The Four Seasons took their name from a bowling alley that turned them down
Around 1960 a struggling New Jersey vocal group auditioned at a bowling alley lounge in Union and was rejected. They kept the venue's name anyway and became the 4 Seasons. Two years later their lead singer, Frankie Valli, and songwriter Bob Gaudio split everything fifty-fifty on a handshake worth well over $50 million.
Valli was born Francesco Castelluccio in Newark on May 3, 1934, the eldest of three sons of a barber who also designed displays for Lionel model trains. At seven he saw Frank Sinatra at the Paramount in Manhattan and decided to sing. Publicity long gave his birth year as 1937, shaving years off the whole band to attract younger fans, until a 2007 post on his official site settled it.
His stage name came from a country singer, Texas Jean Valli, who mentored him and introduced him to the publishers Paul and Dave Kapp as her brother. His 1953 debut single was credited to Frankie Valley, and the spelling was later corrected to match hers. He cut hair until music paid, playing bass and singing in a house band in New Brunswick with Tommy DeVito. A group called the Four Lovers reached The Ed Sullivan Show in 1956 on a minor hit, then went nowhere for years. The missing piece arrived in 1959 when a mutual friend, Joe Pesci, introduced Gaudio at a gig in Baltimore.
From 1962 Valli's piercing falsetto carried a run of hits that began with Sherry and lasted most of the decade, and in 1967 his solo single Can't Take My Eyes Off You climbed as high as second place, unusual for someone still recording with his group. In the 1970s record labels complicated things: one would sign Valli but not the band, another wanted the band with someone else singing lead, so he reluctantly shared vocals with newer members. In 1978 he sang Barry Gibb's theme for the film Grease and had another number one.
From 1967 otosclerosis gradually took his hearing, and by the late 1970s he was singing from memory. In 1990 the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame welcomed the original four. Then in February 2025 he received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, the first Grammy of his career.
Source: Frankie Valli
