Got a call from my old pal Brian Doherty the other day -Brian and I worked on the Krakerjaxx project together back in the day. He wanted to know if I could hook him up with tix to the Broadway Show based upon the biography of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons.
The Four Seasons were the great pop group of the 60s. A doo wop group who managed to merge into disco, rock, classic pop mostly because of Franki Valli’s pure falsetto and the songwriting abilities of one man hit machine Bob gaudio. The four Seasons run of hits rivals and surpasses even Abba’s.
1962: Sherry
1962: Big Girls Don’t cry, #1
1963: Walk Like A Man, # 1
1964: Rag Doll # 1
1965: Bye Bye Baby, #12)
1965: Let’s Hang On, #3
1965: “Don’t Think Twice, # 12
1966: Working My Way Back To You Babe, #9
1966: “Opus #7, #13
1975: “Who Loves You, #3
1975: “December 1963 (Oh, What A Night) #1
And that’s just the highlights and doesn’t include Valli’s solo hits. Impressive stuff but as acts as diverse as Bob Dylan, Elvis Presley and John Lennon can attest, a hit list can equal a Broadway miss. Jersey Boys had a coupla big things going for them, a great book and with a well executed idea: instead of illustrating the songs, the band played the songs in the context of studio recordings and on stage performances. The other thing they had going for them was a great Franki Valli, Tony Award winner John Lloyd Young.
Young is a Broadway actor-singer but not Valli. He gave a pitch perfect performance though his falsetto was augmented with back stage singers. A cause celebre albeit a kinda lame one.
My friend Sherry Davis and I went to see Valli at Lincoln Center in late 2005. A good but not great set, still a great pleasure to see the man hasn’t missed a step -I’d seen him as part of a nostalgia packet in the mid-90s so it’s funny how many times this Frankie comes back.
PS: my pal Brian got his tix from somebody else.
PPS. I didn’t even mention “Grease”!!!
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