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Home » Frankie Valli is hanging on

Frankie Valli is hanging on

The New Neo Posted on by

I believe he’s 86 years old here:

By the way – yes, I always liked The Four Seasons in my early youth, along with the Everlys and Roy Orbison, and some of the Motown groups. Do I especially like falsetto singing – considering that I also like the Bee Gees, as you know? Not especially. But I like those particular people and groups, and falsetto singing was and is fine with me too, if it’s done well. But harmony is my thing above all, and the Four Seasons had lots of that.

Speaking of which – this was a later song from Valli (1975). Not one of my favorites, but still sort of nice, and apropos to the topic of harmony:

Valli was still touring until recently. Here he is in 2016:

People often would say he was lip-syncing in his recent concerts such as the above clip. I thought that was highly likely, until I saw the stuff he’s done during the lockdown. Whatever he does or doesn’t do in concert, he can still sing.

[NOTE: Ha, ha! You were expecting the Bee Gees, and you get Frankie Valli. But never fear, the Bee Gees lie in wait.]

Comments

Frankie Valli is hanging on — 22 Comments

  1. Being 74 I remember the songs. I listen to 50’s and early 60’s music a lot while in the car. Computer Pandora is a mix of lots of thing but mostly R&B, Blues from 40’s, 50’s. Yep I am getting old.

  6. He might be… but WE are not (i pointed this out and the response was tepid at best and that i thought this was a crisis a long time ago… tut tut)

    Experts sound the alarm on declining birth rates among younger generations: “It’s a crisis”

    -=-=-=-=-=–

    Researchers say it continues a much bigger plunge in fertility in recent decades.

    The number of babies the average woman in the U.S. is expected to deliver has dropped from nearly four in the 1950s to less than two today.

    The drop could present an entirely different risk to society than one that was first warned about decades ago — when an apocalyptic fear gripped America in the 1960s and 1970s.

    “The stakes in this battle are far greater than any other we have ever fought,” Walter Cronkite said in a 1970 CBS News broadcast. “The experts we interviewed told us population was the fundamental crisis.”

    As the world stampeded toward 10 billion people, many researchers back then predicted that overpopulation would ruin humanity.

    Biologist Paul Ehrlich once explained the threat as “The Population Bomb,” the title of a book he authored in 1968.

    “Sometime in the next 15 years, the end will come — and by the end, I mean an utter breakdown of the capacity of the planet to support humanity,” he said in a 1970 broadcast.

    Today, however, a very different note is struck by researchers like University of Southern California Professor Dowell Myers, who studies demographic trends.

    “The trouble is we overshot and we dropped it down too much now,” Myers told “CBS This Morning” co-host Tony Dokoupil.

    While the global population is still growing, a major study published in The Lancet in 2020 predicted it would peak in 2064, and then fall by nearly a billion people by the end of the century — the reason being, fewer babies.

    The U.S. is already below the so-called “replacement level” by some measures, meaning fewer young people to support the country’s otherwise aging population.

    Myers said of the decline, “That’s a crisis.”

    “We need to have enough working-age people to carry the load of these seniors, who deserve their retirement, they deserve all their entitlements, and they’re gonna live out another 30 years,” he said. “Nobody in the history of the globe has had so many older people to deal with.”

  7. Don’t worry, Artfldgr,

    Plenty of replacements flooding across our southern border, even as I type this.

  8. My mother had “Sherry” on a 45, so that was probably my first experience with The Four Seasons around age 8 or 9 or so with a small record player my parents gave me for Christmas. Of course, since then I have listened to all of it at one point or another. It was around about that same time The Four Seasons had their comeback hits in the mid 1970s which played on the radio in the car when I would places with my Mom, and there was also around that time Valli with “My Eyes Adored You”, and then a few years later, “Grease”.

    My favorite song, though, will always be “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You.” There is a scene in the movie “Conspiracy Theory” where this is used very effectively.

  9. Since neo opened the door, let me make a sharper turn away from the Bee Gees and note that countertenors have become popular in classical music though I don’t remember any singing together in harmony. The Metropolitan Opera performed Akhnaten with countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo in the title role.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8svkjBxNyA

    And I’ll throw this because it seems quite a few found in this something as attractive as the singing.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yF4YXv6ZIuE

    And now back to the Bee Gees.

  10. Ok ,,as harmony is sorta my thing, I would recommend the Lettermen ,, they only did covers, but them boys could shell down the corn. I had all their albums , and the eight tracks too.
    Great make out tapes, in my moms Mercury Monterey with white leather seats.. and a 390 Marauder v8. It would run like a scalded dog.
    In those days I could sing all four parts, at least , I told myself I could. Most of the girls thought I could,, I was a legend in my own mind.

  11. It’s no doubt been mentioned here many times, but Kenneth Branagh is set to direct a BeeGees biopic no in the works.

  13. neo:

    I love the “Four Seasons” who certainly sang high, but I don’t have a reaction to them like the Bee Gees.

    Food for thought.

  14. huxley:

    I love the “Four Seasons” who certainly sang high, but I don’t have a reaction to them like the Bee Gees.

    I love the Bee Gees FAR more.

    Food for thought.

  16. huxley:

    That’s okay, I didn’t think you meant it as criticism. I was just being cute with my answer.

    More seriously, though – I can explain my own feelings although not yours. I really really like the Four Seasons and always did. I have fond memories of their songs from my youth and beyond. To me, though, their music is very light and never touches me deeply and never did. It’s the best of a certain type of music.

    The Bee Gees also venture into that same territory at times, especially in their disco music. But there’s always a touch of sorrow in their voices, their music, and their lyrics, as with (not to be too pretentious about it) Arnold’s “Dover Beach”:

    Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
    With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
    The eternal note of sadness in.

    I especially like some of their lesser-known stuff, their early stuff, their slower stuff.

  17. neo:

    It remains a mystery to me why I react so strongly to the Bee Gees. I assure you it’s not conscious. It’s not because I’m worried about my hip credentials. I still like Peter, Paul and Mary, the Monkees and Harry Chapin.

    I freely acknowledge the good things you say about them. They write well, they sing well, and by what little I know and you have mentioned, they are more decent than most in the biz.

  18. huxley:

    I think it’s a question of what touches the heart. When all I knew of the Bee Gees was their disco music, they didn’t touch my heart although I sort of liked their stuff. But once I learned more of their work, I found both the sound they made – the gorgeousness of their harmonies – and much of their music itself touched my heart as well as pleasing my ear.

    I also like them as people and find them attractive too, but that would not have been nearly enough – it was their music.

    Not everyone is going to react that way, obviously. A lot of people do, however, and that’s why they have many devoted fans all over the world.

    Here’s an example of one of their obscure songs (it’s from 1974) that I really like and also find very moving both in terms of sound and sense:

  19. I like the Bee Gees probably more than Neo does. Always have. My introduction to them was as a 12 year old and “Saturday Night Fever” in 1978, but I had probably heard other songs earlier- but it was their disco music that first got me to notice them. However, I discovered the earlier material not so long afterwards and like it a great deal, too.

    I owned the album, “Mr. Natural”- bought it sometime around 1982 or so along with “Main Course”. However, I don’t think I have seen the cover of that album since about 1988 or so (it was lost in a house fire that year). It was nice seeing it again in the video link above.

  20. I recently watched “Jersey Boys”, and was struck by Valli’s commitment to work. Even when he wasn’t making very much, he kept putting in the performances.

  22. Angelina Jordan has a very unique voice for her age. She’s been singing since age 8 an still just a kid.

    She should be huge in the future on the scale of Christina Aguilera or Amy Winehouse or even better.

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