Pat Olsen, second from left, shares a photo moment at a swimming pool in Asbury Park in the 1960s with her Four Seasons hero, Frankie Valli, far right.
Frankie Valli: Still Under My Skin
By Pat Olsen
If you grew up on the Jersey Shore in the 1960s, you were most likely enamored of a singing group with roots in north Jersey. Long before Bruce Stringsteen put Asbury Park on the rock-and-roll map, and eons before Bon Jovi arrived on the scene, Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons ruled in the Garden State. I had forgotten that I once met the lead singer during the height of the group’s popularity. Hearing that Jersey Boys, their story, is playing on Broadway, has me reliving my teenage hero worship.
I was in junior high. Maxine W. was the top dancer in our school, commanding the middle of the floor at every dance, Bristol-stomping and Twist-ing her heart out. It was not surprising, then, that she arranged a photo session with the singer known for his falsetto in songs like “Sherry Baby” and “Walk Like a Man.” One weekend The Four Seasons were playing in Asbury Park, a couple of towns over from us. When Maxine called to ask me if I wanted to meet them at their motel, I slammed down the phone and rushed to put on a blue plaid skirt and white blouse. I may have been the fourth or fifth person she called before finding someone home, but the thought never crossed my mind, and even if it had I wouldn’t have cared. Hell, I was going to see Frankie Valli.
A couple of years later I’d land my first job at Criterion Candies on the boardwalk, meet my first real boyfriend (an Asbury Park native), and ride “the circuit” – a conglomeration of bars, restaurants, and hotels – after getting my driver’s license. Frankie Valli would fade in my memory. Years later I heard that he’d moved to Florida but was still performing. At a high-school reunion, Maxine revealed that she too was living in the Sunshine state, but it didn’t occur to me to tell her that Valli lived there. I’d long since forgotten about our 15 minutes of fame with a rock star.
Seeing Valli on a TV show one recent morning, I was caught up short at how many years ago all that was. Frankie looks nothing (to me, anyway) like the youthful hunk in the photo of us that appeared back then in the local paper, and my husband and son didn’t even recognize me in the picture. I’m standing next to a band member whose name escapes me now, and Maxine is beside Valli, who’s sitting on the edge of an outdoor pool. His form-fitting black-and-white-striped T-shirt matches his tight swim trunks. Maxine is leaning into him ever so slightly, her hand barely touching his knee, as if she hadn’t planned it. You go, girl.
I wonder what Valli would say if he saw that photo today (as if we weren’t among the hundreds of other idolizing schoolgirls). On the TV he spoke movingly about his success, having come from a tough community, and noted that many of his north Jersey friends had lost their way over the years. I thought of my shore suburb, and how appearances can be deceiving. Like Valli, I had a friend whose father was a bookie, and I also grew up with people whose lives hadn’t turned out as they wished.
We sometimes forget how a singer or a band can influence our early years. Maybe lying on one’s bed – door closed to parents – and blasting the radio as we pine away over some imagined heartache is a rite of passage. Frankie Valli made pain pleasurable. I was not old enough to be interested in the mechanics of singing, or who had influenced some particular singer, or who he or she had in turn gone on to inspire. I didn’t yet look at the music industry as the business it is. No, the only thing that matters to a teen trying to find her way is the sheer joy with which singing clearly filled Frankie Valli, and the unadulterated pleasure it gave me.
For a couple of hours one afternoon long ago, at a motel pool in Asbury Park, I was a naïve schoolgirl engaged in innocent hero worship. I loved the Four Seasons’ music just as I love Bruce’s and Bon Jovi’s today. But before Bruce and Bon Jovi, Frankie Valli was my rock-and-roll superstar. I even have the photo to prove it.
