These guys came along back in my day. There were plenty of good pop singers, guys and girls with the face and the talent. A lot of them were singing crossover songs. These were good songs written and performed by Black writers/artists, but because of the prejudice that existed they would never be heard unless they were recorded and sung by Whites.
I was searching the internet last night for some clues about the history of songs that I used to love to hear. One name kept popping up. Charles Calello. Calello was a gifted young man from Brooklyn that played accordian and had studied in a special high school in New York for those with musical inclinations. He was not just an excellent player, but he could arrange and score music for orchestras.
Frankie Valli was another kid, a few years older than Calello, who had drive and the desire to suceed. He was in a group called the Four Lovers with Bob Gaudio, Tommy DeVito and Nick Massi. Frank's music interest leaned more to R&B. By chance he encountered Calello's 5 piece group. They consisted of Calello on electric accordian, an upright bass player, a sax and trumpet and a drummer. The group performed a mixed style of music. With Calello's electric accordian, he was able to coax horn-like sounds out of it so that the five piece band sounded much larger. Valli was most impressed. He offered Calello a job with his group. This turned into a career not just with The Four Seasons but with many, many other artists too.
Bob Crewe was a songwriter and record producer. He had a hit on the record charts at age fourteen with "Who Wears Short Shorts." Crewe recognized the potential of the Four Lovers. He also recognized Calello's talent for arranging instrumental parts. Crewe also recognized Valli's incredible falsetto voice that would become the trademark of the Four Seasons. Bob Gaudio was the groups talented vocal arranger. Most groups of the day were using closed harmony or parallel harmony. If you have the lead singer singing high C, the other voice would follow with the next lowest C then E which is two whole steps above and G to get your four parts for a Cmaj chord. Gaudio would write open chords which gave a larger sound so that the bass would be low C, baritone would sing G five whole steps above, the first tenor part would be the E which is the sixth about the G and finally the lead tenor would sing the high C. You encompass two octaves instead of one. The Seasons were able to record their albums in only two or three days because they did a lot of pre-production work. That is, they had arranged and rehearsed all the vocals and had separate rehearsals for the bands. Based on the technology of the day all this pre-work paid off in their incredible sound.
There is plenty of information about the history and change in group members within the Four Seasons. I will point out some information that you may not be aware of.
Although Bob Crewe and Bob Gaudio wrote a number of the Season's hits some other writers included Charles Calello and Sandy Linzer and Denny Randall.
The first of the Seasons songs used an upright bass because there were not a lot of electric bass players that read music at the time. Some of the bass sounds were accomplished on a six string bass. Probably a Danelectro.
Tommy DeVito was not to be trifled with. Apparently he got things done for the group.
The whole group was arrested in Ohio. Their rented tour bus was pulled over by State Troopers and they were held because their manager skipped out without paying a hotel bill. From then on they drove cars to get to jobs.
Their first song Sherry was written quickly by Gaudio and was about the girl he was dating named Terri. When he played it for the others they did not care for the name and argued about a like sounding title. It almost was released as Peri, which was the name of the studio owner's daughter. It was cut as a demo and the name changed to Sherry. The rest is history
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