chameleon

Is Valli on the run as ‘The Hit Men’ appear in New Jersey?

Frankie Valli’s acting career was unceremoniously ended with a gun on the Soprano’s and his links with the mafia are well known from the phenomenal success of Jersey Boys and now we find he may be the target of ‘hit men’!!!!!!  Is his stage presence  perhaps threatened by the appearance of appropriately named ’The Hit Men’ a new group….which includes 3 former ‘Four Seasons’ who had a UK Top Ten hit in their own right.

 Although currently protected by his young ‘minders’ in the shape of the singing and dancing ‘Four Seasons’ as he continues to tour at the age of 77, will this new group really challenge his future? At  77 he’ll probably say….”who cares!”……..or ‘hey, I know those guys!”…… but what a thrill for former Four Seasons fans particularly those in New Jersey

Offering long-standing ‘Four Seasons’ fans the chance to see once again three of the line-up that helped Frankie project the group to a world-wide Number one hit in 1976 is going to have some appeal. So Who are ‘The Hit Men’….

 

The show will certainly capture the sounds of the 70s and as one former 1970s female fan put it on hearing the news of their debut night in New Jersey on 11^th November 2010…

“I checked this place out - and it got great reviews.  The place is about an hour away from our house.  I would really, really, really love to go  I promise - if I get the chance to go - I WILL BE THERE!  I would love to see and listen to Don, Lee & Gerry.   How much fun would that be!?  Do you have their schedule for the rest of the year so I can tell my friends”?”

So having been promised the chance of being launched as the Four Seasons in their own right in 1976… they now find themselves back together on stage able to perform in their own right and we will hopefully see that the talent we saw back then hasn’t faded. Unfortunately it will be without our good friend and now jazz guitarist John Paiva who lives in Germany but we have 75% of the group we were promised back then....plus Larry and Jimmy two more fine musicians.

We’ve asked Lee to make a video available and we’ll have full fan reports and photos for you on this blog and we’ll try to get an interview or two. So if you can, go grab your tickets and give the group a fantastic welcome back to the stage doing their own music that they all helped into the charts.

 
Visit WWW.THEHITMENSITE.COM

At Last - News Of 'Jersey Boys - The Movie'

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It has taken years but at last it is announced that the staggeringly successful stage show 'Jersey Boys' is to become a film. Described as a groundbreaking deal by Graham King's GK Films it is accepting quite a challenge to capture the magic of the show in a real life setting. With Valli and Gaudio as executive producers this is a challenging close to their careers and will hopefully leave them a legacy that future generations can enjoy. But will they expand the script..and correct some of the anomalies....and will the Four Seasons of the 70s responsible for 'Who Loves You' and 'December 63' so crucial to the shows success be given any credit?

With Marshal Brickman and Rik Elice retained to script the film lets hope it exceeds our expectations and does the group's career justice as well as recognising the original members.

Our old friend Lawyer Peter Bennett negotiated the deal for Bob and Frankie.....quite an achievement in a career which has stretched back to 1969 representing The Four Seasons Partnership. Congratulations to all concerned on behalf of all us long-standing and new fans.

No news on the timing and casting yet but we will keep you posted.

As our very own Phil Elms sums it up..."The News  will please a lot of people, especially as Bob Gaudio and Frankie Valli believe the project is in safe hands. Will the stage / screen transfer work? Let's stay hopeful. Certainly keeping Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice as screenwriters was a no-brainer and the possibility that Martin Scorcese might be in the director's chair adds kudos. Speculation is going to be rife on who will be cast as the Four Seasons. From my experience( and many others) you could mix and match from Broadway and West End casts past and present and be delighted at the result. My guess is that the producers will trawl the market place again and come up with a fresh quartet. Whatever the choice, it needs to be the right one. After all, this will be cast that represent the Four Seasons' legacy as the movie is shown on TV for the next sixty years at least!"

Whilst the old You Tube videos of the groups Live performances do capture the music...the secret of the show is how the arrangements and harmonies are intensified to bring all the emotion out of the script. A friend who is a Hollies fan recently told me on seeing Jersey Boys in London that he thought the first half of the show was a bit slow but that the second half was tremendous. Of course the climax with "Who Loves You' and the reprise of 'December 63' brings the house down. Wonder what Don, Lee, Gerry and John  think when they see THEIR contribution reproduced each night(and now to be on film) without them getting any credit.(only Joe Long and Charlie Calello are given credit as former Four Seasons in the play) Oh well that is the music business!!

Check out the GK Blog here!

Casey Chameleon

‘This Is Goodbye’ – but not yet!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It seemed ironic when Ray Nichol told me that this old 45 has become a ‘bubbling under’ floor filler on the Newcastle Northern Soul scene as evidenced by its sale on E-bay at 35 UK pounds as in my case this summer it nearly was ‘goodbye’ after a heart attack and a double heart by-pass operation.

And when I read Simon Parke’s quote in an English newspaper I was struck by it’s siginificance…both personally and with regard to the aims and achievements of the Four Seasons fans and the UK Appreciation Society.

“Each Day we are given small things, for our life is comprised of small events. There are no big things just small things one after another ….small things well lived. Tomorrow’s small things remain a mystery, of course, as they are unfolding way beyond our sight……..And anyway, today’s are quite enough, arriving like a string of pearls one after the other. As to what they will become…who knows.”

I was recovering from the post operative trauma of the operation and each day I needed to be focused on small improvements….and as I considered with Casey Chameleon when (or if) to resume our research and our blog this newspaper piece put things in perspective for me.

Small things add up I thought looking back through our blog, which is nearly 4 years old, has 92 posts on the history of the Four Seasons and has had 63,000 visitors. Plus our web site and the officially ‘unofficial’ GILG web site and I could see the resources and library of information available to Four Seasons fans all as a result of dedicated fans doing ‘small things’.

“As the artist Vincent Van Gogh said…..”Great things are not done by impulse but by a series of small things brought together”

So resuming our publication was just a matter of time particularly as my ‘heart’ benefits from Four Seasons music and stories…..so my cardiologist tells me. ‘You should feel more energy over time….like that TV bunny with the battery……” Now where have I heard that before? So we’ll “just keep going and going and going, chasing the music” and the stories behind it.

Over the winter months we will be posting a series of blogs and articles which would normally have been part of our paper Newsletters…….but having gone digital it now seems best to stay that way.

Soon we will have the remaining Chapters of the Rise and Fall Of The NEW Four Seasons which will run through 1978 to 1982…and already our researchers are searching out background stories for Chapter 1 back in 1966 when Bob Gaudio took control of the production and sound of the Four Seasons and sought a new style and direction.

We’ve also completed drafts of the story of Bob Crewe’s female Four Seasons ‘The Rag Dolls’ with Jean Thomas’s insights into how the group was conceived and set up as well as her solo work with Bob Crewe, Sandy Linzer and Denny Randell.

Our CD Discography will get a winter update as more CD’s from the past are unearthed and we’ll update reviews and sound quality evaluation scores.

Lynn Boleyn will be reviewing ‘Jersey Boys’ London another year on as we prepare for a new actor to play Frankie Valli.

And special thanks go out to a long-standing Geordie (ie Newcastle) Seasons fan, Tom Cramlington, who has contributed a vinyl sessionography of Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons from 1953 to 1974, we are editing and updating this as we discover more details and prepare it for publication in 5 parts.. Searching out session notes from the Partnership’s archive managers doesn’t seem to be an option but we may well explore that avenue but we will also seek to verify what the group and Valli really did record at Motown and hopefully find people with information who are prepared to share it with the fans.

As was said above in Simon Parke’s quote… “Tomorrow’s small things remain a mystery, of course, as they are unfolding way beyond our sight…….. As to what they will become…who knows.”

Follow our blog and we hope the small things that arrive through our network of friends and music detectives will add to your knowledge of the Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons and hopefully will entertain you. And of course I still have to check with our sound engineers what possible ‘digital’ gems might be uncovered in the next year. Who knows?

Ken Charmer

 

And News from Casey Chameleon just in……..

During the week of Sept. 13 one of Valli's tour buses was involved in a traffic accident, and Valli came through bruised but not broken.  Valli looks like he'll do another 60+ dates during 2011. 

The lawsuit against "The Boys In Concert" is to be dropped pending that "The Boys..." change their name within 30 days of notice.

JB is celebrating the 5th anniversary on Broadway with a fan invited celebration between the matinee and evening performances on November 6. But will ‘Gypsy Woman’ get an invite ….she certainly deserves one!!

Wednesday  29^th September saw the re-union of two great Four Seasons John Paiva and Joe Long in Las Vegas where John is on holiday….re-united after 35 years!! Fantastic!. We’ll get John and Joe’s comments soon.