DID YOU KNOW?

• Frankie Valli was born Francis Stephen Castelluccio in 1937.



• The group were previously known as The Varietones and The Lovers but they had a different line up.



• Frankie Valli played Rusty Millio in The Sopranos.



• In 1964, when ‘Beatlemania’ struck the USA, the group celebrated their strongest year of sales.



• The group enjoyed 16 top 40 hits in the US in just 28 months between 1962 and 1964.



• They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990.



• ‘December, 1963 (Oh What a Night)’ became the longest charting single in history after it was re-released in 1994 after it featured on the soundtrack to the film Forrest Gump.



• Frankie Valli took his name from country singer Texas Jean Valley.  She often referred to herself as Frankie’s sister.



• The first chart single reached number 68 and was called ‘You’re the Apple of my Eye’.  This was released when the band were called The Lovers and had a different line-up.



• Frankie and The Four Seasons were going to release the single ‘Don’t be Cruel’’ but it was taken away from them at the last moment and became a huge success for Elvis.



• When they were session musicians, they released tracks through Bob Crewe’s record label and gave themselves pseudo names such as Village Voices and Billy Dixon and the Tropics.



• Nick Massi was born Nicholas Macioci.



• The group decided they should at least take something away from an audition they failed at a bowling alley in New Jersey so they renamed the band after the bowling alley.



• ‘Sherry’, The Four Seasons first number one hit, was named after Jack Spector’s daughter.  Jack was a disc jockey on the radio station WABC.



• They are the only group to have a Top 100 Billboard hit in each decade of the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s.



• Valli continued to drive an old car and live in a housing project until the mid-1960s, when success finally seemed real.