JERSEY, SURE The Four Seasons & Jersey Boys

Apr 01, 2011

The rock pioneers get their due over and over again, both on stage and screen. They still make it - spectacular. Deerhunter fans, unite.

BY A.D. AMOROSI

It's not enough to say how enthralled this writer was at the documentary-musical based on Sixties pop's mobbed-up chart toppers The Four Seasons that was Jersey Boys. The play has won Tonys for Best Musical and beyond, Grammys for its original Broadway cast recording (Rhino), finds itself with more sterling touring companies than Wicked and is being planned at present for the big screen by its stage scribes Marshall Brickman and Rick Elise. That seasoned Seasons Frankie Valli and Bob Gaudio serve as executive producers for the play and its film version while acting as the prime source for the playwrights' information proves the flame is well kept; to say nothing of the fact that Valli is still on fire at a casino stage near you while Gaudio writes and produces.

Famously bound by a handshake to stick in each others business literally and figuratively 50/50, Valli and Gaudio are the hit-makers and the truth-tellers of Jersey Boys with original members Tommy DeVito and the late Nick Massi an equal part of the quirky tale. Gaudio has a lot to say about all matter of the Boys, real and not-so-imagined. (Ed. note: a version of this interview appears in the current print edition of BLURT.)

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BLURT: I read somewhere where a writer asked Mr. Valli if he was comfortable with the fact that Jersey Boys would far outsell and even outlive his legend. Great for posterity but bad for the ego as he's still trodding the boards. To that he seemed to bristle. What say you? You decided years ago to retire form the stage. Those songs are meant to go on without you standing next to them. But there is something chilling about having a band's legend going on without you when your still part of the present.

BOB GAUDIO: I always thought the comment was meant in jest, based on earlier productions and an iteration about how good it was; adulation. That's a comment I would make if I saw a really good show about an act like us.

But there are no bands like you.

True. (laughs) Now if you're talking about it as a competition, there is none. We are what we are and we what we got. Then again, I suspect if I were still out there performing, I don't know how I'd take it either though I don't think Frankie sees the show as anything than a tribute to what he's accomplished and what I accomplished for the last 50 years.

Do you keep pretty good track of the productions?
Pretty regularly. I just came from the Sydney Australia production after the Melbourne run where it ran for a year. I do a lot of opening nights and previews. We have an amazing crew of talented people who do go everywhere for us - working on the music the sound, the staging and choreography. We have company managers living on planes monitoring and circling the globe. By the time its done in one place its opening in another and there're the US touring companies to say nothing of the one on Broadway. Whenever I see a new company, I'm always surprised - and I'm not just saying this - how unique each one is and how damn good each show is. Every night is like Broadway opening night. Pretty amazing when you consider that I've seen the show like 150 times. I have a lot of wows

I agree about the uniqueness of the cast. I saw it on Broadway and in Philly and the casts - the Frankies in particular - were radically different. Have you ever met a Bob you didn't like?

Let's just say this -I've seen a Bob performance somewhere in the world that didn't thrill me on a given night. But on an average there're some good Bobs out there. Very good Bobs. There're two for every company and one swing so, that's not s a bad average.

Let's duck to back to Jersey Boys's genesis. You always wanted to take the band's songs beyond the radio and the stage. I get that it was that moment in 1978's The Deer Hunter when you got struck by that notion that the songs were bigger than even mere music could hold. The scene with the soldiers and "Can't Take my Eyes Off of You" was a wake up moment. [Ed. note: view the classic film clip here, and then listen to full track at end of this article.] Why?

We were not part of the MTV generation or any generation before that on any larger visual scale. We never had a video. There was never was a lot of call for that from us. We were a record band and a live band. There was the occasional Ed Sullivan appearance or so but never something that brought a song beyond its moment; to another level , as it had been in The Deer Hunter. That was the first time I saw it in that sort of context; a brilliant film with a brilliant cast and brilliant director. The setting was very affecting to me. It was the first time I had a feeling that our music had longevity radio and records.

That you were part of a bigger moment. There was something social and cultural at stake. That you guys mattered.

Yes. That's not to put down radio. God knows they put us where we are. But that movie was an awakening. That was the beginning of me thinking that I should be looking elsewhere, another media, in which the band could showcase its music.

You said there was few performances on TV (most of which are captured on a DVD at the end of Rhino's Four Seasons box Jersey Beat.) Why was there no T.A.M.I. show or big archival reels? You sold millions of copies of a million hits.

I don't know or can't say that it was on purpose. Part of it was - and you see this with guys today - so many rock guys carried their own media. We didn't do that. We never looked after shooting ourselves. If there was anything it was because a radio station or a television station provided it, or we were doing commercials for Beechnut Juicy Fruit gum. We didn't travel with an entourage.

Interesting. Despite what we know now from the play - that you guys weren't always kissing cousins - it's that what bonded you.

There's camaraderie no matter what happens, even if you don't hang together 24 hours a day. When you consider your self or you are considered the under dog, that's a bonding issue on its own. In that respect, we innately felt that way.

How though? I mean, look I come from Philly and have family in Jersey and understand that the Jersey of then wasn't the Jersey it is now. It was considered a crooked square armpit state. Plus you guys were older and there was no Cute Paul or Thoughtful George in the Four Seasons and that on occasion the Seasons get painted as almost thugs.

Right. We didn't get that sort of fawning media attention. Surmise in your in your mind why. To us, for our own reasons, we didn't want to talk about who we were and what we came from or what we did or what we were doing. Now cut that in half and figure that's how much we intended for it to be that way. I guess there weren't that many media outlets interested in four guys who did not fit in an age bracket that was conducive to pop magazines at that time. I mean, Nicky was eight or nine years older than me. When I was 21 he was 30. Tommy was up there. Frankie was in the middle. When you see you're not getting attention the Beach Boys. The Beatles and the Rolling Stones are getting even though you were moving the same amount of records - going toe to toe with them on our singles - you just figure, "hey."

You guys seemed like loners. Were there any friendships with other bands?
Not a lot. I had dinner with Lennon. Frankie hung out with McCartney once probably when he was on vacation. Real chance stuff. No, we weren't buddy buddy with anyone. Never had closeness with any other bands. The only guy we had closeness with was Sinatra. Frankie and I spent time with him, a hang out thing beyond the music.

Outside of the crooners like Dean and Frank, why do you think Italian Americans in rock get no respect? Too few people mention Steven Tyler's ethnicity or Jon Bon Jovis - ohhhhhh.

I would hate to have to think it was because we were Italian American, I think it was just our age .and that we shunned a lot of stuff due to our connections. We didn't consider ourselves glamour boys by any stretch of the imagination and I'm guessing the media didn't either. We were not on the front page. The music luckily spoke for it self for better or worse. I don't think it was heritage although being from a minority group you just realize early on, you got to fight a little bit harder. And we did.

Do you think that the no-respect thing you had was ever about being a non-album band?

Hmmm. I don't think so. That said, we never really went in until later to make albums. We went in and made singles. Hit records. We were gearing ourselves to makes songs that would get on radio. We knew there were songs that not only surpassed others but our own last ones too. There was a competitive thing with radio in general amongst all of us - who could make a record that sounded better than the one I just heard and the one that‘ll come after it. That was exciting. Honest, it was a fun period. I was a fan of radio before the Four Seasons. Loved the radio. I was inspired by what I heard. The whole time was how you heard something and how you wanted to best it. If a song got me off I'd start writing even harder. Radio fed us and we fed radio

That said, are you happy that critics haven taken more to the Genuine Imitation Life Gazette with new ears? It's considered a lost psychedelic socio-conscious classic.

Yeah, it's interesting. The albums - not singles - that I have been most involved with that got the best reviews were the worst selling for the artists involved. That album for us and the Watertown album I wrote and produced for Sinatra. That was easily the worst selling record of his career. I hold that award...So, what does that mean?

With The Deer Hunter being like ‘78 '79, the Broadway musical that looked back at catalogs of music hadn't come about yet - the Leiber & Stoller, the Johnny Cash, the ABBA stuff. Yet that's what you wanted to do?
You're right. The first one that lit the spark was Smokey Joe's Café. Now if you're a thinking person who had more than a passing interest as we did in doing something on with Broadway you wouldn't want to go that exact route. But it was a start. Mamma Mia took that a step further. The inclusion of a story, a dramatic arc. So where do we go after that? Something with a bit of a shock, a surprise like ours but like neither of those. Something no one had done. A spark hit us - our story was pretty interesting. So maybe that's part of it, but how do you tell it.

Something that's not so pleasant - the mob stuff, how you guys had to get yourselves out from under that. Marshal Brickman brought that out of you guys.

The writers were as excited about our story - no holds barred tough as we were - and here we are. I mean it wasn't as fast as that. Everybody spun in circles for a few years. But once it landed it landed

Was Mr. Valli - and frankly you too - always onboard for this telling of his tale? Were you two cool with the mobbed-up aspects of the story?
Let's be honest - that's what worked best. The truth. We've always been a hard sell. We're street guys. I may have had that jazz and classical background but this is what it is. The street music of the time with the stuff that went on with guys on the corner.

And guys on the corner didn't always exactly do the right thing.

Noooo. (laughs) We just managed to make it spectacular.

[Photo courtesy Warner Bros.]

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