Frankie Valli

Frankie Valli has a voice that should not exist.

A falsetto that climbs higher than almost any woman's, coming out of a neighbourhood guy from Newark, New Jersey, who looks like anything but a man who sings high.

The astonishing part is not the voice. It is how long it lasted.

The number ones, precisely

They are worth putting in order, because this is a case where the usual story gets it wrong in both directions at once: it inflates some hits and forgets others.

With The Four Seasons he reached number one in the United States with "Sherry" (1962), "Big Girls Don't Cry" (1962), "Walk Like a Man" (1963), "Rag Doll" (1964) and "December, 1963 (Oh, What a Night)" (1976).

On his own, with "My Eyes Adored You" (1975) and "Grease" (1978).

Seven number ones spread across sixteen years. That is the extraordinary part.

And two corrections. The first: "Can't Take My Eyes Off You", from 1967, probably his best-known song, was never number one: it stopped at two, a week behind "Windy". The second: he had no hits in the eighties. The only thing that charted that decade was a track at number ninety-one. His chart career is the sixties and the seventies, and that is plenty.

Surviving the British Invasion

In 1964 the Beatles arrived in the United States and swept away almost everything local.

The Four Seasons kept landing hits. Valli later explained it simply: they did not try to imitate the British. They carried on doing their own thing, which was vocal pop with a falsetto out front, while everyone else ran to sound like whatever was coming out of Liverpool.

They were among the very few American pop groups that rode out the wave. Best not to overstate it: the Beach Boys did too, and Motown was living through its finest hour right then. But the achievement is real.

Later, in the seventies, when his style looked like a thing of the past, he reinvented himself as a solo act and went back to the top. First with "My Eyes Adored You", and then with the theme from "Grease", number one in the United States in 1978.

A detail about "December, 1963"

It is one of his best-remembered songs, and it is usually cited as an example of his falsetto.

It is not. The lead vocal on the verses is sung by the drummer, Gerry Polci. Valli sings backing vocals and the first bridge; the second is Don Ciccone's. The song is by Bob Gaudio and Judy Parker.

We note it because it is precisely the opposite of what people tend to say, and because the fact says something good about the group: by that point they were a real band, not the vehicle for one voice.

What it cost him

Behind the charts there was a hard life.

In 1980 he lost two daughters: his youngest, Francine, and his stepdaughter Celia, in separate incidents and in the same year.

He kept singing. He has been doing it for more than sixty years. In 2005 his story reached Broadway as "Jersey Boys", and the screen in 2014.

He is still alive, at ninety-two.

What to remember

Frankie Valli is the proof that a very particular voice, if it is genuinely yours, does not go out of fashion: it outlives fashions.

Put on "Sherry", "Can't Take My Eyes Off You" or "My Eyes Adored You" and you will hear an instrument that resembles no other. That explosion of trumpets in "Can't Take My Eyes Off You" is still playing at every party in the world, sixty years on.

Four Italian-American kids from New Jersey, with no money and no connections, did for sixteen years what almost nobody manages for three.

Remember him this way: not as the man with the impossible falsetto, but as the one who worked out that if you sound like nobody else, you cannot go out of fashion either.

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Sources

Frankie Valli, real name Francesco Stephen Castelluccio, born in Newark, New Jersey, on 3 May 1934; he is still alive. With The Four Seasons he reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 with "Sherry" (1962), "Big Girls Don't Cry" (1962), "Walk Like a Man" (1963), "Rag Doll" (1964) and "December, 1963 (Oh, What a Night)" (number one on 13 March 1976); as a solo artist, with "My Eyes Adored You" (1975) and the theme from "Grease" (1978), number one in the United States. Two frequent and mistaken claims should be corrected: "Can't Take My Eyes Off You" (1967) reached number two on the Hot 100, not number one, and was the tenth song of the year on that chart; and his run of hits does not extend into the nineteen-eighties, a decade in which only "Spend the Night in Love" entered the Hot 100, at number ninety-one. On "December, 1963 (Oh, What a Night)", written by Bob Gaudio and Judy Parker, the lead vocal on the verses is by the drummer Gerry Polci; Valli sings backing vocals and the first bridge, and Don Ciccone the second. The Four Seasons were one of the few American pop groups that sustained their success through the British Invasion, alongside the Beach Boys and the Motown labels. In 1980 Valli lost his youngest daughter, Francine, and his stepdaughter Celia, in separate incidents. He was inducted with The Four Seasons into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990. His story was taken to Broadway as "Jersey Boys" in 2005 and to the screen in 2014. Externally authored text, edited and verified for Rebobinados. Interpretations of the meaning of his work are offered as the author's reading. No song lyrics are reproduced, for copyright reasons. Information drawn from Wikipedia, Billboard and other coverage.