That Jersey Boys Spirit

When we were growing up and attending Father Ryan High School, there were few, if any, opportunities to experience the highest level of Broadway-type entertainment here in Nashville.

The Tennessee Performing Arts Center (TPAC) has helped correct that shortcoming over the last few years, and never has that been more apparent than with the current touring production of the multiple Tony-Award winning JERSEY BOYS show which is winding up its two-week plus stay here in Music City.

I had a chance to see the show Wednesday night (April 1), and while my daughter, Kelly, who lives in New York City, would surely tell me the Broadway cast and production is better, it would be very hard to prove it my book. Never have I heard a Nashville audience leave a TPAC production with more praise for what they saw and heard. It was a true '60s revival!

JERSEY BOYS is based on the lives and careers (with many ups and downs) of the original Four Seasons, one of the dominant groups on the Top 40 rock charts, beginning in the early 1960s, well before we entered Father Ryan, and continuing with hit records throughout our high school years.

The Four Seasons had their own special, distinctive sound helping them chart 29 Top 40 hits, including 5 Number One songs and selling more than 100 million records between 1962 and 1978. That includes between 1965-69 such hits as "Bye, Bye Baby", "Let's Hang On", "Working My Way Back To You", "I've Got You Under My Skin", "Tell It To The Rain" and C'mon Marianne" among others. The Four Seasons were one of the few American groups who managed to survive and even thrive during the British Invasion that dominated the pop charts here in the U.S. starting in early 1964.

Here, courtesy of YouTube, is a medley of Four Seasons hits recorded from a TV Show appearance back in 1967.....



And to prove there is always a Nashville connection, one of the original members of the Four Seasons, Bob Gaudio, who was also the creative force and writer of many of the group's hit songs now lives in Nashville.