Artist Profile: The Four Seasons

As a teenager living in Newark, New Jersey, Franki Valli (born Francis Castellucio), sang and played drums with a band called the Varietones, who later changed their name to the Four Lovers. The group had a minor hit with an Otis Blackwell number called, "You're the Apple of My Eye," in 1956, which would lead to an appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show.

A follow-up hit never came and the quartet found themselves stuck in the New Jersey lounge circuit. One night the group auditioned to appear at a local bowling alley, but were turned down flat. Instead of just walking away, they adopted the name of the place and became The Four Seasons.

With the addition of organist Bob Gaudio, the Four Seasons' definitive line-up included singer/guitarist Tommy DeVito and bass player/vocalist Nick Massi (replaced in 1965 by Joe Long).

The band managed to get some session work through producer George Goldner, who also recorded their first single, "Bermuda". The song was released on 'Gone Records' in 1961, but went nowhere. One afternoon in 1962, Bob Gaudio, who had sung with the Royal Teens before joining Frankie Valli's Four Lovers, was getting ready to go down to a Four Seasons rehearsal. Before he left, he sat down at a piano for fifteen minutes. The music for an entire song came out. He didn't have a tape recorder in those days, so he quickly wrote down some words and made up the title, "Terry", as a way of remembering the new melody. He didn't intend to keep the lyrics, but when he got to rehearsal, everybody liked them. Only the name needed to be changed.

By this time, the Four Seasons had signed a deal with producer was Bob Crewe, a singer-turned-songwriter/producer who worked with acts like Bobby Darin, Freddy Cannon, and Danny and the Juniors. The group called Crewe from rehearsal and sang Gaudio's new song, "Terry", to him over the phone. Crewe was wild about the song, but the name became an issue. They almost changed it to "Peri", the name of the record label Crewe worked for (Peri was also the name of the label-owner's daughter). They also considered changing it to "Jackie" (a tie-in with Jackie Kennedy, who was at the height of her popularity). But in the end, Crewe rejected both of those ideas, and eventually settled on "Cheri", after radio station WMCA disc jockey Jack Spector's daughter, Cheri.

Subsequently, Crewe left the Peri label, signed the Four Seasons to the Chicago-based VeeJay Records, and financed the recording session of what was now "Sherry". The record made its way to WMCA and was reviewed in a deejay meeting-where songs were picked for airplay. Spector had given the song its name, but he'd actually never heard it. "We listened to it," he recalls, "and everybody said, 'Oh wow, what a different sound. Listen to this guy with the falsetto, he's unreal. Who is that guy? Nobody knew who he was. Everybody thought they were a black group at first."

WMCA, whose audience was building rapidly, started playing the record, and soon the station's chief rival, WABC, picked it up as well. "Sherry" quickly broke out of New York and rose to # 1 in the nation in August, 1962, launching the career of the Four Seasons and making Jack Spector's then-three-year-old daughter, a part of rock 'n' roll history.

The Four Seasons and the Beach Boys were virtually the only American groups whose successful careers were not derailed when the Beatles and the British Invasion bands hit the States in 1964. In fact, 1964 ranks as the Four Seasons' biggest year of all, despite the insurgency from abroad, which attests to their durability and appeal among America's teenagers. That appeal stemmed from the Four Seasons' ability to complement spotless Italian-American doo-wop harmonies with the forceful falsetto and three-octave range of lead vocalist Frankie Valli, superb songwriting from Bob Gaudio, and arrangements and production that drew upon everything from Phil Spector's "Wall of Sound" to the danceable beat of Motown's pop/R&B singles.

http://www.frankievallifourseasons.com