta write for that voice,” rings true…

…To judge from the audience reaction that Wednesday night, Jersey Boys will run for centuries and win a lot of Tonys (Tony Danza, Tony Franciosa, Tony and Tina, Tony Soprano…)…

…I’d go further and say that this music is as sharp, smart, tuneful and complex as any new Broadway scores not of the Sondheim school. I mean, better than the scores of The Producers, Hairspray, Avenue Q, Spamalot—which happen to be the last four Tony-winning musicals…

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