Personnel :
Frankie Valli (Lead)
Hank Majewski (Bass)
Tommy DeVito (Tenor)
Nicky DeVito (Tenor)
The Four Lovers started out in the early '50s, but the individual members' musical backgrounds went back to the 1930s. Their whole story started with the DeVito family of Belleville, a working-class town in northern New Jersey just outside of Newark, part of the same locale that produced Frank Sinatra, Connie Francis, and Lou Costello, among other performing legends during the 1930s. The whole family was musical and, beginning with eldest son Danny, took up singing and an instrument from their father. Tommy DeVito (born June 19, 1928) emerged in music at the age of ten, appearing on Major Bowes' Original Amateur Hour.
Two years later, he was singing and playing guitar with Nickie & the Starliters, an octet modeled after the professional pop (or "sweet," as they were called) bands of the era, led by his older brother Nickie DeVito (born September 12, 1924), who also played bass. They made a decent part-time living, picking up extra cash playing dances, weddings, and parties until World War II and the draft broke up their membership. After World War II, the two DeVito brothers tried keeping their hands in music and hooked up with Nick Macioci (born September 19, 1927, and better-known in later years as Nick Massi) to form what became the Variety Trio. They played local clubs, all of them singing, with Tommy and Nickie DeVito on lead and rhythm guitar, respectively, and Massi playing the upright bass. After a couple of years of successful local gigs, they added a fourth, part-time member who began showing up at their performances, Frank Castelluccio (born May 3, 1934, and later known as Frankie Valli). He was 16, had a distinctive voice, and a repertory of two songs, "I Can't Give You Anything but Love" and "My Mother's Eyes."
The sight of the slightly built teenager with the falsetto voice doing those pre-war songs was a novelty in itself, and they went over well with the group's audience. The trio split up in 1952, and for a time during the next couple of years, Castelluccio and Tommy DeVito worked together in various backing bands and recorded a pair of songs together under the auspices of Corona Records in New York. They formed a new group, the Variatones, with Hank Majewski on rhythm guitar and Billy Thompson on drums, while "Frankie Valley," as he was calling himself by then, handled the bass. In early 1956, they got an audition for RCA Victor, where they impressed the executives present with their harmony singing and their mixed repertory of country music and R&B.
This wasn't an uncommon mix at the time, nor was it unheard of for white vocal groups who were the least bit adventurous. A few white outfits, such as the Crew-Cuts, became notorious in purist circles for making more commercially successful covers of R&B singles by black groups, but many did take up the music with only the most honest and honorable intentions -- because they liked it -- and one outfit from Texas, the Mints, was regarded at the time as a serious white equivalent to the Treniers. The Variatones liked the music and had the talent and years of experience, together and collectively.
The group got a contract and a new name, the Four Lovers, and began a year-long stay with the record label. Thompson was soon gone from the lineup, with Valley moved over to drums and Nickie DeVito back in the fold on bass. They made their recording debut with a decided R&B emphasis, including a pair of Otis Blackwell songs, "You're the Apple of My Eye" and "Diddilly Diddilly Babe," "Honey Love" from the Drifters, a cover of Faye Adams' "Shake a Hand," and "Please Don't Leave Me," written by Fats Domino.
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nice rocker thanks
vincenz55 1 year ago
@vincenz55 .it's my pleasure.
raredoowop 1 year ago