Lee Shapiro is an American musician/arranger who was a member of the band The Four Seasons and the founder of The Hit Men, a brand of supergroups featuring session and touring musicians from other bands.
Lee Shapiro is an American musician/arranger who was a member of the band The Four Seasons and the founder of The Hit Men, a brand of supergroups featuring session and touring musicians from other bands.
Shapiro was born in Passaic, New Jersey in 1953 and was raised in Glen Rock, New Jersey. [1] In interviews, Shapiro has stated an early favorite band of his was The Beatles, but that he soon became a bigger fan of The Four Seasons when he noticed it had a dedicated keyboard player, Bob Gaudio, which the Beatles did not at the time. [1]
In 1972, Gaudio was seeking to withdraw from touring and seeking a new arranger (they had largely relied on New York City studio arrangers after their own in-house arranger Nick Massi left in 1965 and wanted to be able to compose more while on the road). Shapiro was 19 and studying at the Manhattan School of Music at the time he was offered an audition to replace Gaudio, the man he had idolized as a child. [1] Shapiro's first task was to compose a fanfare and overture; he bluffed his way through the arrangement, which lead singer Frankie Valli liked, earning him Valli's respect for the rest of his time in the band. [2] As a member of the band for seven years, he played on records such as their 1975 worldwide hit, December, 1963 (Oh, What a Night). [3] [1]
In the 1980s, after leaving the Four Seasons, Shapiro collaborated on song writing with L. Russell Brown, Sandy Linzer and Irwin Levine. [3] In 1991, Shapiro worked with Barry Manilow on Copacabana, The Musical . [3]
In the 1990s[ when? ], Shapiro also started Lee Shapiro Music, a company that worked on music for media outlets and advertising. [3] The year 1999 saw Shapiro create the toys 'Rock N Roll Elmo' and 'Rock N Roll Ernie' for Fisher-Price. [3]
Shapiro did not give up performing, and in 2010 he formed the band The Hit Men. Initially conceived as a partial reunion of the 1970s-era Four Seasons lineup including Don Ciccone and Gerry Polci, Shapiro revamped the concept after Ciccone's death in 2016. [4]
Shapiro was married in 1977 to Georgia and they have one daughter, Ariel. [1]
In 2014, Shapiro was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis but continued to tour with The Hit Men for several years after. [5] As of 2024, Shapiro is no longer a performing member of the group but remains its manager. As of 2023, he launched a second band under The Hit Men brand, The Hit Men of Country, which features country musicians.
In 2019, the band The Hit Men were awarded its first "Road Warrior" award by the Musicians Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville. [5]
In 2020, Shapiro was nominated in the "Legend Musician" category of the East Coast Music Hall of Fame. [3]
Lee Shapiro is one of the musicians featured in the documentary, "Banded Together: The Boys From Glen Rock High," released in 2022. The documentary chronicles Shapiro and his classmates, many of whom went on to musical fame, including the Vivino brothers, Jerry, Jimmy and "Uncle" Floyd. [6]
The Four Seasons is an American rock and roll and doo-wop quartet formed in 1960 in Newark, New Jersey. Since 1970, they have also been known at times as Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. The band evolved out of a previous band called The Four Lovers, with Frankie Valli as the lead singer, Bob Gaudio on keyboards and tenor vocals, Tommy DeVito on lead guitar and baritone vocals, and Nick Massi on bass guitar and bass vocals. On nearly all of their 1960s hits, they were credited as The 4 Seasons. The band had two distinct lineups that achieved widespread success: the original featuring Valli, Gaudio, DeVito, and Massi that recorded hits throughout the 1960s, and a 1970s quintet consisting of Valli, Lee Shapiro, Gerry Polci, Don Ciccone and John Paiva, with Gaudio and Long providing studio support.
Francesco Stephen Castelluccio, better known by his stage name Frankie Valli, is an American singer, known as the frontman of the Four Seasons beginning in 1960. 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 and produced 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.
Nicholas E. Macioci was an American bass singer, songwriter, and bass guitarist. He is best known for his work as the bassist and bass vocalist for The Four Seasons, for whom he performed under the stage name Nick Massi.
Gaetano "Tommy" DeVito was an American musician. He was best known as a founding member, vocalist, and lead guitarist of rock band the Four Seasons.
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.
"December, 1963 " is a song originally performed by the Four Seasons, written by original Four Seasons keyboard player Bob Gaudio and his future wife Judy Parker, produced by Gaudio, and included on the group's album Who Loves You (1975).
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.
"Sherry" is a song written by Bob Gaudio and recorded by The Four Seasons.
Joseph Louis LaBracio, better known by his stage name Joe Long, was an American musician. He was best known as the bass guitarist for the Four Seasons.
Gerry Polci is an American singer and musician who was a member of the American rock and pop band The Four Seasons.
The Critters were an American pop group with several hits in the 1960s, most notably "Mr. Dieingly Sad", a U.S. and Canadian Top 20 hit in 1966.
"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.
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.
Donald Joseph Ciccone was an American singer, songwriter and musician. He was a founding member of the pop group the Critters, singing their biggest hits "Younger Girl" and "Mr. Dieingly Sad". The latter he wrote about his girlfriend Kathy Cobb before he entered the Air Force during the time of the Vietnam War. Cobb later became his wife. When the Critters' first album started to take off, Ciccone was in the Air Force and the band had to tour without him. This is why many videos on YouTube do not feature him, but instead have Ken Gorka lip-syncing Ciccone's part.
Robby Robinson is a music director, keyboardist, composer, arranger, and producer living in the Los Angeles area. He is best known as the music director and keyboardist for Frankie Valli since 1978, and in this capacity has conducted orchestras such as the London Symphony Orchestra at the Royal Albert Hall, the Houston Symphony, the Pacific Symphony, and the National Symphony Orchestra. Robinson is a Hammond USA "family artist".
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