Four Seasons bigger than ever in Broadway musical

By Claudia Parsons

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Bob Gaudio, songwriting partner of
Frankie Valli and one of the original Four Seasons, is
beginning to think “Jersey Boys,” a Broadway musical about the
band, may be even more successful than the band itself.

Featuring a string of hits such as “Big Girls Don’t Cry,”
“Walk Like a Man” and “Oh What a Night,” the show is the story
of four blue-collar boys from New Jersey who overcame prison,
mobsters and rivalries to win riches and fame in the 1960s.

Now it’s a hot favorite for best musical at the Tony Awards
on Sunday, though it may have to overcome some prejudices about
so-called “jukebox musicals,” which some in the business
consider an inferior form to shows with original scores such as
its main rival for the top prize, “The Drowsy Chaperone.”

“I never looked at this as being a jukebox musical,” Valli
said in a telephone interview. “This is more about the life and
times of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, how it got started
and what it’s all about,” he said.

As it happens, the story is a dramatic one — involving
jail time, failed marriages, the death of Valli’s daughter due
to drugs and battles with record companies to get their hits
made. It’s also a story that is relatively unknown to many.

“Even with our success, we never got the publicity, not
like the Beatles certainly or even the Beach Boys,” Gaudio said
over lunch just off Broadway. “Part of it was a certain
awareness that this might not be good for our careers.

“And nobody really gave a crap. We were not glamour boys,
we didn’t have a teeny-bopper audience … so we didn’t get the
kind of coverage other groups did. And even if we did, this
wouldn’t be the kind of story you want to share.”

THREE SIDES TO A STORY

The original Four Seasons, whose first big hit “Sherry”
went to No. 1 in 1962, was comprised of Valli, Gaudio, Nick
Massi and Tommy DeVito, who is portrayed as a fast-talking
hustler who serves time for robbery in his youth and later runs
up a gambling debt of $160,000 with a mob loanshark.

When the mobsters call in their debt, Valli and Gaudio
agree to pay the money, buying DeVito out of the band after
years of tension. Narrated in turn by each of the band members,
the show makes clear there are different sides to the story.

As Valli said: “There’s an old saying: there’s three sides
to every story — his, hers and the truth.”

Massi, who is portrayed as a quiet and talented man as well
as a drinker with an obsessive attention to details such as
hotel towels, left the band for reasons Valli and Gaudio said
they still did not fully understand.

Gaudio said the idea of a musical occurred to him about a
decade ago, but though he is credited as composer and was
involved from the start, he said he and Valli stepped back to
let the writers and the director work it out independently.

Director Des McAnuff said the writers of the show had
relied on interviews with Gaudio and Valli and an unpublished
autobiography by DeVito. Since Massi died in 2000, they had to
rely on the others for his side of the story.

“I thought the biggest thrill for me would be to stand in
front of the theater and have people say, ‘I had no idea.’ And
that’s exactly what happened,” said Gaudio, whose songwriting
partnership with Valli lasts to this day and who has also
produced records for the likes of Neil Diamond and Diana Ross.

He recalls a friend who saw a preview of the show telling
him: “This show’s going to be bigger than you guys ever were.”

RECORDING TOGETHER AGAIN

Gaudio and Valli are returning to the studio in June to
record an album together for the first time in more than a
decade, and Gaudio said both the cast album of “Jersey Boys”
and the band’s original records were selling strongly — adding
to a tally that already tops 100 million records sold.

While Gaudio gave up performing long ago, Valli still tours
with the latest incarnation of the Four Seasons, and he
recently played a recurring role on the hit television show
“The Sopranos” about New Jersey mobsters.

He plays down talk of a comeback, saying he’s enjoyed three
or four “resurgences” over time.

“People look at careers differently,” he said. “A career is
something that you build, and you go out there and do it
forever. (As for) being in the limelight, as long as there’s
work out there, you are in the limelight.

“Maybe the industry is not paying that much attention, but
the people who buy tickets and come and see the shows are the
ones that matter.”

The people are certainly turning out in droves for “Jersey
Boys,” which has been reporting attendance at around 99 percent
capacity and grossing $1 million a week, on a par with
long-term hits such as “Mamma Mia” and “Phantom of the Opera.”

McAnuff attributes the show’s appeal to the “courage” of
the band members in telling the full story. “In Elizabethan
London, this would have been called a history play,” he said.
It’s just in our time celebrities replace royalty.”