The 4 Seasons Entertain You/On Stage with the 4 Seasons [Remaster]

Performer: The Four Seasons
Producer: Bob Crewe
Distributor: E1 Distribution (USA)

Notes: 2 albums on 1 CD: THE FOUR SEASONS ENTERTAIN YOU(1965) / LIVE ON STAGE WITH THE FOUR SEASONS (1966). The Four Seasons: Frankie Valli (vocals). The Four Seasons' 1965 combination of originals like "Big Man in Town" and "Bye Bye Baby (Baby Goodbye)," and covers of show tunes like WEST SIDE STORY's "Somewhere," is paired in this twofer with the group's 1966 fake live album, which was recorded in the studio complete with audience noises and spoken introductions. Mail-order reissue label Collectors' Choice Music combines two successive Four Seasons albums from 1965 on this CD. The 4 Seasons Entertain You (originally released in March 1965) was the group's eighth studio album of new material, and it was a fairly typical effort, featuring their two most recent hit singles, "Big Man in Town" and "Bye Bye Baby (Baby Goodbye)." (After the LP's initial release, their new single, "Toy Soldier," was substituted for "A Sunday Kind of Love" on subsequent pressings. This disc is based on that more common second version.) Typically, the collection was filled out with covers of old doo wop hits (the Platters' "My Prayer," the Gladiolas' and Diamonds' "Little Darlin'") and Broadway show tunes ("Where Is Love?" from Oliver!, "Somewhere" from West Side Story). But the songwriting factory the Four Seasons had developed to write their hit singles was also represented by some good material that was just below the quality needed for single release: producer Bob Crewe and group member Bob Gaudio's "Show Girl"; Gaudio and Sandy Linzer's "One Clown Cried"; Linzer and Denny Randell's "Betrayed" (used as the B-side to "Toy Soldier"); and group member Nick Massi's "Living Just for You." Such songs suggested that the Four Seasons might have what it took to continue to compete with self-contained groups like the Beatles as the album era began to emerge. The album here called On Stage with the Four Seasons (which has also been called Live on Stage and Recorded Live on Stage) is a real curiosity, on the other hand. The Four Seasons left Vee-Jay Records for Philips Records by the end of 1963, but they were trailed by lawsuits that apparently were resolved in 1965 when it was decided the group owed Vee-Jay one more album. They then delivered this one, which is not really a live recording (it features canned applause and audience noise dubbed onto studio recordings) and is not at all characteristic of them. At least, it's not characteristic of them as of November 1965, when it was released. It sounds like what the group might have been like in, say, 1961, playing nightclubs before a big band. What the group liked to call the "sound of Frankie Valli," i.e., their lead singer's piercing falsetto, is largely absent, as are any of the Four Seasons' hits except, in part, for "Sherry." That song appears in excerpts during a comic piece called "How Do You Make a Hit Song?" (Another "special material" number is the track called "Mack the Knife," which contains very little of the familiar song by that name, instead being set to the tune of "MacNamara's Band.") On many tracks, the Four Seasons sing standards in harmony without any individual lead vocal, and even when Valli takes the microphone alone, on "By Myself" and "My Mother's Eyes" (the latter a remake of the first song he ever recorded, back in 1953), he sings in a straight tenor without taking off for the stratosphere. Vee-Jay made the LP one of its final releases, then went bankrupt, after which the Four Seasons bought back their masters, and this recording has largely languished in obscurity. (It previously appeared on CD in a different repackaging in the U.K. in 1995.) It's definitely one for the fans, but it does provide insight into the group's roots. ~ William Ruhlmann

In the 1960s, Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons churned out hit after hit to become one of the most successful vocal groups in pop history. Their signature was Valli's stratospheric falsetto, but their success also resulted from sharp, melodic songwriting. During their prime, singles like "Sherry" and "Walk Like a Man" emphasized close-harmony singing with an urban swagger, providing the missing link between doo wop and Motown-era pop. The group topped the charts again in the '70s with an updated, disco-influenced sound. There was a resurgence of interest in the Four Seasons in the early 2000s thanks to the hugely successful Broadway musical JERSEY BOYS about the history of the beloved group.

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