The Four Seasons: История Американского Вокального Квартета

American rock band
the Indonesian band

The Four Seasons is an American vocal quartet formed in 1960 in Newark, New Jersey. Since 1970, they have also been known at times as Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. The band evolved out of a previous band called The Four Lovers, with Frankie Valli as the lead singer, Bob Gaudio on keyboards and tenor vocals, Tommy DeVito on lead guitar and baritone vocals, and Nick Massi on bass guitar and bass vocals. On nearly all of their 1960s hits, they were credited as The 4 Seasons. The band had two distinct lineups that achieved widespread success: the original featuring Valli, Gaudio, DeVito, and Massi (with that success continuing after Joe Long succeeded Massi in 1965) that recorded hits throughout the 1960s, and a 1970s quintet (sometimes billed as Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons) consisting of Valli, Lee Shapiro, Gerry Polci, Don Ciccone and John Paiva, with Gaudio and Long providing studio support. The legal name of the organization is the Four Seasons Partnership, formed by Gaudio and Valli, and was taken after a failed audition in 1960. Valli and Gaudio (who has been a non performing member of the group since 1973) each own 50% of the act and its assets, including virtually all of its recording catalog. The touring lineup of the group includes Valli as the sole remaining original member, the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 1999 and the New Jersey Hall of Fame in 2017. They are one of the best selling musical groups of all time, having sold an estimated 100 million records worldwide.

Frankie Valli's first commercial release was "My Mother's Eyes" (as Frankie Valley) in 1953. The following year, he and guitarist Tommy DeVito formed The Variatones (with Hank Majewski, rhythm guitar, Frank Cottone, accordion, and Billy Thompson, drums), which between 1954 and 1956 performed and recorded under a variety of names before settling on the name The Four Lovers, based upon a Latin lover gimmick and playing country music. Five more Four Lovers singles (on RCA Victor) were released over the next year, with virtually no sales, airplay, or jukebox play. In 1957, the band's seventh single (this time on Epic) had a similar lack of success. From 1956 until 1958, the group stayed together, performing in clubs and lounges as The Four Lovers and recording on music labels under various names: Frankie Tyler, Frankie Valli, Frankie Valli and the Travelers, Frankie Valli and the Romans, the Village Voices, and the Topics are some of the 18 "stage names" used individually or collectively by the members of the band. Majewski left the band due to creative differences, To fill the gap, two members of the Hollywood Playboys, another touring group in North Jersey, joined Valli and Tommy DeVito: lead keyboardist Hugh Garrity and guitarist Nickie Massey. Massey left in 1959 to front his own short lived group the Nite Lites, replaced for a time by Charles Calello. In 1959, the band started working with producer/songwriter Bob Crewe, primarily for session work (Crewe wrote "I Go Ape", which Valli recorded with the intention of releasing it as a "solo" single, only to be beaten to the punch by an unrelated song of the same name from Neil Sedaka, who became friends with Valli later on). Later that year, The Four Lovers were performing in Baltimore on the same stage as the Royal Teens, who were riding the wave of success of "Short Shorts", a song co written by then 15 year old Bob Gaudio, who was also the Royal Teens' keyboardist. In late 1959, Gaudio replaced Garrity (who left to reform the Hollywood Playboys). Early the following year,a now renamed Nick Massi returned to replace Calello. Calello remained associated with the group, arranging instruments while Massi arranged the vocals. In 1960, despite the changes of personnel, the fortunes of The Four Lovers had not changed—they failed an audition for a lounge at a Union Township, Union County, New Jersey bowling establishment. According to Gaudio, "We figured we'll come out of this with something. So we took the name of the bowling alley. It was called the Four Seasons." Despite the last few years of frustration of The Four Lovers, this proved to be the turning point for the band. Later, on a handshake agreement between keyboardist/composer Bob Gaudio and lead singer Frankie Valli, the Four Seasons Partnership was formed.

The Four Seasons signed as artists to Crewe's production company, and they released their first Crewe produced single under their new name in 1961 ("Bermuda"/"Spanish Lace" on Gone Records). The single did not chart. The band continued working with producer Bob Crewe as background vocalists and sometimes leads under different names, for productions on Crewe's own Topix label. As a follow up, Bob Gaudio wrote a song that, after some discussion between Crewe and Gaudio, was titled "Sherry". After the song was recorded, Crewe and the members of the band solicited record labels to release it. It was Frankie Valli who spoke with Randy Wood, West Coast sales manager for Vee Jay Records (not the founder of Dot Records) who, in turn, suggested the release of "Sherry" to the decision makers at Vee Jay. "Sherry" made enough of an impression that Crewe was able to sign a deal between his production company and Vee Jay for its release. They were the first white artists to sign with Vee Jay. In 1962, the band released their first album, featuring the single "Sherry", which drew the attention of WPOP in Hartford, Connecticut, known for launching new hit songs; WPOP disc jockey Joey Reynolds heavily promoted the record. "Sherry" gave the Four Seasons their first number one song. Under the guidance of Bob Crewe, the Four Seasons followed up "Sherry" with several million selling singles, generally composed by Crewe and Gaudio, including "Big Girls Don't Cry" (their second #1 hit), "Walk Like a Man" (their third #1), "Candy Girl" (written by Larry Santos), "Ain't That a Shame", and several others. Also, they released a Christmas album in December 1962 and charted with a unique rendition of "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town". From 1962 to early 1964, the Beach Boys were the only band to match the Four Seasons in record sales in the United States, and their first three Vee Jay non holiday single releases (i. e., ignoring their version of "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town") marked the first time that a rock band hit #1 on the Billboard singles charts with three consecutive entries. In 1962, they were invited to perform their hit "Big Girls Don't Cry" on the show American Bandstand.

Despite the band's success, Vee Jay Records was in financial distress. The label had released several early Beatles singles in America. When the Beatles became hugely popular, Vee Jay was swamped with orders, and they shipped more than two million Beatles records in a single month. The demands of mass production, the cash flow problems involved, and the loss of the Beatles when Trans Global (a firm licensed by EMI to distribute its products) canceled Vee Jay's contract on August 3, 1963, due to non payment of royalties, found Vee Jay hard pressed to stay afloat. Vee Jay continued to produce one Beatles album (in various forms) in defiance of the cancellation. After over a year of legal negotiations, Capitol Records was finally able to stop Vee Jay, effective October 15, 1964. While the label went through internal turmoil with the Beatles and Capitol Records, a separate royalty dispute between Vee Jay and the Four Seasons headed to court. In January 1964, after several successful albums but a lack of money from Vee Jay, the Seasons left Vee Jay and moved to Philips Records, then a division of Mercury Records. In the 1965 settlement of the lawsuit, Vee Jay retained release rights for all material the band recorded for the label. Vee Jay exercised those rights liberally over the following year. The group was obligated to deliver one final album to Vee Jay, which they did in the form of a "faux" live LP. (When Vee Jay was finally declared bankrupt in 1966, the Four Seasons' Vee Jay catalog reverted to the band to settle unpaid royalties, and the tracks were then reissued by Philips.) The change of label did not diminish the popularity of the Four Seasons in 1964, nor did the onslaught of the British Invasion and Beatlemania. However, "Dawn (Go Away)" was kept from the #1 spot on the Hot 100 by no fewer than three Beatles singles in the March 21, 1964, edition (two weeks later, the top five slots were filled by Beatles singles). In a two record set dubbed The Beatles vs the Four Seasons: The International Battle of the Century!, Vee Jay created an elaborate two disc package that the purchaser could use to write on and score individual recordings by their favorite artist. The discs were reissues of the albums Introducing The Beatles and Golden Hits of the Four Seasons, featuring each original album's label, title, and catalog number. Today, this album package is a collector's item. Valli credited the band's continued success in the face of the British Invasion to staying true to their original mission of an original sound and not trying to imitate British acts.

Nick Massi left the Four Seasons in September 1965. The band's arranger, Charles Calello (a former member of The Four Lovers), stepped in as a temporary replacement. A few months later, Joe Long was permanently hired and became a mainstay of the band on bass and backing vocals until 1975, with Calello returning to arranging. Massi's departure coincided with the addition of new songwriters such as Sandy Linzer and Denny Randell, who eased the burden on Gaudio, while Randell absorbed some of Massi's arranging duties. In the meantime, the Four Seasons released recordings under a variety of names, including the Valli Boys, the Wonder Who?, and Frankie Valli. Every Valli "solo" recording from 1965 to "My Eyes Adored You" in 1974 was recorded by the Four Seasons at the same time and in the same sessions as other Four Seasons material; these were usually distinguished in that material written and marketed as Valli solo numbers did not have Valli's trademark falsetto. Valli's first post 1960 single without the Seasons was 1975's "Swearin' to God". More top 20 singles followed in 1965, 1966, and 1967, including "Let's Hang On! ", "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right" (as the Wonder Who? ), "Working My Way Back to You", "Opus 17 (Don't You Worry 'bout Me)", "I've Got You Under My Skin", "Can't Take My Eyes Off You" (released under Valli's name as a "solo" single), "Beggin'" (later covered by Norwegian duo Madcon and Italian band Måneskin), "Tell It to the Rain", "C'mon Marianne", and "I Make a Fool of Myself" (Frankie Valli "solo"). Also, other Crewe/Gaudio songs that did not become hits for either Valli or the Four Seasons became international hits in cover versions, such as "Silence Is Golden" (the Tremeloes) and "The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine (Anymore)" (the Walker Brothers). However, 1968's "Will You Love Me Tomorrow" was the band's last top 40 hit for seven years (reaching #24), just after Valli's last "solo" hit of the 1960s, the #29 charted "To Give (The Reason I Live)".

By 1969, the band's popularity had declined, with public interest moving towards rock with a harder edge and music with more socially conscious lyrics. Aware of that, Bob Gaudio partnered with folk rock songwriter Jake Holmes to write a concept album titled The Genuine Imitation Life Gazette, which discussed contemporary issues from the band's standpoint, including divorce ("Saturday's Father"), and Kinks style satirical looks at modern life (e. g., "American Crucifixion and Resurrection" and "Genuine Imitation Life"). The decision to create a concept album was a major departure for the group, which Bob Crewe had purposely marketed as a singles act (so much so that the group's early albums were simply the name of a major hit single appended with some variation of "and Other Songs"). In DeVito's place, the Seasons hired their first non New Jersey member, Maryland native Demitri Callas. After leaving Philips, the Four Seasons recorded a one off single for the Warner Bros. label in England, "Sleeping Man", backed by "Whatever You Say", which was never released in the USA. John Stefan, the band's lead trumpeter, arranged the horn parts. Following that single, the band signed to Motown. The first LP, Chameleon, released by Motown subsidiary label MoWest Records in 1972, failed to sell. A 1971 Frankie Valli solo single on Motown, "Love Isn't Here", and three Four Seasons singles, "Walk On, Don't Look Back" on MoWest in 1972, "How Come" and "Hickory" on Motown in 1973, sank without a trace. A song from Chameleon, "The Night", later became a Northern Soul hit and reached the top 10 of the UK Singles Chart, but was not commercially released in the United States as a single, although promotional copies were distributed in 1972, showing the artist as Frankie Valli. Valli has consistently spoken of how much of the group's late 1960s and early 1970s material was poorly marketed and only later received the appreciation that he felt it deserved. Don Ciccone, whose career with The Critters had come to an abrupt end due to his entry into the armed forces, succeeded Long as bassist and took on the occasional lead vocal. As "My Eyes Adored You" climbed the Hot 100 singles chart in early 1975, Uttal was persuaded to release The Four Seasons Story, a two record compilation of the band's biggest hit singles from 1962 to 1970. It quickly became a gold record, selling over one million copies before the RIAA started awarding platinum records for million selling albums. Uttal was unwilling to sign the group as a whole, but left a loophole in Valli's contract allowing him to stay with the group if they signed with another label. Gaudio then approached Warner Bros. Records with a new song, "Who Loves You," with Ciccone on lead vocal due to Valli being overseas during the recording; intrigued by a new Four Seasons lead singer, they signed the group. Valli was unwilling to give up lead vocal duties and managed to halt the release of "Who Loves You" until he could replace Ciccone's vocal with his own. Polci began working for Barry Manilow and Valli—who also had surgery to restore his worsening hearing—accepted an offer to sing the theme song for the movie Grease. Both the film and song were major hits, the latter reaching #1, and by 1980 the band had reunited, with a lineup consisting mostly of its 1970s lineup along with Jerry Corbetta, who had been lead singer of Sugarloaf. In January 1981, Warners released Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons Reunited Live. Produced by Bob Gaudio, it was a double album of concert recordings which included the two studio recordings "Spend the Night in Love" and "Heaven Must Have Sent You (Here in the Night)" sung by Valli. The latter became a UK single but failed to chart, while the former was released as a single in America, inching its way into the Hot 100 and became a top 5 hit, the group's last, in South Africa. Valli had planned to add his daughter Francine to the act in 1980, but Francine unexpectedly died that year. In 1984, a long awaited collaboration between the Four Seasons and the Beach Boys, "East Meets West", was released on FBI Records, owned by the Four Seasons Partnership, which included most of the surviving Beach Boys (including Brian Wilson). However, the record did not sell well. Even after the rise and fall of the band's sales in the disco era, the Four Seasons, in one version or another, continued to be a popular touring act, with Valli and keyboardist/music director Robby Robinson (who replaced Corbetta in 1984) being the only constants in the midst of a fluctuating lineup. Polci, the last member of the group's 1970s lineup still touring aside from Valli, served three stints in the band, ultimately leaving for the final time in 1990 when he married Valli's daughter Toni. Although Gaudio is still officially part of the band (he and Valli are still equal partners in the Four Seasons Partnership), he now restricts his activities to writing, producing, and the occasional studio work. In August 1985, MCA Records released the band album Streetfighter, which yielded two singles in the title track and "Book of Love", a post disco style revamp of the Monotones' 1957 recording. In September 1992, a band album was released entitled Hope + Glory on the MCA/Curb label. In 1994, "December 1963" re entered the Hot 100 by way of a remix. In 2003, Valli revamped the group and started touring with a new vocal quartet (which was referred to as "the Four Seasons"), consisting of Landon Beard, Todd Fournier, and brothers Brian Brigham and Brandon Brigham. A massive 3CD + 1DVD box set Jersey Beat The Music Of Frankie Valli & the 4 Seasons was released in mid 2007, marketed as the most comprehensive collection of Four Seasons music yet. The album title Jersey Beat is a play on Jersey Boys, a successful Broadway musical about the Four Seasons, as well as on Mersey Beat, a term first coined as the title of a music magazine published in Liverpool, England, from 1961, but subsequently also used to describe Liverpool's "beat music" culture of the early 1960s. In 2008, the Four Seasons' "Beggin'" was revived by two acts. Pilooski made an electro remix of that song, while rap act Madcon used it as the basis of their song "Beggin'". The latter reached number 5 in the UK charts and was a hit across Europe. The song was featured in a TV commercial for adidas shoes entitled "Celebrate Originality". The Adidas commercial is a popular hit on YouTube and features a house party with famous celebrities such as David Beckham, Russel Simmons, Kevin Garnett, Missy Elliott, Katy Perry, and Mark Gonzales. Members of the 1970s lineup of the group (Polci, Ciccone, and Shapiro) reunited without Valli in 2011 as The Hit Men; it toured with several other session musicians of good repute. Shapiro has continued The Hit Men as a standalone project after Ciccone died in 2016 and Polci withdrew from the group in 2017. As part of the BBC Proms in the Park they performed with the BBC Concert Orchestra in Hyde Park on September 10, 2016. In 2018, the Beard/Fournier/Brigham quartet spun off and began performing as The Modern Gentlemen, with Valli's blessing, and Valli recruited a new quartet of singers to back him. Beard, Fournier, and the Brigham brothers performed as The Four Seasons for 15 years, longer than any other lineup and longer than any of the band's other members except Valli and Gaudio. In 2020, the group launched a YouTube channel, featuring the group virtually re recording some of their songs. A limited edition 44 disc career box set called "Working Our Way Back to You: The Ultimate Collection" was initially going to be released in the summer of 2021 by The Four Seasons Partnership and Snapper Records, but it missed the release due to the COVID 19 pandemic. However, the box set was later rescheduled for release on December 9, 2022, before the release date was pushed back to April 14, 2023. The box set was eventually released on June 2, 2023, by The Four Seasons Partnership and Madfish/Snapper Music. It includes every album released by the band (including both mono and stereo mixes, where available), a CD of unreleased tracks from the band's Mowest years, three live shows taken from soundboard recordings as well as numerous other rare tracks and alternative versions. The Four Seasons announced their farewell tour, "The Last Encores Tour", to run through 2024, including several extended stays at the Westgate Las Vegas Resort & Casino. In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Valli did not rule out future appearances after the tour, stating that "I’m not sure whether I’m gonna keep going out."

Partial credits before 1994.

This is not a complete list of album releases. These recordings have been reissued on a variety of labels, some of which are noted here. This list includes only those Frankie Valli solo albums (the first two) that were recorded as Four Seasons productions. Date of releaseTitleBillboardpeakLabelCatalog numberSeptember 1962Sherry & 11 Others6Vee JayLP 1053 (Mono) / SR 1053 (Stereo)December 1962The 4 Seasons Greetings13LP / SR 1055February 1963Big Girls Don't Cry and Twelve Others 8LP / SR 1056June 1963The 4 Seasons Sing Ain't That a Shame and 11 Others47LP / SR 1059February 1964Born to Wander – Tender and Soulful Ballads (Folk Flavored)84Philips200–129 (Mono) / 600–129 (Stereo)March 1964Dawn (Go Away) and 11 Other Great Songs6200–124 / 600–124July 1964Rag Doll7200–146 / 600–146March 1965The 4 Seasons Entertain You77200–164 / 600–164November 1965The 4 Seasons Sing Big Hits by Burt Bacharach Hal David Bob Dylan 106200–193 / 600–193November 1965All New Recorded Live • On Stage with The 4 Seasons(studio album with audience overdubs)68Vee JayVJS 1154January 1966Working My Way Back to You50Philips200–201 / 600–201May 1967New Gold Hits37200–243 / 600–243June 1967The 4 Seasons Present Frankie Valli Solo (credited to Frankie Valli)34200–247 / 600–247July 1968Timeless (credited to Frankie Valli)176200–274 / 600–274January 1969The Genuine Imitation Life Gazette85600–290May 1970Half & Half(alternating recordings credited to The 4 Seasons and solo Frankie Valli)190600–341May 1972Chameleon—MoWestMW108LNovember 1975Who Loves You38Warner Bros. BS 2900April 1977Helicon168BS 3016August 1985Streetfighter—MCA/CurbMCA 5632September 1992Hope + Glory—CurbD2 77546