Word: gaudio
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...note range) where he's very thin. Granted, his voice isn't double-tracked, as Valli's often was on records, and I caught Young on a night when he'd already done a matinee. On the pristinely produced Jersey Boys original cast CD (with helpful liner notes by Gaudio aficionado and ex-TIME senior editor Charles Alexander), Frankie sounds better, more Valliesque. He shines particularly when singing the James Moody jazz version of "I'm in the Mood for Love"-great work, and a nice change of sonic pace...
...Dawn. For their fifth single, the Seasons team produced a masterpiece. Anyway, their apotheosis. Since the simple days of "Sherry," Crewe and Gaudio had been listening to Phil Spector's productions for the Crystals and Ronettes; the arrangement is both burlier and more complex. The song begins with a snatch of spoken doggerel ("Pretty eyes of midsummer's morn, / They call her Dawn"). Then the drummer has a quick snit fit, and organ and chimes lead into the plaint, "Dawn, go away, I'm no good for you," as a guitar strums 2/4 Latino figures. There are six different melodic...
...show plays also true to the showbiz verities. Gaudio: "A tune pops in my head," and eureka, it's "Sherry." The bosses don't want to record a Gaudio composition. They get it played, finally (after a buildup longer than the one for Mother Bates in Psycho), and voila, it's "Can't Take My Eyes Off You," Valli's longest-lived hit and, musically, one of Gaudio's least surprising Seasons creations: standard, nicely orchestrated Europop, a plain old love song, with no grudges or class animosities. (But don't listen to me. It's among the ten most...
...calls "kid": Frankie Castelluccio (John Lloyd Young). Frankie's wife Mary (Jennifer Naimo) warns him: Mary: "With friends like these, maybe you should change your name to Sinatra." But he goes for Valli. Then Tommy's pesty friend Joe Pesci, yes, that one, hooks him up with Bob Gaudio (Daniel Reichard), a teenager who a few years before had a novelty hit called "Short Shorts." He wants music to be more than doo-wop, to have subtlety, resonance. "It's what T.S. Eliot calls the objective correlative," he says, to which a local girl observes, "You're not from around...
...further and say that this music is as sharp, smart, tuneful and complex as any new Broadway scores not of the Sondheim school. I mean, better than the scores of The Producers, Hairspray, Avenue Q, Spamalot-which happen to be the last four Tony-winning musicals. Gaudio, Valli, DeVito, Massi and Crewe left a legacy of potent, sophisticated songs. Pop-classic music for all seasons...