chameleon

Finding the Four Seasons 'Masters' !

The real question is do we already have them?

Think about what we believe is the sound of the Four Seasons……“A recording is nothing until it is decoded and what it decodes is an illusion.”…is a quote from Greg Milners ‘Perfect Sound Forever’.

Back in the sixties when Bob Crewe first produced the Four Seasons incredible sound….(the sound of Frankie Valli’s falsetto) there were some who doubted the sound was natural ….as no-one had ever sounded like that!!. And to some extent there is a distortion in the records of the day as tracks were ‘bounced ‘ on the tape machines to create the final MONO mix. Phil Spectors ‘Wall Of Sound’ is perhaps the most ‘perfect’ distortion of the 60s?

So in a week that sees the release of the long-awaited Beatles RE-MASTERS it is worth reviewing the state of the Four Seasons catalogue and in doing so the future of music!

Greg Milner’s book really asks questions about the sounds we treasure. Described in the Sunday Times as “a tour-de-force of fascinating anecdotes, lucidly expounded science, witty asides, stylistic verve, and page after page of ‘gosh I never new that facts”. This book de-mystifies hi-fi like never before and whilst describing how sound has been recorded and sold for nearly 100 years it leaves us wondering whether things have gotten better or worse.

We’ve laboured in our previous blog notes re the MONO v STEREO argument and the advent of the ‘Loudness Wars’ and we have asked if music now is approaching a ZERO value as so many downloads and CD copying is reducing the economic model for CD production.

But what gives hope for the future is the emergence of the ‘Pleasurize Music Foundation’. This sets standards for the production/mastering of all CD’s and has enabled us to start to evaluate the Four Seasons CD Discography….

You’ll find a full explanation of these standards at our new Sound Evaluation web page, and in our CD Discography evaluations of some of the most important CD releases by the group. But this is only the start……..Other recent developments show the desperation to reclaim the ‘golden days of album sales’.

Apple is working with the four largest record labels to stimulate digital sales of albums by bundling a new interactive booklet, sleeve notes and other interactive features with music downloads, in a move it hopes will change buying trends on its online iTunes store. This may appeal to younger people but it will be competing against the re-surgence of vinyl which whilst not needed by the 'on the go' listener will re-capture the collector. The sound is arguably better and you can get so many more albums or 45s on a shelf. !!

With more models of USB record players emerging too the thought crossed my mind that the PC based digitiser that I have become is perhaps the future model of the serious music collector. The CD will still sell although it is increasingly difficult to make any money from CD sales. Music in download form is such a low value low profit market that it is difficult to see how anyone can continue to sell it and gain royalties & profit based on the old economic model. HMV in the UK are increasingly prioritizing ‘technology sales’ of speakers, mp3 players, docking stations and the like and emerging technology featuring home wi-fi players and digital headphones is opening up the way for improvements to digital sound…..with players that ‘de-compress’ the sound!. This market is huge as listeners become more educated in enjoying their digital music.

In many ways the model from Apple is perhaps a way forward to maximize this enjoyment. It is no surprise that the most popular Four Seasons blog we have had was the one on 'I Wonder Why' which included an article and a You-Tube video with original artwork and old photos and the track. Fans wrote to me and praised this approach and I maintain people will want to listen to music in a fully interactive way. Take our current research on the early Four Seasons ‘Billboard’ cuttings, if that was linked to artwork and sound files of the tracks ..and interviews with artists/producers and fans it would be a fully interactive digi-book newsletter item.. You Tube however remains the best way at present to discover music and artists. Our recent Tribute to Ellie Greenwich has had over 1600 views since her passing on August 26^th.

Perhaps Apple's idea has a future. But we do it for free and have more info generally than the owners of the music...so it is difficult to see how the owners will make money in this model. Four Seasons fans do not want to go on and on re-buying versions of their vinyl/digital collections from the past. Unfortunately with Jersey Boys rumoured to be making Bob and Frankie $1m a week each…and a film deal to come…it is likely they wont care. A Four Seasons Re-mastered project seems unlikely.

But to truly enjoy the music you need good masters and after over 160 plus re-issues of the original vinyl material since 1987, it seems that the Partnership may have literally ‘lost’ their masters……to us!!

"We didn't understand what the unexpected consequences of moving into the digital domain would be," one record company executive candidly said. "We thought we were doing this great thing of improving the sound and being able to make perfect copies and all that, and we just did not understand that we had crossed a line that meant we could never go backward. That's the realization that is finally dawning on the record companies --- there's no turning back. As long as we were in the analog domain, we had an advantage in the marketplace, but now we don't. As soon as we made it possible for things to be transmitted over the Internet and for copies to be pretty good or perfect, we could never go back."

So consider that maybe they have given us the masters by the multitude of releases on CD. All we have to do is identify the best mixes and you can gather them. The Four Seasons Sound Archive is perhaps how we (the fans) will take control of the music. The CD evaluations we have started will enable any of us to identify the best ‘masters’ on CD and to build our own ‘best of’ collections from past releases..

Josh Indar argues…..“Yet for all the freedoms gained by the ability to record and manipulate sound, there is a cost. However important music is in our lives, it is no longer a fleeting expression of the emotions of its players. It has become an artificial construction, a simulacrum, a ghost of what it once was.”

So is there a genuine ‘master’ of the Four Seasons recordings?

Jersey Boys performance of the Four Seasons  songs is a ‘distortion’ of their original performance….for theatrical effect….and we love it!!

“While the freeing of music from the boundaries of the physical world has brought plenty of catchy songs and powerful ideas into existence, it has also devalued music as a cultural binding agent and reduced the power of live performance, causing many to wonder why the songs they hear at a concert don’t sound as “good” as they do in their Ipod’s earbuds. The simple answer to this question is because almost all modern recordings are deceptions, “records” of performances that never existed, and in many cases, could never exist.

Milner(In his book that we opened with) rightly blames this development on the advent of magnetic tape, which was conceived of in 19th century America, patented some 30 years later in Austria, perfected by the Nazis and then rediscovered by an enterprising GI, who brought it back the states after WWII. Magnetic tape, Milner writes “taught music how to lie” by introducing the ability to cut, splice and layer sounds into musical constructions that sounded completely real, yet were anything but. “ argues Josh Indar in his review.

 But without it Bob Crewe, George Martin and Phil Spector…(to name a few) could not have created the 3 minute gems we all love.

Perhaps the best we can hope for is to see if amongst the vinyl and CD versions of the Seasons tracks we can find ‘the illusion’ that Bob Crewe and Bob Gaudio tried to create.

We will see what our CD evaluations show and let you know. Will we find the ‘Best Mixes.?

The intended recordings perhaps but…“A recording is nothing until it is decoded and what it decodes is an illusion.”

Casey Chameleon

(Photo of Bob Crewe and George Schowerer - Sound Engineer at the mixing desk 1967 'creating the illusion' courtesy of George)

 

Ellie Greenwich - A Tribute

Losing Ellie Greenwich this week was a personal loss. Not like her family who are deeply grieving or her friends who knew her and worked with her. To me she was a new friend who had only known me for a few weeks….and for an old music historian from the 70s to be friends with an icon of pop music in the 60s was well….special.

It is the loss of what a developing friendship can bring that is sad. And she loved The Four Seasons and it would have been good to capture some of her stories behind the music: and to just get to know her.

It might seem unusual for fans of the Four Seasons to see a link with Ellie Greenwich and the group but it is said she contributed to the group’s tracks and we know she was a close friend of Bob Crewe. Certainly Bob Crewe and former Four Season Jerry Corbetta helped produce her Broadway musical ‘Leader Of The Pack’ in the 1980s. But Ellie was a 60s music icon as much as the Four Seasons.

The L.A Times says of her…“Ellie also broke ground as one of the first female record producers, working with husband Jeff Barry in crafting Diamond’s early recordings, including “Cherry Cherry,” ”Solitary Man” and “Kentucky Woman.”. Diamond had struggled as a songwriter until he came under the wing of Greenwich and Barry, who’d already logged numerous shimmering pop hits for groups such as the Ronettes, the Crystals, the Dixie Cups and Ronnie Spector.”

Our current research on Jean Thomas’s session logs in 1966 are revealing the sessions with Neil that would shape his career . Neil said in a statement.. “Ellie Greenwich was one of the most important people in my career, she discovered me as a down-and-out songwriter.”

She also did the back-up work with Jean Thomas for Connie Francis….Andy Kim and for Bob Crewe on the Leslie Gore productions as well as many others as Jean’s session logs show. She also produced and sang on some of the Ronettes later sessions. For an example of her production and backing work listen to the Tony Pass tracks that Ellie did with husband Jeff Barry at Jean Thomas’s blog post ‘Out Of The Closet – Part1

But it was her earlier work in 1963 that was the most important…the L.A. Times again..“Their collaborations with Wall of Sound creator Spector  are regarded among the greatest singles ever created. The music publishing rights organization Broadcast Music Inc. lists more than 200 songs she wrote or co-wrote, including "Then He Kissed Me" (the Crystals), "I Can Hear Music" (The Ronettes, Beach Boys), "Hanky Panky" (a hit for Tommy James & the Shondells), "Maybe I Know" (Lesley Gore) and the song Spector considered his greatest recording, "River Deep, Mountain High" (Ike and Tina Turner).

Greenwich has said that the title phrase of "Da Doo Ron Ron" was never intended to be part of the song; it was improvised as a nonsensical space filler until she and Barry could come up with a real line to follow the tune's opening lyric: "I met him on a Monday and my heart stood still."

"We got all the rest of the words and music together, but we couldn't find anything for this bit," she said in 2005. "Believe me, it doesn't mean a thing." On the other hand, when she and Barry wrote "There she goes just a walkin' down the street" to start another song, she responded with what she imagined a young girl skipping down a street would sing: "Do wah diddy diddy dum diddy do." "Do Wah Diddy Diddy" became a No. 1 hit in 1965 for the British group Manfred Mann”

Greenwich suffered a nervous breakdown after she and Barry divorced in 1965,(although she still worked tirelessly) and the hits stopped flowing. The public's attention was shifting to the Beatles and other British invasion bands as well as a rising crop of self-contained singer-songwriters such as Bob Dylan, putting many Bril Building pros out of work.

When my marriage fell apart and my style dropped out of  fashion, it seemed there wasn't anything left," she told an Australian newspaper in 2005. “It's easy to say I had plenty left, but that's not how it seems when you're there."

Jean Thomas remembers Ellie with great fondness.” I will miss her a great deal.   We all will!!!!” I feel so sad!!!!  But I'm so happy Ellie, Mikie and I had that long, long lunch not too long ago.  The three of us were looking forward to the next one.”

“Ellie was such a talent. Alongside Carol King she is arguably one of the most important female writers, producers, performers in New York during the 60s….I can remember when she had nine Top Ten hits on the Hot 100 charts in one year.”

And as a result of our work with Jean and the interest of others she was less reclusive recently and contacted me about our research. A few weeks ago, when I wrote her on Facebook she said ….”Thanks for the heartwarming compliments. Jean and I have been out of touch for so long and we are just updating our friendship. I speak to Bob Crewe regularly and he is doing just fine. Hopefully someday I will get a chance to say hello to you in person.…. I find it amazing there is so much stuff out there with things I sang on, clapped on, ate on, etc.  It would be great if you put up something for ‘Goodnight Goodnight’ . That was one of my favorite songs. I wrote ‘Goodnight, Goodnight’ with Bob Crewe around 1966/67. It was on the b-side of I Want You To Be My Baby. We were kind of hoping for a possible two sided success but no such luck. It's still one of my favorite songs.”

Unfortunately I didn’t manage it in time or to ask her about how she helped out on Four Seasons records. But now here it is …..thanks to Casey and our other researchers for their help with what has become our tribute….

I don't think there is a female producer/writer from the 60s who I admire more. Her work with Jean and Mikie remain for me the forgotten legacy of her 60s career and as we complete Jean’s bios we will reveal more about this 60s ‘harmony heroine’

For more on how Ellie, Jean and Mikie (Harris) became one of the most distinct back-up sounds of the mid 60s check out Pages 5 to 7 of Jean’s bio notes Part 2

Further appreciations can be found in the L. A Times and Paul Levinson’s recollections feature a Performance with Jean Thomas in the Definitive Rock Chorale.

Perhaps ‘Goodnight, Goodnight’ is a fitting epitaph but because she was such a good writer I would still love to hear the unreleased Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons track she wrote with Bob Crewe and Steve Tudanger (ex ‘Four-Evers’) in 1973 ‘Be My Lover, Be My Friend’ which is lying unheard in the Motown Vaults. It never surfaced in her lifetime and it may never in ours! But most of all I’ll miss my new Facebook friend and the fun we might have had with stories of music making to share with her fans!!

Ken Charmer

Thanks to George Schowerer (photos), Martin Roberts(pic sleeves) and special thanks to Jean Thomas and Bob Crewe.

Check Out our previous post re Bob Crewe's Girl's

The Arrival Of The Four Seasons - Parts 3 and 4

As 1962 ushered in the Fall, The Four Seasons follow up to their number 1 hit ‘Sherry’ was so eagerly awaited that Billboard missed it….that is until it quickly became a ‘National Breakout’ hit…’New on the Hot 100 at # 66’

 

TV appearances were essential for promotion but some surprises were found when we reviewed their early TV appearances…….like the time Bob Gaudio played guitar!!

 

As the year ends and Billboard reviews the music market big things are expected from the Four Seasons latest 45. 1963 would establish them but also leave them caught between two audiences. Their traditional ‘adult’ audience from their Four Lovers days: and the powerful ‘teen’ audience who were notoriously fickle.

 

Read Part 3 of our scrapbook here

 

Part 4, our final section completes ‘The Arrival Of The Four Seasons’

'Come out...to my Twist party'

In our latest scrapbook pages we have reached 1961.............

The Music scene in Billboard by 1961 was very different to the 50s scene of the Four Lovers. ‘Teen’ purchasing of 45s was now a major force and the songs of the Bril Building were dominating the Charts. Chubby Checker was huge and the dance crazes were all over the charts. By 1962 the Four Seasons had been born! Well by November 1961 when they recorded and released ‘Bermuda’ which surfaced in Billboard in February 1962. An inauspicious beginning this was to be and it gave no clue to their first number 1 which would arrive by the end of summer……when they asked a young lady to “come out …to my twist party”!!

 

Read the Billboard time line in our Part 2 of ‘The Arrival Of  The Four Seasons’

The Arrival Of The Four Seasons - A Billboard Scrapbook Part 1

Even the biggest Four Seasons fan alive today will never have followed The Four Lovers back in 1956. Most will have shown an interest in them as a result of their connection with Frankie, Tommy and Nick. So, when I started reading the Billboard magazines on the Internet and looking at the music world of the pre-four Seasons it was very strange. In Jersey Boys, the musical story of the life and times of the group, this period is almost an embarrassment to the group. But when I looked at the story of the arrival of the Four Seasons, through the pages of Billboard, it proved to be more enlightening than I expected. So I assembled it in scrapbook form as we have in the Newsletters for many years. I found it paints a different picture in some ways than the show.

First of all Frankie Valli appeared in the music business’s top newspaper several times before the Four Seasons arrived and we can see how it was a very different world for them in the 50s than in the 60s.

Part 1 of our collection covers 1954 to 1961 documents the attempts to find success is a world very alien to the teen crowd I belonged to in the 60s. The world Frankie and the guys were working in during the mid to late 50s was a left-over from the war years. Their audiences were we must assume mainly ‘adult’ ( well teens couldn’t get into the bars and dives of the day) and audiences wanted an act that could do the 40s and 50s hits from the likes of The Mills Bros, and The Four Freshmen….and even The Andrew Sisters ( with…”I Can Dream Can’t I’).

And their attempts to win over a ‘teen’ audience with the Four Lovers sound which brought them some success in 1956 was clearly out of sync by 1957 when rock’n’roll and the music of Elvis and Buddy Holly was leaving the sound of the Lovers behind. But ‘you gotta make a living’ so the adult audiences in the dives from New Jersey down to Wildwood had to be given what they wanted……Places like Wildwood are a scene that is hard for Europeans to appreciate…This is an internet description....”From the late 1940s through the 1960s, the “Five-Mile Beach” prospered in the Post-World-War-II economic boom. The middle class was growing and they loved their vacations at the Jersey Shore . Tourists flocked to the sprawling beaches and amusement piers that made this island famous. Even more famous was the night life. The Wildwoods’ entertainment scene earned it the nickname the “Las Vegas of the East”. It is the birthplace of Bill Haley and The Comets’ “Rock Around the Clock” and Chubby Checker’s “TheTwist.” Places like the Riptide Club, The HofBrau and The Bolero hosted many of the era’s great performers. Dick Clark spun records for American Bandstand at The Starlight Ballroom. As one author imagined: Dazzling lights draw charmed tourists down the strip, past garish hotels and plastic palms swaying against a star-filled night. Caravans of Bel Airs and Thunderbirds, Packards and Chevy Townsman take to the streets. Marquees flash big names: Louis Armstrong, Sammy Davis, Jr., Johnny Mathis, The Drifters, and Fabian. The sidewalk pulsates as the music captivates. It could be Sunday or Tuesday, but it feels like Saturday, as crowds with Coppertone tans and money in their pockets, drift along the avenue....And in the background was an island full of ‘motor-hotels;’ their rooms brimming with stories and full of mid-century character and charm.”

Meeting the needs of this crowd was necessary to put bread on the table.

The New Jersey club scene would be an interesting read.

A biography of the pre-Seasons days has been promised 
but will it ever see the light of day whilst the  group 
members are alive?

Enjoy Part 1 here

 

A Tribute To Nick Massi

Very few live performances of the original Four Seasons have survived and some don’t do them justice. Their ability to entertain an adult as well as a teen audience has recently come into focus as our forthcoming posts will show.

 

So as a tribute to the late Nick Massi and to illustrate what they could do we constructed a video for the song, “Close Your Eyes” from our very first live tape of the group at

Clearwater

in 1964.(track courtesy of John Hornsby) Originally by the Five Keys and a hit in 1955.  Nick and Frankie do a great version.

 

Read more about Nick before he became a Four Seasons here

 

And of his other role with The Victorians here

 

And our You Tube tribute..

...............

Casey

The Rise and Fall Of The NEW Four Seasons - Chapter 5

“It was 1966. The radio as always, was on and a new rock hit version of “I´ve Got You Under My Skin” was playing. This was the first time I took notice of “The Four Seasons”. I lived in Bristol, Rhode Island , a million miles away from anything like what I was hearing that day, yet I thought to myself: “One day I would love to be a member of that group!”.......................”

The opening words of John Paiva’s biography and our major story of the Four Seasons..The Rise and Fall of the NEW Four Seasons….

It took many months to assemble the story for Chapter 5 alone and in it you can read how…….

• The group was in disarray after the failure of ‘Chameleon’
• Singles were recorded and released as the Four Seasons with no group members except Frankie Valli on them
• Motown didn’t pay them any royalties
• Frankie sacked the group and started building from scratch
• The NEW Four Seasons were recruited
• Motown refused to release ‘My Eyes Adored you.
• Frankie bought the song and took it to Larry Uttal
• Joe Long left the group after recording on ‘Who Loves You’

And you will also find how the group rose to be the most successful Four Seasons ever.

All compiled from articles and bios and clips from George Ingram and Frank Rovello’s article archives and our newsletters from the 1970s

Here is our ‘Introduction’….and we start with our Chapter 5 ( a bit like ‘Star Wars’ we start in the middle of the story) It can be downloaded in 3 parts.

 

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

 

Next month we will start Chapter 6 gathering the story of 1976 and the glorious World Tour, and their biggest ever record. Maybe by the New Year we will be able to publish it. Casey Chameleon

Postscipt Aug 4th:

We've had a good response and already a correction ..." Joe (Long)left shortly after Valli and the Seasons co-hosted the Mike Douglas TV show for the full week of September 1, 1975."

So version 2 with any corrections or adds we get will be available for the issue of newsletter 53 later in the year....Casey

In Search Of A Four Seasons Biography

Did you ever wish there was a Four Seasons biography?. You know, a definitive story of all the ups and downs from 1953 to 1978 or thereabouts covering all the hits and misses and some of the stories behind the music.

Jersey Boys is a great play . Even though Bob Gaudio claims it is 95% correct we all know it is more like 50%. And, it is, perhaps more successful because of what it leaves out…as Charles Alexander observes… What is left out? While the first part of Jersey Boys makes a running joke of the group’s many names before they settled on “The Four Seasons” (the Four Lovers, the Romans, the Topics, etc.), the play never mentions that the group actually released records under these names or that the first record released by “The Four Seasons” was a dud called Bermuda. Watching Jersey Boys, you would think that the first recording they ever released was Sherry. There is no hint of Valli’s severe hearing loss that left him nearly deaf for many years until some operations helped ease the ailment. The most significant historical inaccuracy is that the play has Massi and DeVito leaving the group at about the same time when every fan knows that Nick left years before Tommy did.

Fans may quarrel with this jumbled chronology, but they should understand that this is drama, not history. The audience is told that the group gets together in the 1950s, but then the play stops giving dates. Rather than being bound by chronology, Jersey Boys becomes a timeless story that never loses its dramatic focus.”

But if fans of either Jersey Boys or the group want to take that next step and find out the real story behind the group where do they turn?.

We’ve been promised biographies by Tommy DeVito (with Rex Woodard), Bob Crewe and Charlie Calello but perhaps there is a thought that too much information could challenge the current bio…’Jersey Boys’. Surely not, because as it’s popularity grows the thirst for stories will increase and even the writers know this book is a work of fiction as admitted to in perhaps the only Four Seasons ‘reference….. The Jersey Boys Book and at least that has accurate comments from Charlie Calello and Rik Elice. But as Rik confirms of the show……

“There are fictions in Jersey Boys that we created because the surviving members of the band did not want the real story to be told in a completely frontal way. There may have been certain relationships that they didn’t want to re-kindle or agitate. And then there were issues that remain between Bob and Frankie, between Frankie and Tommy, between Tommy and the other two guys. Some things were out of bounds. We didn’t necessarily know what these were until we wrote them and then were told, “No, you can’t use that”. Even so our original contract of intent with them was a warts-and-all version of their story. It would be a rags to riches story with specific landmarks from their lives and careers………It was our contention that if the play were well made enough fans would buy into the show for it’s own sake and not get hung up on the fact that we were taking dramatic license.”

This was spot on by Rik and he was right to some extent about the fans. We all accept the show and love it as a piece of entertainment featuring our favourite songs and characters and our praise for the writing, production and commitment and professionalism of the cast is unbounded..

So in the absence of something from the participants we the fans have gathered from our library of articles, interviews and comments a sample of what can be done by way of further bios and we will share these with our readers over the next month and in our newsletter. Just background reading that puts the music and performances in perspective.

Coming soon…..

The Arrival of the Four Seasons

How did Billboard, the world’s most important music paper track the rise from nowhere of a group named The Four Seasons?

The Rise and Fall of NEW The Four Seasons.

When Nick Massi left and Bob Gaudio had to seek a new direction for the group, little did he know it would take 10 years before they hit No 1 again. Read our first Chapter in that story. Chapter 5 1973 -1975

Coming to chameleon’s blog soon.

 

Are the Jersey Boys the NEW Four Seasons?

It seemed such an simple question but I stumbled to answer it to a man who plays a Four Season but has never seen any of the group line-ups that delivered the original songs in the show. It was particularly significant as it was asked by the handsome young actor Stephen Ashfield, who plays the part of Bob Gaudio in the UK production of Jersey Boys.

The reality is that, with the Four Seasons no longer being an identifiable entity as a group, long-standing fans (who enjoyed the changing Seasons that joined the group between 1965 and the mid-1990s) have to look to tribute bands and the Jersey Boys to deliver the songs they have grown to love.  Stephen was simply responding to my description of how the Four Seasons had changed with their many different line-ups between 1966 and 1977. It was a question, which long-standing fans with dim memories of the glorious tours of the mid seventies that established the UK fan club, must face.

But this question was not in my mind as I re-visited the Prince Edward Theatre on a sizzling summer day for a matinee performance. I was nervous at the prospect of possibly meeting the group and the expectant mood of the audience was like static electricity before the show. I found myself getting very involved in this atmosphere even though I knew the script so well. This is something new and old fans all seem to feel in our visits and the build-up to ‘Sherry’ seemed to have an increased intensity with the song releasing the pent-up emotion and their frustrations at their lack of success in the early section of the show. Clearly this is something the UK production has developed to overcome the complex dialogue and evolution of the group and their ‘sound’. The audience showed their excitement. and by the time ‘Dawn’s climatic portrayal of the group on a stadium stage arrived they had us all choked with emotion. Riding the roller coaster of the rest of the show was a great experience once again.

As for the performances of Glenn, Stephen, Philip and Ryan in the main roles they were all superb. I noticed in each performance of the 'Boys' small ways in which their performances have matured over the last year. The power and intensity of key moments in the show has been re-inforced to great effect and we hang on their words as we await each piece of the story…even though we all know it from previous visits. The timing and delivery are just perfect. “It should be”, said Glenn “as we’ve had lots of practice”

The only failing in the show was the performance of the girls who sing as the Angels on ‘My Boyfriend’s Back’. The spoken intro was like a rap intro and the harmonies were way off the Angels original sound. A pity but easily corrected.

The prospect of meeting the guys was also getting to me during the show and at the intermission we were met at our row, by the Stage Manager. Nick Egen was such a courteous host and the champagne in the intermission was a wonderful surprise. Although the 'This Morning' TV Show preparations meant the ‘Boys’ had little time, they all came to the Stage Door internal area and spent 10 mins plus chatting and I was able to give them the gifts from the Appreciation Society....which we all hope they will enjoy.

Their interest in the fans of the Four Seasons and their rapport with all Jersey Boys fans was a pleasure to behold. The research we are now able to co-ordinate with a fuller knowledge of the groups history(thanks to the ‘play/book’)…often only hinted at in the 70s….is now gathering into a cohesive group biography and was of interest to Stephen in particular. So when Stephen asked me if the long-standing fans view them as the NEW Four Seasons I was hesitant. Valli’s vocal?….the harmonies?……could that be faithfully reproduced in this show. Stephen told me the company re-inforce the 'sound' in the show to boost the harmonies …something Valli and the group rarely did with additional singers. So I couldn’t answer the question…..that is until the next day.

Then I saw their performance on ITV's 'This Morning' programme of the Four Seasons ‘Hits Medley’ which we have all seen Frankie and the Seasons perform many times...... but unlike in the show where they have vocal support this time they were on their own……and they each had to be spot on vocally, to create a sound as close to the previous Seasons sound which we all recall from concerts and demonstrated on the recently discovered Bachelors III Live concert CD. In this testing TV performance their harmonies were excellent....... so in response to Stephen Ashfields question ..."Are we the NEW Four Seasons?"...I would have to say "As close as makes no difference ....that final note on ‘Bye Bye Baby’was perfect".

Overall it was a stunning day and we can't thank them all enough. Another visit is recommended to all fans of the show and the group ,whilst this excellent cast provide such an excellent presentation of the sound we love so much.

Ken Charmer

Flashbacks...........

How Did Susan De Passe Lose A Four Seasons Master?

Stories make music sound better…It’s a fact!

That’s why Jersey Boys is such a great show….and sometimes they give us a song which might never have been heard. So it is with the Four Seasons.

At last years International Four Seasons Convention for the fans, special guests Joe Long and Demitri Callas ….former Four Seasons during the mid 70s…..told the story of how a song that the group believed in and recorded was lost by the Executives at Motown.

Read the full story here ….

Added notes......In our rush to produce the demo 45 image we made a grave error and omitted one of the key writers and arrangers - Joe Long aka LaBracio. As Demitri said ..."It would be appropriate to see Joe LaBracio's name under the title of the song; without his superb bass playing, singing and vocal
arranging, this song would be lifeless and devoid of the true Seasons'flair.  If Joe had not recorded the unmixed playback as we were leaving the studio, the recording would be lost forever.  LaBracio to the
rescue! "

And the ever modest Joe ...."That song brings back many happy memories. And, the YouTube video is terrific. Thank you very much. As I recall, Demetri and Lee did the bulk of the writing. There was added input from the rest of us. I had the most studio experience, so I handled that end. It was a fun session."

So now we are correct and you can hear the ‘almost lost’ song below….