Back in 2003 a Four Seasons fan sent us a personal CD he had
made up in tribute to the group. Not the big hits or the early Philips album
tracks. This collection focused on the way the group’s sound changed as they
entered the wilderness years before they would emerge in the mid-70’s with
chart hits once again. No other 60’s group succeeded in such a way re-emerging
after a decade to re-capture the Nr 1 spot in both the USA and UK.
Over the next year we will capture the style and sounds of
these changes in this blog as we try to get the music from these wilderness
years recognized for it’s creative content and available to fans of their
‘second sound’. And what better place to start than the eponymous track for this feature…’I’m Gonna
Change’.Written by Petrillo and Cifelli who had gotten to know Gaudio at the time. The track was arranged and conducted by Artie Schroek.
By 1967, the team that had created the ‘Sound of Frankie Valli
and the Four Seasons’, was changing. They were pulling in different directions
as their other projects were achieving success or satisfying their desire to
try new things. They had recognized that the groups signature sound and style
of songs would have to change. Their older fans who had bought the Vee-Jay and
then early Philips hits by the bucket load where older and perhaps moving into
the emerging rock scene. The younger fans would not buy the sound of yesterday
and each of the creators where moving in different musical directions.
The book Rock n Roll Year by Year by Luke Crampton and
Dafydd Rees summed up the attitudes of 1967 "Rock musicians behaved badly,
and pop music looked trite. While guerrilla war raged in Vietnam , the
new counterculture took full shape, and rock became a social force and a weapon
in a cultural war. Despite the drug-induced haze, the year was one of creative
ferment and growing musical sophistication.” The driving forces for change were
fuelled by the Beatles and the epic ‘Sgt Peppers…’. “The Beatles’ masterpiece
raised the creative bar to a previously unheard level- some would argue it has
not been matched since.”
For the first half of that year the formula for the Four Seasons
was still successful as the Tremeloes proved by taking the Four Season ‘B’ side cover ‘Silence is
Golden’ to No 1 in the UK charts on May 20th of that year. The
Seasons themselves tried to use their experience and respond to the changing
sounds emerging from rivals like the Beatles, The Beach Boys and Motown.
‘Im Gonna Change’ is their reflex to these sounds as
described by Bob Hyde in November 1995 on it’s ACE re-issue….”-the song rocks,
to be sure, and the use of horns and strings gives it a bit more contemporary
sound that might have suggested a single release.” But Philips were renowned
for their failure to recognize the potential of some of the Four Seasons
recordings….(like ‘Silence Is Golden’ and ‘Betrayed’ both classically bad
decisions) and it resided on their
spring 67 album ‘New Gold Hits’….to be blown away in the summer along
with everything else by ‘Sgt. Pepper..’
Charles Calello was by this time at his peak working with Lou Christie and a range of other artists and he only did a couple of the tracks on the 'New Gold Hits" album. But with Artie in charge of this track everything
worked. So much so that it would emerge as a
floor filler in 1973 at the Wigan Casino as the DJ’s and the cult Northern Soul
dancers recognized its quality.
Our player features a remix which uses an expanded stereo
image to bring the group and Frankie to centre stage with enhancement of the
vocals to capture all the excitement of this track. The first of the changing
sound that would run for 10 years……..why only 10?....you may ask. Well that
will emerge as we feature more tracks from this period and the comments of
guest fans from those days who will show why the ‘Changing Sound of the Four
Seasons’ was so important then and now.
Go to the side bar and visit the Collectors Choice CD
collections to acquire the ‘New Gold Hits’ album.
The good thing about being a
Four Seasons collector is that there is always some anniversary to celebrate
and some good music to remix. Everyone is doing it. ‘Beggin’
(The Pilooski Re-Edit) hits the shops soon in the UK and will
celebrate that track’s original release in 1967. This time it looks like being
a hit in only a slightly changed form. It benefits greatly from the changes.
Although the ‘Helicon’ album didn’t have songs as strong as on ‘Who
Love You’ the standards of musicianship and vocal were higher and songs like
the wistful ‘Long Ago’ and the harmonic ‘Rhapsody’ come close to matching their
earlier efforts. With limited success the band died and the idea of a non Valli
Four Seasons was dropped.
