John Paiva - 'Season' Supreme 65 Today

It is with great pleasure that all Four Seasons fans congratulate 70s member John Paiva on reaching 65. John has proved a great friend to fans and continues to keep us amused with his stories and recollections of those days.

 John recalls…. 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!”......................

 

I was born January 25th 1943 in Bristol,Rhode Island, a beautiful, small seaport town directly on the ocean. Over the years it has become clear to me that where ever one is born, his/her roots will stay. Certainly there are cases where a person chooses to leave and never desires to return. I am not one of them. The quaint atmosphere and friendliness of Bristol is strong. Sometimes the name shows up in a movie or a book and I recall some of those moments.........

My first guitar was an acoustic which Mom and Dad gave me for my 14th Christmas. It was a Maurer open hole acoustic and I thought it the grandest guitar in the world. They paid $150 and back then to a hard working family, this was a lot of money. I never really thought they would come through. There wasn’t a lot of money and I always wonder which one didn’t get something great for that Christmas.

My world changed that day. This little instrument occupied my days and my nights. That first year I contracted the measles. It was the custom then when one had the measles to be in a dark room to protect the eyes and the room kept cool in hopes of fighting off the fever. After much adieu Mom finally agreed to lie the guitar on my stomach so I could practice although with so little strength I could barely press the strings. No matter! My beloved was in my hands. Dad had taught me his 2 or 3 chords which I soon mastered and he would play his mandolin and tell me when to change the chords. He would play all his songs in C so I could play along with him.”

John remembers the days as a Four Season and some scary ‘professional’ stage moments…..” We had rehearsed during the day  with the London Philharmonic strings and they were great. The one thing we didn’t do was to open the curtain at the rehearsal. We suggested to Jim, our road manager that we should run through the opening as the mike stands would have to be moved forward after the curtain rises. As Frankie wanted to leave Jim said we shouldn’t bother. Our opening number was ‘Swearing To God’ which started with the guitar in full distortion stating the melody line, then holding the note to Gerry´s drum roll. A very effective opening. Over that came the announcement: “Ladies and gentlemen, the London Palladium proudly presents.... Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons!” lights....camera....action.....CURTAIN.

 In this wonderful old theater the heavy curtain has a steel chain sewn into the bottom to keep it steady and hanging straight down as with most theater curtains. When the curtain was speedily opened, it swung backwards catching Dons mike, which fell into my mike, which landed directly across the tuning pegs of my Gibson knocking it completely out of tune. The mike stand finished its trip by landing directly on my pedal board activating all of my sound settings....chorus...the 2nd distortion....the flanger....the delay...and the envelope follower. All this accompanying Frankies singing. Nice eh!?! I couldn’t help but laugh at the absurdity of it all. My backup guitar was on its stand so I missed a few beats but after a few seconds was there where I should be. Yeeeaa........ Professional show business.

 

Then there was the time I passed a gallstone while on the stage at Nanuet Theater on Long Island. We had just finished the show and were half way through our encore number when a hot searing knife sliced into me.

After all is said and done though, it was a gas being a member of the Seasons. We traveled the world and I had a wonderful time.”

And what is John doing now…..

“Playing guitar is still very important for me. Not only as a living, but as something I love doing. I would never want to be unable to play guitar. Just the ability to play at all is something I am still fascinated with.”

John lives in Munich with his wife Margie and performs in jazz groups in the city.

John recalled his time with the Happenings in our last blog post and will contribute further as we cover the rest of their music. He was kind enough to send us 6 unreleased studio demos of the Happenings from his time with them. And we have been trying to get Frankie and Bob to release theirs from the Motown vaults for over a decade.! It is a rare and wonderful experience when an artist is so friendly and sharing….and John Paiva will remain long in the heart’s of all true Four Seasons fans.

Happy Birthday John.

John as he appeared in Munich on Dec 3^rd….

 

"And below a recent gig number….. I played in the "Schrannenhalle"  with "The John Paiva Quartet", featuring Bass-Thomas Stabenow, piano-Jan Escheke, drums-Hermann Roth. This number was the second tune of the night.

I had a mess of fun playing with these great musicians.

A special note: That is my Dads Gibson amp, which he bought new in 1960, that I am using there. The guy who took the pictures is a student of mine who happens to be an electronics engineer. He refurbished the amp. So here I am using it ..... 43 years later"

cottontail.mp3

 

Visit John’s web site at http://www.johnpaivamusic.de/index.htm