They’re working their way back

SO long, Jersey boss; hello, “Jersey Boys.”

Tony Soprano and company checked out last week, but Frankie Valli and his musical muscle, the 4 Seasons, are looming large on the cultural landscape, sustaining the Garden State mystique as the subject of “Jersey Boys.”

The Broadway musical biography of the 1960s vocal group won four Tony Awards last year, including best musical, and a touring company started packing the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles earlier this month. The show also has a pending date to settle in next year at a new Las Vegas theater.

On the first Friday night of the Ahmanson engagement, most of the audience members appeared to be in their 40s and 50s, meaning they could have grown up listening to the 4 Seasons.

They talked eagerly before curtain about the songs listed in the program. They stomped, clapped and sang along when the actors performed “Sherry,” “Big Girls Don’t Cry” and “Walk Like a Man,” and a few echoed them off-key in the men’s room during intermission.

The buzz is definitely on.

Another listen to the songs

JUST one question: Frankie Valli and the 4 Seasons? Ya gadda be kiddin’. (Sorry, that Jersey thing.)

Sure, they had an instantly identifiable sound and a lot of hits -- pop-music statistician Joel Whitburn ranks them fourth among 1960s record-makers in chart performance, behind only the Beatles, Elvis Presley and the Supremes.

But are these florid yet fundamental cries from rock ‘n’ roll’s dead zone of the early ‘60s really the stuff of a Broadway-level musical? Do they have the narrative content to carry a story, or -- like ABBA’s in “Mamma Mia!” -- the musical richness to make the story not so important?

Probably not, on either count, but the makers of these so-called jukebox musicals -- a booming genre bemoaned by serious-theater people but loved by audiences -- know that it’s not just the songs, it’s how the songs fit into the story.

Once we have a rooting interest in Frankie, Tommy, Nick and Bob, something like the primal intro of “Sherry” does more than tickle the memories, it launches us with them on the path toward stardom. Valli’s solo hit “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You” isn’t just a quirky ballad, it becomes a triumph of artistic instinct over business calculation.

Nostalgia is also a big part of it, but it registers as more, largely because few among the living have ever heard, say, “Sherry” played live through high-quality gear. When that happens in “Jersey Boys” it’s a revelation, redefining the song as a garage-rock precursor, with the guitar and handclap interlocking in a primal and aggressive hook.

It could be enough to inspire a visit with the original records. And whaddya know? Rhino has just put out a boxed set of three CDs and one DVD. Funny how things work out.

The 4 Seasons sprang from the same surroundings that nurtured other Italian American street-corner harmony groups in Eastern urban centers. Like Dion and the Belmonts, the Elegants, the Duprees and their brethren, they were steeped in African American doo-wop and R&B; and also tugged by the traditions of American pop standards.

The 4 Seasons’ producer, Bob Crewe, had had early success with R&B; groups the Rays and Billie and Lillie and later would co-write LaBelle’s “Lady Marmalade.” “Jersey Boys” alludes to instances of the 4 Seasons’ records being mistaken for the work of a black group, but whether or not that actually happened, the fact is that their first Top 40 hits were also successes on the R&B; chart.

Three forces ultimately set the Newark quartet apart: chief songwriter Bob Gaudio’s knack for crafting original, even eccentric material while staying in the commercial mainstream; producer Crewe’s effective studio touch; and, indispensably, Valli’s searing, unearthly falsetto. (He still unleashes it today, typically playing casinos and wineries but also occasionally in theater shows, like one coming up July 21 at the Kodak in Hollywood.)

Those ingredients combined in the early hits to create a sense of yearning and uncertainty that tempered the slicked-back, finger-popping swagger. Their first four hits, including “Candy Girl” in 1963, were a spirited part of the great pop-music mosaic that persisted even in the disparaged desert between prime Elvis and early Beatles.

In that strange time, music on pop radio lacked the urgency teenagers had experienced with rock ‘n’ roll’s arrival in the mid-’50s. With Elvis not the same after the Army, Buddy Holly dead, Jerry Lee Lewis and Chuck Berry exiled and the Brits not yet ready, it’s no wonder a lot of kids drifted over to the folk scene. But while old-school crooners and creaky orchestra leaders were able to top the charts in the early ‘60s, you could also hear the likes of Roy Orbison, Sam Cooke and Johnny Cash. Motown was surfacing, and the girl groups, some powered by the eye-opening symphonic sound produced by Phil Spector, were bringing a new attitude to pop.

The Rhino box, “Jersey Beat ... The Music of Frankie Valli & the 4 Seasons,” affirms that the best Seasons singles belong in that company.

It also documents the way they adapted to the British Invasion and fit snugly in the more sophisticated environment of the late ‘60s, then follows them on an ill-advised excursion into psychedelia that brought their hits era to a screeching halt. Gaudio might have been sincere in trying to engineer a change of direction, but it misread what the group was about. There might have been a street-tough, beleaguered attitude that would resonate with young Jersey poets of alienation such as Patti Smith and Springsteen. But they were never cool, rebellious or bohemian, and while they captured the essence of youthful longing in their vocal blend and the lyrics’ pop poetry, they looked like older visitors from an adult world. They didn’t want to rock the boat, they wanted their ship to come in.

Think again, it’s not all right to do Dylan

WHILE the Rhino box’s span of 76 songs provides plenty for aficionados, it also exposes the 4 Seasons’ limitations. For all their success, it takes just a minute of their chirpy, astonishingly misguided recording of Dylan’s “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right” to show how clueless they could be away from the safety zone of conventional pop.

“Jersey Boys,” which was written by Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice and premiered at the La Jolla Playhouse in 2004, makes a point of New Jersey’s self-image as an outsider state that’s paid little respect.

But the 4 Seasons are in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and the “Jersey Beat” boxed set booklet is crammed with testimonials from admirers as varied as Cher, Itzhak Perlman, Nicole Kidman and Bill Wyman. From some of the praise you’d think the group was the link between Elvis and Springsteen, when in fact it was often more like a bridge from Neil Sedaka to Tony Orlando.

Populist critic Dave Marsh has emphasized the group’s blue-collar background and Jersey attitude in praising their early work.

That may be true, but when “Big Girls Don’t Cry” or “Working My Way Back to You” came blasting from L.A.’s AM rock stations in the 1960s, I don’t remember thinking, “Wow, what an authentic reflection of white working-class urban aspiration.” I do remember drumming on the dashboard and going “what the ... is that?” every time Valli’s voice did that spine-tingling stratospheric quiver. I didn’t sense Newark, or any city, in the music. This was a world of their own making -- gritty maybe, but also decorated to be gaudy, like a church hall done up for a wedding, a place to escape to as soon as Sherry comes out with her red dress on.

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richard.cromelin@latimes.com

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Yes, there was music before the Beatles

A baker’s dozen of lasting moments from pop music’s so-called disposable years, 1960-63. To hear samples, go to latimes.com/entertainment/news/music/.

“The Twist,” Chubby Checker (1960): Purists hate it because it’s the record that made rock safe for grown-ups. But it swings (even more than it twists) like a loose storm shutter in a hurricane. As for the purists, well, there’s always Hank Ballard’s original, which charted a few weeks before Checker’s version.

“Only the Lonely,” Roy Orbison (1960): Unlike ‘50s label mates at Sun Records Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash and Jerry Lee Lewis, Orbison didn’t find himself musically until he left Sam Phillips and signed with Monument Records, where his transcendent operatic pop came into full flower.

“Runaway,” Del Shannon (1961): Shannon’s records also took full advantage of the one male Caucasian falsetto that could top Frankie Valli’s. “Runaway” was his big hit, but follow-up “Hats Off to Larry” is a classic of romantic comeuppance.

“Quarter to Three,” Gary U.S. Bonds (1961): The frat-party record of all time, a song that for years was the raucous closer for Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band’s marathon performances.

“Runaround Sue” and “The Wanderer,” Dion (1961): Italian white-boy doo-wop far grittier and more streetwise than the Four Seasons’.

“Big Girls Don’t Cry,” the 4 Seasons (1962): The first record I ever bought with my own money, therefore immortal.

“I Can’t Stop Loving You,” Ray Charles (1962): Charles, like Orbison, also came into his own during rock’s doldrum years after making a label switch (From Atlantic to ABC-Paramount). With his aching version of Don Gibson’s great country ballad, he helped bridge the considerable gap between R&B; and country music.

“Telstar,” Tornados (1962): Instrumental hits are few and far between today, but this one magnificently married the majesty of surf music with the technological and social hopes and dreams of the nation’s fledgling space program.

“Fingertips-Pt. 2,” Little Stevie Wonder (1963): You’d never have extrapolated what the extraordinarily ambitious Wonder went on to make in the ‘70s from this flat-out exuberant hit he made when he was just 13. But you could have predicted he was headed for greatness.

“Blowin’ in the Wind,” Bob Dylan (1963): ‘Nuff said?

“Da Doo Ron Ron,” the Crystals (1963): Any of the Phil Spector-produced hits that brightened the charts during this era would work here. This just might be the quintessential realization of Spector’s sonic translation of unbridled teen love and lust.

“Surfer Girl,” the Beach Boys (1963): Brian Wilson’s ear for heart-melting melody and stunning vocal harmony was evident from the start in this hit, the first song he ever wrote.

“Pride and Joy,” Marvin Gaye (1963): The first of his 18 Top 10 hits. No period that introduced the world to Marvin Gaye can truly be considered fallow.

-- Randy Lewis