The musical life of the 1950s pop group The Four Seasons, and later Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons, sounds like a story for a New York City stage. With a singer from a jazz background with impressive range, an introverted keyboardist who was the co-writer of many hits, and with the help of a talented producer and childhood friends as band mates, The Four Seasons were very popular during the heyday of doo-wop and Motown acts. The quartet created a musical career of so much worth that it will now be played out on a Broadway stage in the near future.
The story began in a rough and tough blue collar Newark neighborhood where Valli, born in 1937 with the name Francis Castelluccio, formed the band that later became The Four Seasons. Valli's father worked as a barber and later for a train company while his mother, also of Italian descent, exposed him to music at an early age. Mother and son were thought to make the drive into the city to listen to big bands and jazz artists performing at Manhattan theaters like the Paramount. Valli taught himself how to sing by copying the styling of singers Dinah Washington and Rose Murphy. He conceived of the Varietones with neighborhood pals Nick and Tommy DeVito and bassist Hank Majewski around 1954. The group changed its name to The Four Lovers in 1956.
