by Robert Wilkinson
November 17 is the birthday of three musical geniuses. Bob Gaudio was THE musical genius behind the Four Seasons, and Maestro David Amram is beyond description and one of a kind! The third is Gordon Lightfoot, a truly great songwriter and story teller. So today we have the Jersey Boys, ultra hip global beat classical jazz, and great storytelling!
First, we begin our birthday celebrations with the amazing Bob Gaudio (November 17, 1941), singer, songwriter, and producer extraordinaire. Though the world put its spotlight on Taurus Frankie Valli with his 3 1/2 octave voice belting out hits like "Sherry," "Big Girls Don't Cry, "Dawn (Go Away)," "Rag Doll," and "Can't Take My Eyes Off Of You," (to name a few of their many hits) it was Bob Gaudio who wrote all these and more.
As I've told you in previous birthday celebrations, Bob Gaudio was a child musical prodigy who performed a Carnegie Hall recital at 7 years old and originally made his mark as founder, songwriter, and star of the Royal Teens ("Short Shorts"). The sax player for the RT was Buddy Randell, who later sang lead for the Kickerbockers (“Lies”) and at one point, a young Al Kooper played guitar for the band. In 1959 Bob he was introduced to Frankie Valli and Tommy DiVito by Joe Pesci (yes, THAT Joe Pesci of My Cousin Vinnie fame!), and by late 1959 was the organist and rhythm guitarist singing harmony with “The Four Lovers” as they were called then. By 1960 he was organist, harmonist, primary songwriter, and the musical director in many years of hitmaking with the Four Seasons.
The music of the Four Seasons affected literally tens of millions of people for about a decade. His collaborator in the remarkable string of multi-million selling singles and albums throughout the 60s was fellow Scorpio Bob Crewe, who co-wrote most of the hits and co-produced and arranged the "sound" of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons.
These two Scorpios, with Taurus Frankie Valli taking them to the top with his amazing voice, created songs that rivaled the best ever written. Their collaborations succeeded in topping the charts every few months in an era when most of the top spots were owned by the Beatles, Stones, Beach Boys, Supremes, Kinks, Animals, Four Tops, Temptations, Ray Charles, Mamas and the Papas, Stevie Wonder, Simon and Garfunkel, Young Rascals, Lovin' Spoonful, all the way to the Doors, Jefferson Airplane, Jimi, Janis, the Who, and other major competition. Remember - this was an awesome era in music.
So for your enjoyment, here are a few video clips of the band at their best. And yes, Frankie really IS hitting those unbelievable high notes!
Here's Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons on the Popendipity tv program in 1967 performing a medley of their hits ”Sherry,” “Big Girls Don't Cry,” “I've Got You Under My Skin,” and “Bye Bye Baby.”
A 1965 Four Seasons medley on Hullabaloo of ”Dawn,” “Rag Doll,” “Toy Soldier,” and “Bye Bye Baby Goodbye” The medley may have had other instruments hidden from the cameras and whatever primitive tricks and backing tracks they used in teevee music shows back then, but his phrasing clearly shows he wasn't lip synching!
From their 1965 appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show, a television clip of Frankie and the 4 Seasons with a backing track in a short version of their #3 hit from that year, “Let’s Hang On”
A 1966 medley by the Four Seasons, including ”You're Going to Hurt Yourself” and their #9 hit, “Working My Way Back to You”
This one has real harmonies! It’s Frankie and the 4 Seasons in a live videotaped performance from 1964 at their peak! “Big Girls Don’t Cry”
Here’s another video clip of Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons performing ”Big Girls Don't Cry” live, even though the sound's a bit distorted. Still, Frankie’s vocals are not lip-synched, even if they are performing to a backing track! You can listen to the original studio version of "Big Girls Don't Cry" at the link.
2 years ago I had a video of the 4 Seasons lip synching their 1963 #1 hit, “Walk Like A Man,” but this year it’s nowhere to be found. For the original studio version as we first heard it over 50 years ago, here's "Walk Like A Man."
Here’s a great medley on tv! This is live! ”Sherry,” "Walk Like A Man," “Big Girls Don’t Cry,” “Dawn,” and “Rag Doll”
By 1964, they were at the top, matching the Beatles and Beach Boys hit for hit! Here's a quintet of studio versions of their biggest, three of them with a theme around boys and girls of different social classes falling in love! First, their huge 1964 #3 smash hit, “Dawn (Go Away)” followed by their 1964 #6 hit "Ronnie." We move into the backstretch with their 1964 #1 hit “Rag Doll,” follow it with the late 1964 #10 hit “Save It For Me,” and we’ll close with a song that made it to #20 on the charts that year, “Big Man In Town.” This is a truly remarkable run of hits by any standard, since they wound up with 6 tunes in the Top 20 that year!
In an interesting short clip from the movie Beach Ball in 1964, here Frankie and the boys are lipsynching to “Dawn (Go Away)”
A strange staged "music video" of the Four Seasons not exactly performing ”Rag Doll,” lip synched all the way.
From 1966, the studio version of the 4 Seasons’ 1966 hit that went to #9 on the charts, “I’ve Got You Under My Skin”
Frankie's first big solo hit that went to #2 on the charts in 1967, written by Crewe and Gaudio, produced by Schroeck and Gaudio! From the Popendipity television show, here's a live performance of ”Can't Take My Eyes Off Of You” in 1967. Here’s another live performance by Frankie of "Can't Take My Eyes Off Of You" here, and a solo performance by Frankie at this link.
From the television show Where the Action Is, here's the band “performing” – lip synching – their 1966 #13 hit “Opus 17 (Don't You Worry About Me)" Here’s Frankie live belting out “Opus 17 (Don't You Worry About Me)"
From 1967, the studio version of their #9 hit, "C'mon Marianne"
”Dawn (Go Away)” - from the early 80s.
An interesting video remix of their 1967 hit that went to #16 on the charts, ”Beggin”
The Four Seasons doing their #1 hit from 1975, the infinitely danceable ”December, 1963 (Oh, What a Night)” Written by Gaudio, performed with a different lineup than the original Four Seasons, and the first time anyone but Frankie sang at least part of the lead.
A great mini-documentary from VOA news, Singer Frankie Valli Going Strong at 74
These pieces from the Bob Gaudio birthday celebration seem like good things to post here, since he and Frankie were joined at the hip as hitmakers!
Did Bob Gaudio really write “Sherry” in 15 minutes?
From Undercover, a three part interview with Bob Gaudio about “Jersey Boys,” the story of the Four Seasons.
(On a final note, lest you think Bob Gaudio was a mere 30 hit wonder, he also went on to work with Peabo Bryson, Roberta Flack, Eric Carmen, Neil Diamond, Barry Manilow, and of course, with Frankie Valli wrote the Tony and Grammy award winning Broadway musical, Jersey Boys, based on their life story with the Four Seasons.)
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And now, a huge birthday shoutout to my friend of many decades and a true nonagenarian hipster, David Amram (November 17, 1930). One of the original Beats (with Kerouac, Ginsburg, Orlovsky, Cassady, Corso, and others), David has had a stellar life as a composer, performer, world reknown musical ambassador and all around nice guy. He's one of the best, so here's a big happy to you, David, and may you keep writing and performing as many years as possible. You're a very bright spirit, and I am privileged to have known you for over 40 years.
For a little taste of David, here's the trailer for the movie, David Amram: The First 80 Years.
Here’s a delightful piece from the 2011 Philadelphia Folk Festival with David and friends performing "Mama Don't Allow No Music Playin' Round Here" featuring Larry Campbell, Erik Lawrence, John DeWitt, Kevin Twigg, Adam Amram & more!
From 2011, David Amram, Eugene Ormandy, and Native American Music on solo flute
Also from 2011, Pete Seeger, Arlo Guthrie, David Amram performing "This Little Light" at OWS.
You want beat? We got beat! For your enjoyment, a piece of history! Here’s David live performing his composition "Pull My Daisy" at Beyond Baroque, Venice, California. As the video sez, . “Tales of Kerouac, Cassady and Ginsberg sung in an improvised scat from one who was on the scene and digging it all.”
Here’s another piece of history! David Amram performs his composition from the movie of the same name, “Splendor in the Grass” at the Montreal Jazz Festival, featuring Vic Juris on the guitar.
Have fun with this 16 minute clip of David Amram on the beats and jazz. In case you still don't have the picture on this beautiful man, from the description of the video: “David Amram is a highly accomplished composer, french horn player, writer, and raconteur. Amram offers his reminisces on Beat Generation artists Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg.... Amram moves then to a discussion of the multiple connections of jazz and improvisation with modern culture. In this clip, Amram is introduced by Sara Villa, who talks briefly about Amram's role as a character and score composer in the movie Pull My Daisy.
Here's a great youtube performance by David Amram on psychedelic pennywhistle with Dizzy Gillespie and some other jazz cats in a PBS tribute to Thelonius Monk.
From 2005, David’s conducting the Beatles’ Magical Orchestra in Patchogue, NY in a performance of ”Yesterday” and ”Within You Without You.”
To finish the musical part of this tribute, here’s an awesome collection of 91 clips of David and some of the greatest jazz musicians of all time, as well as others performing his compositions. For your total immersion in the work of this Doctor of Hangoutology, here’s David Amram
He was interviewed a while back, and here’s 8 minutes of David on David Amram On Hanging Out With Charlie Parker
Here’s an hour and 22 with David hanging out at Jazz on the Tube with David Amram
For more about this remarkable man for the ages, check out the David Amram website
If you're into some great jazz and classical offerings, check out the other videos on you tube. Again, he's one of the best! Thanks for the years, David. The Red Lion lives on!!
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This is also Gordon Lightfoot's birthday (November 17, 1938 - May 1, 2023), but I just don’t have time to do a full tribute this year. He’s a folk-rock legend and a fantastic songwriter and story teller who has given us some awesome songs!
So today I’ll just give you a few of his best, and the tribute will come next year!
From 1979 on Soundstage in Chicago, his biggest hit! “If You Could Read My Mind”From the same 1979 gig in Chicago, Gordon live on Soundstage doing his early hit made big by Peter, Paul, and Mary! “Early Morning Rain,” and we’ll close this trifecta on Soundstage with Gordon doing his iconic “the Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald”
A very early clip! Here’s Gordon, in a live video performance on the BBC in 1969, offering up “Early Morning Rain”
From 1974, live on television, Gordon at his best! “Sundown”
From 2008, a live video in Hanford California of Gordon in an excellent performance of “Carefree Highway”
His 74 minute video set at the Ottawa Folk Festival in 2013 is still gone.
For our closer, here’s a great concert! Taped in the Spring of 1971 for the BBC, this is a fantastic 64 minute video of Gordon Lightfoot live on the BBC - 1972
For our encore, from the 2018 Stagecoach Festival in Indio, here’s an hour and four of Gordon Lightfoot at the Stagecoach Festival 2018 – whole concert
For our second encore, I found this great hour and 23 compilation of video clips from the ‘60s and ‘70s! Gordon Lightfoot – The Best Live Clips – the 1960s and 1970s
Please go to the Gordon Lightfoot site to find out what this amazing talent is up to, his tours, and a lot more!
Thanks for all the music across all the years, you guys! You're definitely three of the best the 20th (and 21st!) Century has to offer!
© Copyright 2024 Robert Wilkinson
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