Friday Flashback: Two Versions of ‘An Angel Cried’–Hal Miller & The Rays and The Four Seasons!
February 3rd, 2012As you guys know from Act One in JERSEY BOYS, the guys who eventually named themselves “The Four Seasons” sang backup for many of Bob Crewe’s artists. One of those artists included Hal Miller & The Rays on “An Angel Cried,” a song written by Bob Gaudio that was recorded in 1961. Check out the marvelous background vocals before the Seasons made it big.
On the 1964 “Rag Doll” album (my personal favorite Four Seasons album of all time!), the Seasons did their own amazing rendition of this song!
What do you think of these renditions?
I like them both, each in its own right. As they always did with their covers of “somebody else’s latest hit,” the 4S made it their own.
I like how similar the Hal Miller version is to what we’ve become familiar with in the JB show and OBC CD (or should that be the other way around?), kind of lush and pretty. The 4S take is a bit more dark and moody – I hear elements of Jay and the Americans’ “She Cried” and Johnny Crawford’s “Proud” toward the end.
Thanks for posting these!
Comment by stubbleyou — February 3, 2012 @ 11:03 pm
“An Angel Cried” was always one of my favorite non-hit album tracks of The Four Seasons & I had been playing it for years off the “Rag Doll” album…I’ll never forget the fantastic first time in JB in La Jolla hearing the song–having no idea that it was actually recorded by another artist back in the early ’60s!
Comment by Susie — February 3, 2012 @ 11:49 pm
Does anyone know how the Hal Miller recording did? Did it chart for him?
Comment by Kay Fellows — February 4, 2012 @ 1:46 am
Kay, Looks like “An Angel Cried” didn’t chart for Hal Miller (and the Rays) on the Billboard Hot 100 chart–but not sure if it charted on the R&B chart. Does anyone have access to the Billboard R&B charts back in 1961?
A little more trivia: What Rays’ hit written by Bob Crewe & Frank Slay peaked at #3 on the Hot 100 in 1957?
Comment by Susie — February 4, 2012 @ 9:39 am
Without a shadow of a doubt, that would be “Silhouettes.”
Comment by George O'Brien — February 4, 2012 @ 9:57 am
Exactly, George–without a shadow of a doubt!
Comment by Susie — February 4, 2012 @ 10:25 am
Love this version – first time I’ve heard it done by the Four Seasons.
Comment by Mitzi — February 5, 2012 @ 9:27 am
“An Angel Cried” by Hal Miller and the Rays did not chart R & B. It hit #20 in January, 1962 on WNDR Syracuse, one of the stations that broke many such records in the 1960s.
http://las-solanas.com/arsa/charts_item.php?hsid=86027
Comment by Ted Hammond — February 5, 2012 @ 10:15 pm
Thanks for the information, Ted.
Comment by Kay Fellows — February 7, 2012 @ 1:55 pm