The Four Seasons’ Story Shines in Jersey Boys; Opens in Austin Wednesday!
August 14th, 2010With the JERSEY BOYS national tour production beginning a three-week run in Austin at Bass Concert Hall this Wednesday, August 18 through September 5, staff writer Michael Corcoran of the Austin American-Statesman has a terrific in-depth interview with Bob Gaudio, who talks about the phenomenal success of The Four Seasons, his career, and the blockbuster smash hit, Tony Award-winning JERSEY BOYS! Here’s a preview:
In the whitewashed, pre-Beatles pop music landscape of the early ’60s, two musical entities – the Beach Boys and Phil Spector’s teenage symphonies – are generally credited with keeping pop music from being completely vapid. But an overlooked quartet of soulful Italian American kids from New Jersey matched their more vaunted West Coast contemporaries hit for hit.
In September 1962, the same month that the Beach Boys’ first hit single, “Surfin’ Safari,” peaked on the charts, the Four Seasons had a smash with “Sherry,” staying at No. 1 for five consecutive weeks.
Driven by Frankie Valli’s stratospheric falsetto, “Big Girls Don’t Cry” also perched atop the charts for five weeks at the end of the year, and in early 1963 “Walk Like a Man” became the Four Seasons’ third consecutive No. 1.
While the Beatles created a cultural upheaval when they appeared on “The Ed Sullivan Show” in February 1964, “The Four Seasons featuring the sound of Frankie Valli,” as they were billed because “Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons” would’ve been mathematically incorrect, were stuck in the days when guys stood on streetcorners and harmonized. And they were from New Jersey, for crying out loud.
The Four Seasons didn’t have an angle – they just had hits, baby.
“We never cared about publicity,” says Bob Gaudio, who wrote most of the group’s classics and played keyboards. The Four Seasons came up in a time and place where you were taught to keep your mouth shut when people came around asking questions. Two of the members had done jail time for burglary and possession of stolen goods. Because the clubs they played coming up were owned by members of the Mafia, there were whispers that the group was “mobbed up.”
“One thing me and Frankie realized (during the interviews) was that a lot of these stories had never been made public before,” says Gaudio, 67. “That’s a key to the play’s success.”
Where Valli was a pint-sized powerhouse from the projects, Gaudio was a tall, reserved former musical prodigy from the middle-class suburb of Bergenfield. But the pair knew right away that they needed each other. That relationship, played out in such stupendous collaborations as “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You” and “Rag Doll,” is at the core of “Jersey Boys.”
Visit Austin360.com for the full interview.
My first introduction to Frankie Valli and the four seasons was ‘The Night’. After seeing the jersey boys production in London, I was surprised this great song was not included. I wondered if anyone knows why it was not chosen, as its a great tune and in my humble opinion was one of their best.???
Comment by Pat Huckfield — August 17, 2010 @ 6:24 am
Hi Pat, I agree–”The Night” was a fabulous Four Seasons’ song!
It was a huge hit in 1975 in the UK–peaking at #7, but it never charted on the US Hot 100 chart, so I would guess that’s one of the reasons “The Night” wasn’t one of the songs in JB.
Comment by Susie — August 17, 2010 @ 9:27 am
Hi Susie, Thanks for that, I just remember hearing it all the time on a juke box in the pub. Brings back happy memories.
Comment by Pat Huckfield — August 20, 2010 @ 11:57 am