Frankie Valli
Singer, entertainer
Born: May 3, 1934, in Newark, New Jersey
New Jersey Hall of Fame, Class of 2010: Arts & Entertainment
Blessed with one of the most recognizable voices in popular music, Frankie Valli rode his talent to the top of the entertainment world with the Four Seasons and as a solo artist for more than six decades.
Valli was born Francesco Stephen Castelluccio. The son of an Italian immigrant father and a mother with Italian roots, Valli grew up in Newark’s First Ward. His father was a barber; his mother a homemaker and beer-company employee. Valli was inspired to pursue a career as a singer at age seven after his mother took him to see Frank Sinatra at the Paramount Theater in New York.
Valli began his singing career as a teenager in Newark with the Variety Trio; the group included future Four Seasons singer/guitarist Tommy DeVito. The two later became part of the house band at the Strand in New Brunswick; Valli played bass and sang. Among Valli’s early mentors was a country singer named “Texas” Jean Valli; the young Valli adopted his stage name from Texas Jean.
Valli and DeVito continued to perform and occasionally record together with various other bandmates, first as the Variatones and later as the Four Lovers. Finally, in 1960, they settled on a new name, the Four Seasons, and a new lineup, with singer/keyboardist Bob Gaudio and singer/bassist Nick Massi. (The new foursome took its name from a bowling alley in Union Township where it had failed an audition.)
Gaudio became the band’s songwriter in partnership with Bob Crewe, who would produce the Four Seasons’ biggest hits. The first of those successes, the 1962 single “Sherry,” showcased Valli’s distinctive falsetto and went to No. 1 on the national pop charts. The group followed ‘Sherry” with a series of smash hits, starting with “Big Girls Don’t Cry” and “Walk Like a Man,” both of which went to No. 1. From 1963-1967, at the height of the Beatles and the British Invasion, the Four Seasons—powered by Valli’s falsetto–had nine more top-10 hits, including a fourth No. 1, “Rag Doll,” in 1964.
The Four Seasons went cold in the late 1960s, but Valli sprang back up the charts as a solo artist in 1975 with the No. 1 single “My Eyes Adored You.” (Valli already had gone to No. 2 as a solo artist in 1967 with “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You.”) In 1976, a new Four Seasons lineup was back at No. 1 with the disco-flavored “December, 1963 (Oh, What a Night).”
As a solo artist, Valli had another top-10 hit, “Swearin’ to God,” in 1975, and went to No. 1 in 1978 with the title song to the movie “Grease,” written and co-produced by Barry Gibb of the Bee Gees. “Grease”—an international hit–topped the U.S. singles chart almost 17 years after “Sherry,” an incredible feat for a pop singer. Remarkably, Valli had begun to suffer from hearing loss as early as 1967. It took a series of operations to restore his hearing more than a decade later.
Over the years, Valli continued to record and tour, usually as Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, attracting audiences around the world. In 2005, the Broadway debut of the musical “Jersey Boys” provided Valli with a late career boost. The musical told the story of the Four Seasons and featured many of the group’s biggest hits. Valli made his own Broadway debut in 2012 with a week-long engagement at the Broadway Theatre. In 2023, he kicked off a farewell tour that was destined to continue well into 2025.
Among other honors, Valli and the Four Seasons have been inducted into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In 2025, Valli was presented with a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, his first and only Grammy.