Unlike other “juke box musicals” (shows that have been built around the musical catalogues of popular recording artists like Queen with “We Will Rock You” or Abba with “Mamma Mia”), “Jersey Boys” (both the stage show and the movie) tells the true story of Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons from their troubled early years growing up in the mean streets of New Jersey in the early 1950’s through their eventual induction into The Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in 1990.
Early on in “Jersey Boys”, “Four Seasons” founding member and self-appointed leader, Tommy DeVito, confesses in a direct address (a theatrical convention used to great effect in “Jersey Boys” on stage and on film where the character “breaks the fourth wall” to speak directly to the audience),
if you’re from my neighborhood, you’ve got three ways out: You could join the army.You could get mobbed up. Or you could become a star.
Tommy wisely knows the key to achieving the latter lies in a younger kid from the neighborhood “who sings like an angel”, Frankie Castellucio. For Tommy, Frankie,
and neighborhood casanova and fellow “Four Seasons” founding member, Nick Massi (who Tommy describes as “some kind of harmony genius”), those early years were spent playing local club gig where they changed their band name as often as the rotated additional members of the group. Of course, that is, when Tommy and Nick weren’t serving time in prison for the numerous petty crimes they committed. Frankie, himself, changed his own last name to “Valli” (believing that Castellucio would be “kinda long for a marquee”), made extra money studying to be a hairdresser, and, eventually, wed the neighborhood vixen, Mary Delgado. It wasn’t until another kid from the neighborhood, a young Joe Pesci (“yeah, THAT Joe Pesci. The actor”, who would go on to star in such films as “Casino”, “Home Alone”, “My Cousin Vinny”, the “Lethal Weapon” movies, and win an Oscar for his performance in “Goodfellas”) introduced the group to a brilliant, young, singer/songwriter/pianist, Bob Gaudio (who, at 15 years old, already had written and recorded a hit song with “Short Shorts”), that the band found the missing piece who would propel them from playing neighborhood bars to playing in front of thousands at sold-out concerts.
But their rise from obscurity to superstardom was no “overnight success” It took quite some time before the band crafted “their sound” and decided on the name “The Four Seasons”. When they finally exploded onto American radio in 1962, however, it marked the first time in history that a rockband hit #1 on the “Billboard Singles Charts” with their first three singles – “Sherry”, “Big Girls DonCry”, and “Walk Like A Man”. The group would go on to sell over 100 million records world-wide and The Vocal Group Hall Of Fame (in which they were inducted into in 1999) has stated that the group was the most popular rock band prior to the emergence of “The Beatles”.
But as much as “Jersey Boys” celebrates “The Four Seasons”’ musical success, the show, also, digs deeper to provide a look “behind the music” and explore the personal turmoils – the failed relationships; the in-fighting and jealousies; the individual tragedies; and the enormous financial debt to the mob – that tore away at each member and, eventually, tore the band apart. It is this commitment to telling the story as it really happened that has provided “Jersey Boys” with its gritty drama and underlying darkness. Even the dialogue in “Jersey Boys” sounds more like what you’d expect to hear in a Martin Scorsese movie than a typical Broadway musical prompting the show’s producers, Dodger Theatricals, to issue a statement in the theater lobbies warning audiences of the show’s “Authentic Jersey Language”. Still, those audiences around the world have fallen in love with these characters as much for their flaws and shortcomings as they have for their unmistakable sound and showmanship. To disclose any more of the the show’s specific story line would be to rob audience members who haven’t seen it of the many laughs, surprises, and joys of experiencing “Jersey Boys”, but I will say this – both the stage production and the film are filled with many of the band’s greatest hits including “Working My Way Back To You”, “My Eyes Adored You”, “December, 1963 (Oh, What A Night)”, “Who Loves You”, and the enduring classic, “Can’t Take My Eyes Off Of You” (the song Bob Gaudio and Frankie Valli had to fight to get released that would go on to sell more than three million copies and inspire over 200 different cover versions over the years from artists as diverse as Lauryn Hill and the rock band, Muse).
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