FRANKIE VALLI – ONE NIGHT ONLY
John Lloyd Young, the actor who originated the role of Frankie Valli in Broadway's juggernaut of a hit, Jersey Boys, said that in order to sing the demanding and technically difficult songs of the show, he trained like an athlete. He swam daily to build up his lung capacity. He nixed caffeine, alcohol and fast food. He went through a 40 minute vocal warm up before each show, then a 20 minute cool down after, soothing the fire from his voice required for the show.
Joseph Leo Bwarie, who played Valli in Las Vegas then came to Pittsburgh this past January to reprise the role in the month-long production said: “[Singing the role] night after night is like running a marathon, but the marathon is in your throat. Stamina has to be built up...[In Vegas], The Phantom of the Opera leads came over and saw our show. They said, ‘What you do is harder than what we do.’ And those guys are trained opera singers.”
Yet the man both performers have been tapped to play did it all with nary a singing lesson.
Itzhak Perlman: “I love Frankie Valli's falsetto; it has real energy. It swings.”
Joey Dee: “Frankie had a voice from outer space. No one has ever been able to duplicate it, and no one ever will.”
Barry Gibb: “Frankie Valli has become one of the hallmark voices of our generation.
Dion: “What can I say about Frankie Valli? He wears cooler suits, hits higher notes, and makes it all look easy.”
I don't know for sure about the suits, but I do know about that voice. You can easily hear the strength, technique, and musicality within it, all twined tightly around immense understanding of the musical statement. With the complexity of a rare Stradivarius - which acoustical elements are still mysterious – Frankie's voice is more than one-dimensional. There's depth and fullness, a largeness only associated with great, God-given talent. Listening to him sing in his gravity-defying falsetto, then switch seamlessly to his raw, masculine tenor, is being caressed by both the rose and its thorns.
Frankie Valli always had a lot to lose. Born Francis Castelluccio on May 3, 1934, he grew up in the Stephen Crane Village, a public housing complex in Newark, New Jersey. His friends ran the gamut from small town crooks to just-released-jailbirds. Life was difficult in Newark, and, as Frankie says, if you weren't careful, “you could wind up in the trunk of a car.” There were only two possibilities for Frankie: either become a star or end up dead. Frankie chose the latter. He changed his name, taking the last name Valley from one of his favorite singers at the time, Jean Valley, gave it an Italian twist, and found, through Tommy DeVito, a band with whom he could sing.
After several false starts with several false line ups, Frankie's singing career finally began to take flight when Bob Gaudio and Nick Massi joined Frankie and Tommy DeVito to form The Four Seasons. And with a little song called “Sherry,” Frankie's career didn't just fly, it soared.
Singing since high school, he shows no sign of slowing. Not that he could – even if he wanted to. Media coverage has never been hotter for the original Four Seasons and the man responsible for its sound. They have been spotlighted, interviewed, and featured by some of the most prominent media outlets and networks in the country. Even during the very height of their fame in the 1960s and 70s, the attention was never this brilliant. John Lloyd Young, the original Frankie Valli on Broadway, was even named Person Of The Week by ABC World News Tonight.
In the box set Jersey Beat, which includes three CDs and one DVD, stars such as Itzhak Perlman, Billy Joel, Barry Manilow, Bob Dylan, Regis Philbin, Cher, Joe Pesci, Nicole Kidman, Keith Urban, Brian Wilson and many more sing the praises of the Seasons by written statements that fill up the gorgeous, detailed book that comes with the set. They are nothing short than love letters to a group who inspired them so much.
And the next several years are already planned and packed with sold-out concerts and tour dates. Valli's latest CD, Romancing the 60's, was Frankie's most anticipated album - ever. It is filled with lean, limber, incredibly poignant interpretations of 1960s hits such as My Girl, My Cherie Amour, and Spanish Harlem. Though his signature falsetto doesn't make as many appearances in this disc as it has on others, the voice is still there, the growl is right below the surface, and the fire that scorched every note in Valli's impressive three-octave range is still blazing bright. He sings with authority and confidence. Notes don't sigh from his mouth, they catapult to a finish, like a baseball player sliding powerfully, successfully, to home plate.
As any performer will tell you, being a musician is volatile at best, and downright impossible to most. To be a musician of Valli's caliber, to have had so many hits and triumphs, is borderline absurd. But Frankie Valli has done it. He's had 71 chart hits (including 40 in the Top 40, 19 in the Top 10 and eight No. 1’s), “December, 1963 (Oh, What a Night)” became the longest-charting single in history with 50 total weeks, and some of the most popular songs from The Four Seasons catalog have appeared in dozens of films such as The Deer Hunter, Dirty Dancing, Mrs. Doubtfire, Conspiracy Theory and The Wanderers. As many as 200 artists have done cover versions of Frankie’s “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You,” from Nancy Wilson’s jazz treatment to Lauryn Hill’s hip-hop makeover. He and the group were one of the very first inducted into the Rock N' Roll Hall of Fame.
Frankie Valli's career has been nothing short than stunning, but it's even more amazing once you realize that the guy who did all this didn't even graduate from high school.
In the stage production of Jersey Boys, the show ends with a single, telling line said by the character of Frankie Valli. He tells the audience that he's like that “bunny on tv. I just keep going and going and going.” And he's going to Heinz Hall this Tuesday and Wednesday, performing some of those hits, singing some of those songs, and showing us all that he is truly a man for all seasons.
Frankie Valli One Night Only – May 6, 2009
Additional date added: May 5, 2009
