“Swearin’ to God,” we wish a happy 88th birthday to one of the great voices of the rock era… and the chief “Jersey Boy”- Frankie Valli!
His musical path was set early when he was taken at age 7 to see another Italian-American icon from New Jersey- Frank Sinatra. By the early-’50s he was in a band which in time would become the Four Seasons, a band he still tours with from time to time. They scored their first chart hit back in 1956, and by the time the ’60s ended, they’d notched 21 top 20 hits in the U.S. With songs like “Rag Doll” and “Sherry”, his falsetto (which the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame describes as a “once-in-a-lifetime {voice} with a three octave range”) became one of the defining sounds of the decade. If his blue-eyed soul sounded quite Motown-like it should come as no surprise that Berry Gordy played Valli’s records to his writers telling them it was what they “should be aiming for.”
His career enjoyed a resurgence (both with his band and solo) in the mid-’70s with more #1 hits like “My Eyes Adored You”, “December 1963” and “Grease”, the latter written by Barry Gibb. Gibb later noted, “he created a style we all (Bee Gees) strive to emulate.” Cleveland’s Plain Dealer, writing about the Rock Hall in their city commented that the Four Seasons “with the Beach Boys were the only American groups to maintain their level of popularity during the first onslaught of the British invasion.”
And then some. As you probably know, the musical and at times turbulent life and times of the Four Seasons was made into the Tony Award-winning play, and later movie, Jersey Boys. Valli and the Four Seasons were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990. Remarkably, he’s still active. He toured with the Four Tops as recently as 2019 and last year put out a new album, A Touch of Jazz, which as the name suggests, contains his take on various standards and several originals.
Among his many fans is another blue-collar singer from that general area- Billy Joel. Although Joel’s inspiration for his smash “Uptown Girl” may have been Elle McPherson, he wrote the music and sang it in a style meant as an “homage” to Valli.