Frankie Valli 'never wanted to be a pop singer,' but Four Seasons hits, 'Grease' brought high notes

Frankie Valli is among the most successful pop recording artists of his generation. From the time he topped the Hot 100 at the helm of the Four Seasons with "Sherry" and "Big Girls Don't Cry" in 1962 to the platinum smash that was the title track to "Grease," his second solo hit to top the charts, he went Top 40 no fewer than 38 times.

But that's not the life the singer would have chosen for himself.

"I never really wanted to be a pop singer," Valli says. "I was more into jazz as a kid. I grew up at the tail end of the big band era. I was into Billy Eckstine, Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, Count Basie, Stan Kenton and Duke Ellington. But that kind of music wasn’t really happening for kids."

Leave the jazz, take the 'Sherry'

And when he tried doing jazz, Valli says, "I wasn't doing well."

But once they hit their stride with "Sherry," the Four Seasons proved an unstoppable force on the pop charts of the 1960s, led by Valli's unmistakable falsetto.

His first taste of solo success five years later with "Can't Take My Eyes Off You," greeting the Summer of Love with a sound that was closer in spirit to the standards he loved as a kid.

"I did like getting away a little bit from pop," he recalls. "And I had that opportunity with some of the solo things I’ve done – songs that were more in the standard kind of vein."

A familiar sound

Even though they were new songs, Valli says, "they could fit very easily in the category of standards, songs like 'Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You,' 'My Eyes Adored You' or 'Swearin’ to God,' which had an incredible jazz feeling to it. Those are the kind of songs that I like."

He does both kind of songs in concert, though. As Valli sees it, those hit singles are what people came to hear. And they're coming in droves since the success of "Jersey Boys," the Tony-winning musical that chronicles the life and times of the Four Seasons, of which Valli is the only founding member in his latest touring lineup.

Here's Valli on what he looks for in a song, the art of Frank Sinatra and why another Frankie sang "Beauty School Dropout" in "Grease."

Frankie Valli interview

Q: As a kid who grew up loving jazz, do you recall what your impression was of rock and roll when it first started gathering momentum?

A: Oh, I had no trouble with it. But it wasn’t a preference for me. I’ve always liked all kinds of music. There wasn’t a particular kind of music that I disliked. As long as it was done well, I liked it. I liked country music.

One of the great country writers was Hank Williams. His music was very believable. He wrote stories that in a lot of cases probably had a lot to do with his own life. But songs are short stories and things that everybody has gone through at some point or another in their life. That’s what people relate to. And that’s what keeps songs alive.

That’s why folk music has been here forever. Guys like Bob Dylan, who was one of the kings of writing that kind of music, will be forever and ever, just as Cole Porter and Irving Berlin.

Q: Is that what you look for in a song?

A: I look for a story. What does a song have to say? Before you sing a song, you should know what you’re singing about. It’s not just notes that you’re singing. The words mean more because we understand words more than melody. I mean, "Cold Cold Heart," a Hank Williams song. "Why can’t I free your doubtful mind and melt your cold, cold heart." And "Cold, Cold Heart" has a very nice melody but that is a genius lyric. So it’s words. It’s stories people can relate to.

Q: And you feel that’s what Bob Gaudio and Bob Crewe were doing with the songs they wrote for the Four Seasons?

A: In the early part of our success as the Four Seasons, there were a lot of songs where we were just trying to establish a sound that everybody would know who it was when they heard us. And it was in a pop vein. Young kids who were interested in dance music, they might not have been listening to songs for the lyrical content in that period.

But I was into R&B music and doo wop music and just so many combinations of different kinds of music.

Q: Do you feel like you carried some of that doo wop tradition into the pop of the early ‘60s?

A: Oh I think some of it was, for sure. But my first love was jazz.

Q: You were talking about a sound that everyone would recognize when a Four Seasons song came on the radio.

A: Falsetto wasn’t something new. The R&B groups had been using it for years. But they used it as background. We began to use it doing the lead singing in a high falsetto. That was different. That’s what created the signature. I was very worried about would that be all there was for me? Very early on.

That’s why I had a solo career, because I wanted a departure from that, so that people would know that I did other things. And I was very fortunate. There were so many great stylists in the period of time that I was growing up. And I took a little from each of the people that I really loved. From Sinatra.

There wasn’t anybody who could read a lyric like Frank Sinatra. He was just right on the money. And there were a lot of R&B people, too. A singer singing a song is like a storyteller telling a story. You believe it because he believed.

Q: You talked about the importance of establishing yourself as a solo artist as well. And you did that very early in the Four Seasons’ career.

Well, not as early as I wanted to. The record companies were fighting against it because they thought I might be leaving the group. Especially while the group was hot. And that was never the intention. From the very beginning, we established the fact that Frankie Valli would also have a solo career in the record business.

We started having hits in 1962 and I didn’t really get a shot at anything until ’67. I had done a few records but because I’d forced the issue, the record companies just didn’t work on those records. Some of them became hits for other people who recorded them exactly the same as I did. So they really just weren’t giving me a shot.

And I’ve had that problem all through my career. I mean, I had Boz Scaggs’ “We’re All Alone” out before anybody. Six months later, Rita Coolidge put it out and had a hit with it. And radio resisted, too. It was a combination of record companies and radio. The reaction would be, “That doesn’t sound like the Frankie Valli from the Four Seasons.”

I mean, “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You” was in the can for three years. “My Eyes Adored You” was in the can for three years. I originally recorded “My Eyes Adored You” for Motown.

Q: What do you think it was about “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You” that it finally was able to launch your solo career properly?

A: What it was was the proof of a really great song that has withstood the test of time unbelievably. I mean, it’s probably one of the most recorded and most sung songs in the world. Now, that’s pretty terrific. And it’s the song. The lyric of the song is almost magic in its purest form.

It’s the kind of lyric that every man would like to be able to tell someone that he loves or someone that he’s thought about but didn’t have the guts to approach. "You’re just too good to be true. Can’t take my eyes off of you. You’d be like heaven to touch. I want to hold you so much. At long last, love has arrived. And I thank God I’m alive."

I mean, really, it’s a from-the-heart lyric. Songs, like I said earlier, are short stories. Do you like the story or is it boring?

Q: You mentioned “My Eyes Adored You.” That gave you a big hit in the early ‘70s.

A: It was turned down by every record company in the business just about when we bought it back from Motown. Motown had it for three years and just kept it on a shelf. When we left Motown, that was the first thing we asked for.

I asked Berry Gordy, “Could we buy it back?” He said, “Let me talk to my staff” and he came back and he said we could buy it back. Then we showed it to several people and it just laid there. Nobody heard it.

Then there was a guy named Larry Uttal, who was an incredible record man. He was president of a record company that he’d just left and he started a new label called Private Stock Records and we played it for him. He said, “That’s my first No. 1 record with my new record company.” And it was.

Q: Wow. Yeah, that’s a great song.

A: There’s a song that we recorded called "Lady Put the Light Out" that was written by two British writers that I could never understand why it never got any play. It was never released as a single. It was part of an album. But that’s the way it goes.

Q: Do you ever go back in and listen to the albums and hear those songs that weren’t hits?

A: Sometimes I go through and listen to things that had great stories and great melodies that never even saw the light of day. We were making records at a time where albums didn’t sell. It was singles.

Q: Were you thinking in terms of albums at any point? Or were you always thinking singles?

A: I was always thinking in terms of just recording great songs! That’s all I ever wanted to do. And the kind of song it was was really important to me. I loved love stories and didn’t really want to become political, especially because I’m not an expert on politics.

As political as we got, we did a song called “Beggars Parade” and it was a protest against protests. But we did songs that had incredibly meaningful lyrics.

We did a song called “Everybody Knows My Name” that should’ve been picked up by other artists. But like I said, in those days, nobody was listening to albums.

“Everybody Knows My Name” is about how fans come to see people who are their idols and they think this is the most wonderful thing in the world. There they are. They’re on the stage and there’s lights and everybody’s applauding and all that. But there’s more to that. There’s that person’s life. And everything isn’t what it looks like.

When you’re traveling, you’re on the road all the time. There’s family problems. It can end in divorces and children not having a father around or a mother around because they’re traveling all the time.

And “Everybody Knows My Name” is about a guy who comes to deal with the reality that people look at him and think how wonderful his life is because they see him from the outside.

“Everybody knows my name / I got fortune, even fame / I snap my fingers for a dame / There ain't no man that I can't tame / The good die young, so it's been said / There ain't no halo round my head / A long and lonely life instead / Believe me friends, that's all there is, there ain't no more / You've got a home and a family / Well, you've got much more than me / much more than me."

Q: Do you still do that song live?

A: I haven’t done that song in years.

Q: And you remember the lyrics?

A: I’m big on lyrics that I love. I must know 3,000 or 4,000 songs. The first thing I look at when I’m looking for a song, I don’t even listen to it. If I get a lyric sheet, I read the lyric.

Q: You were talking about “My Eyes Adored You.” A year after that, the Four Seasons had a big hit with December, 1963 (Oh, What a Night).

A: We were in a situation where we bought back “My Eyes Adored You and gave it to Larry Uttal for Private Stock Records. We released a version in Europe. I went there and promoted it a bit. It became No. 1 in Europe. Then we came back here and it caught on and happened here.

And it ignited a situation with Mike Curb, who was a big Four Seasons fan, gave us a contract to record as the Four Seasons, and the first hit we had with him was “Who Loves You.”

So “My Eyes Adored You” was a hit and then we put out “Who Loves You” and that was a hit. Then we put out “Swearin’ to God” and that was a hit. Then, came “December, 1963.” It just went back and forth. Then, in the interim, I recorded “Our Day Will Come” and had a hit with that. Then Barry Gibb wrote “Grease and I had a hit with that.

Q: What was it like to be a part of that whole “Grease” phenomenon?

A: Well, when he sent me the song, I had an opportunity to either be in the movie and do a song in the movie or not be in the movie and do the title song. And when I listened to “Grease” and listened to the other song, there was no question. I said, “I would rather not be in the movie and do this song.” I just liked what it said. And he was really hot at the time.

Q: With all the music you’ve recorded through the years, how do you go about putting a set list together?

A: Well, the thing about touring is that you have to do, in most cases, what you’re expected to do – unless you want a lot of people to go to the box office and get their money back. I went to see Elton John not too long ago and he does his hits. I went to see Billy Joel and he does his hits.

That’s what they’re there for. If they were hits, why would you be embarrassed? There are a lot of artists that have had to learn the hard way that it was OK to do your hits. Somebody must have liked them. That’s why they were hits.

Q: I would imagine it’s a more rewarding experience for you as a performer when everyone’s enjoying everything you’re doing.

A: Exactly. That’s really the purpose of what you do. And the audience doesn’t resent when you do something new or say, “Here’s something that was always a favorite of mine, we hope you like it” and you do a song they’re not that familiar with. But if you did your whole show like that, they wouldn’t be too thrilled.

It’s like you going and buying a Rolls Royce and when you go there they give you a Chevy.

Reach the reporter at ed.masley@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-4495. Twitter.com/EdMasley.

Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons

When: 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Jan. 19-20.

Where: Celebrity Theatre, 440 N. 32nd St., Phoenix.

Admission: $71-$131.

Details: 602-267-1600, www.celebritytheatre.com.

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