Jersey Boys is the real deal

Original Four Seasons hail 'stunning' show

BRIDGET JONES

The Jersey Boys musical has travelled the world, broken records and set feet tapping whereever it has gone. But imagine what it must be like for Frankie Valli and the three surviving Four Seasons, whose career the production is based on, to see the highs and lows of their early years played out on stage.

Jersey Boys has just opened for a two-month run in Auckland. And even a few days in to this lengthy season, the reception has been akin to those early days when the band were pin-ups the world over and the songs were everywhere you listened.

Bob Gaudio, the man who wrote those very catchy, toe-tapping tunes, describes the moment he saw the first performance of the musical in San Diego in 2005, as simply "astounding".

"It's like living your life with a 20-minute intermission," he said this week from his new home of Nashville. "Frankie and I looked at each other during the break and, not in harmony but almost simultaneously and in unison, we said to each other 'my God, if this ever gets to Broadway...' It was just stunning."

Gaudio's story is, like his group's, one of legend. He wrote the hit single Short Shorts when he was 15, only to be faced with the ever-advancing one-hit wonder tag. A year later, a young upstart named Joe Pesci (of Goodfellas fame) introduced him to what was then the Four Lovers. The Four Lovers became the Four Seasons and the rest, as they say, is history.

More than 50 years on, that history is as strong as ever thanks to Jersey Boys, the musical based on the four singers - Gaudio, Valli, Tommy DeVito and Nick Massi, who died in 2000 - and their rise from the streets of New Jersey to the stages of the world.

And while Valli may have been the star, Gaudio was the man behind the classic songs Can't Take My Eyes Off You, Big Girls Don't Cry, and Walk Like A Man. He famously wrote the group's first hit, Sherry, 15 minutes before they were due in the recording studio.

The songwriter, keyboard player and singer says it's impossible to pinpoint the reason his songs are still being hummed around the world, but suggests it might have something to do with timing of the group's success.

"Oh boy, it's such a difficult question. We were fortunate to be [successful] at a certain time, at the beginning of rock and roll, so there's the fact that particular audience relates to it. It's become the songbook of their lives and fortunately everyone is still remembering that feeling."

Gaudio is pretty hands-on with the musical production - he had Dion Bilios, who plays Valli in the New Zealand production, over to his Tennessee base to pass on some words of wisdom and help with vocal training, and he and Valli have a say in the show's casting.

He says the musical is "close to 95 per cent" accurate and shows almost everything as he remembers it.

"It's the real deal. As we like to say here, warts and all," laughs the 69-year-old.

Those warts include run-ins with the law, broken marriages and death, but ultimately it's a simple story of four boys from the wrong side of the tracks made good, something Gaudio thinks makes it relative and touching. But he says times have changed in the music business.

"I think it's the great American dream - to be able to come from nothing, and not have a whole lot of choice in some cases.

"The music business is pretty tough, I have compassion for talent that is starting in the music business... it's humbling because you just know a good percentage of what you are seeing [at the clubs these days], as good as they are, won't make it. It's pretty sad, but when you do make it, it's glorious."

Jersey Boys runs until June 17 at The Civic in Auckland.

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