Closeup | ||||
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Studio album by | ||||
Released | February 1975 | |||
Recorded | 1974 | |||
Studio |
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Genre | ||||
Length | 36:07 | |||
Label | Private Stock | |||
Producer | Bob Crewe, Bob Gaudio | |||
Frankie Valli chronology | ||||
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Closeup is an album by Frankie Valli, released in February 1975 on the Private Stock label. It had been seven years since his prior album, and afforded Valli his first of two number-one solo hits in the US (in addition to five as lead singer of The Four Seasons). The LP reached number 51 on the U.S. Billboard albums chart.
The album contains two hit singles: "My Eyes Adored You" (US No. 1) and "Swearin' to God" (US No. 6). [1] It also contains Valli's original version of "I Can't Live a Dream," which became a hit for the Osmond Brothers in late 1976. [1]
In a retrospective review, Joe Viglione of AllMusic recalled that the album "is singer Frankie Valli again finding the magic without his Four Seasons, this time in the '70s with two big hits in two different genres", and called it "an important and forgotten catalog item that needs to be expanded and re-released with bonus tracks and liner notes that give it its proper place in music history." [2]
In his August 1975 review for Stereo Review magazine, Peter Reilly remarked that:
Frankie Valli's album and his flabby performances have a fake Fifties sound that made me think of Fabian, Annette Funicello, beach party movies, Edsels, and, eventually, the Franco-Prussian war. This last because it holds even less interest for me than the goings-on in the Eisenhower Era—I grow listless at the mere thought of even trying to find out why it happened. [3]
Side one [4]
Side two
On "My Eyes Adored You":
Chart (1975) | Position |
---|---|
Australia (Kent Music Report) [5] | 70 |
United States (Billboard 200) | 51 |
The Four Seasons is an American rock band formed in 1960 in Newark, New Jersey. Since 1970, they have also been known at times as Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. They are one of the best-selling musical groups of all time, having sold an estimated 100 million records worldwide.
Francesco Stephen Castelluccio, better known by his stage name Frankie Valli, is an American singer and occasional actor, best known as the frontman of the Four Seasons. He is known for his unusually powerful lead falsetto voice.
Robert John Gaudio is an American songwriter, singer, musician, and record producer, and the keyboardist and backing vocalist of the pop/rock band the Four Seasons. Gaudio wrote or co-wrote the vast majority of the band's music, including hits like "Sherry" and "December, 1963 ", as well as "Can't Take My Eyes Off You" for Valli. Though he no longer performs with the group, Gaudio and lead singer Frankie Valli remain co-owners of the Four Seasons brand.
"Candy Girl" is the title of a hit single recorded in 1963 by the Four Seasons. Written by Larry Santos, it is the first original Four Seasons single composed by neither Bob Gaudio nor Bob Crewe. The writer, Larry Santos, would become a chart artist in his own right with 1976's "We Can't Hide It Anymore". A stereo version was released in 1975, on The Four Seasons Story album.
Dennis Joel Rafkin, known professionally as Denny Randell, is an American songwriter and record producer, who is best known for his songwriting collaborations with Sandy Linzer and Bob Crewe in the 1960s and 1970s. He co-wrote hits including "A Lover's Concerto", "Let's Hang On!", "Working My Way Back to You", and "Native New Yorker", and was nominated with Linzer for induction into the Songwriters Hall of Fame (SHOF) in 2012.
Jersey Boys is a jukebox musical with a book by Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice. It is presented in a documentary-style format that dramatizes the formation, success and breakup of the 1960s rock 'n' roll group The Four Seasons. The musical is structured as four "seasons", each narrated by a different member of the band who gives his own perspective on its history and music. Songs include "Big Girls Don't Cry", "Sherry", "December, 1963 ", "My Eyes Adored You", "Stay", "Can't Take My Eyes Off You", "Walk Like A Man", "Who Loves You", "Working My Way Back to You" and "Rag Doll".
Who Loves You is an album by The Four Seasons. It was released in 1975 on Warner/Curb Records.
Robert Stanley Crewe was an American songwriter, dancer, singer, manager, and record producer. Crewe co-wrote and produced a string of Top 10 singles with Bob Gaudio for the Four Seasons.
"Big Girls Don't Cry" is a song written by Bob Crewe and Bob Gaudio and originally recorded by the Four Seasons. It hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100 on November 17, 1962, and, like its predecessor "Sherry", spent five weeks in the top position but never ranked in the Billboard year-end charts of 1962 or 1963. The song also made it to number one, for three weeks, on Billboard's Rhythm and Blues survey. It was also the quartet's second single to make it to number one on the US R&B charts.
"Can't Take My Eyes Off You" is a 1967 song written by Bob Crewe and Bob Gaudio, and first recorded and released as a single by Gaudio's Four Seasons bandmate Frankie Valli. The song was among his biggest hits, earning a gold record and reaching No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 for a week, making it Valli's biggest solo hit until he hit No. 1 in 1975 with "My Eyes Adored You".
"My Eyes Adored You" is a 1974 song written by Bob Crewe and Kenny Nolan. It was originally recorded by The Four Seasons in early 1974. After the Motown label balked at the idea of releasing it, the recording was sold to lead singer Frankie Valli for $4000. After rejections by Capitol and Atlantic Records, Valli succeeded in getting the recording released on Private Stock Records, but the owner/founder of the label, Larry Uttal, wanted only Valli's name on the label. It is from the album Closeup. The single was released in the US in November 1974 and topped the Billboard Hot 100 in March 1975. "My Eyes Adored You" also went to number 2 on the Easy Listening chart. Billboard ranked it as the No. 5 song for 1975.
Kenneth "Kenny" Nolan is an American singer-songwriter from Los Angeles.
The Four Lovers was a band formed in 1956 which was the result of vocalist Frankie Valli joining The Variatones in 1954. The Four Lovers achieved minor success before a name change to The Four Seasons in 1960. During those five years, the group members also included Nicolas DeVito, Hugh Garrity, Charles Calello (bass), Nick Massi, Bob Gaudio, and Philip Mongiovi (drums).
The Wonder Who? was a nom de disque of The Four Seasons for four single records released from 1965 to 1967. It was one of a handful of names used by the group at that time, including Frankie Valli and The Valli Boys. Wonder Who? recordings generally feature the falsetto singing by Valli, but with a softer falsetto than on "typical" Four Seasons recordings.
This is a list of singles and some albums recorded and released by Frankie Valli and/or The Four Seasons in their various guises since 1953. This list includes only commercially released singles on which Valli or some configuration of the group was credited with performing or producing. Promotional-only releases and extended play records (EPs) are omitted from this list.
"Who Loves You" is the title song of a 1975 album by The Four Seasons. It was composed by Bob Gaudio and Judy Parker and produced by Gaudio. It reached number 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 in November 1975.
Valli is the sixth solo LP album by Frankie Valli of The Four Seasons, released by Private Stock under catalog number PS-2017 as a stereo recording in 1976. It was reissued on compact disc in 2008, paired with his first solo effort from Private Stock, Closeup, by Collector's Choice.
"Swearin' to God" is a song written by Bob Crewe and Denny Randell. It was recorded by Frankie Valli and released in May 1975 as a single from his album Closeup. It is a love song whose lyrical hook is a more literal use of the expression "I swear to God" :
Jersey Boys is a 2014 American musical drama film directed and produced by Clint Eastwood, based on the 2004 Tony Award-winning jukebox musical of the same name. The film tells the story of the musical group The Four Seasons. Original band members Frankie Valli and Bob Gaudio serve as executive producers.
Kenny Nolan is the eponymous debut album from singer-songwriter Kenny Nolan. It featured two U.S. top 20 hits, "I Like Dreamin'" and "Love's Grown Deep". Both songs did equally well or better in Canada. Another track, "My Eyes Get Blurry", reached No. 97 in the U.S.