Press Release Summer 2019 - Preserving the Catalogue

In March I was bemoaning the slow progress of the proposed 40 album Box Set by Snapper and the Four Seasons Partnership with Major Corporate Record Companies [Warner/Rhino/Curb and Universal Motown]

Well now it is summer and coming up a year since the fan group committed to the concept developed by Snapper Records when they 'sold' the idea to the 'majors' and Frankie Valli and Bob Gaudio. But because the list of tracks has to remain 'open' to be developed as research continues, formalising contracts was delayed and the investigation of the Master Tapes in the Motown vaults took time.

But News last week that Bob Gaudio has committed to being co-producer of the new Neil Diamond Bio Musical on Broadway prompted many fans to question his commitment to this 'Legacy' project.? And concerns have been expressed as most of the content of this set is already available and there will be no difference.?

Our recent work has reinforced the strategy of the fan group as we've developed it in the last ten years.....in our last post we said...The Four Seasons UK Appreciation Society has been calling vociferously for catalogue preservation on it's web site blogs since 2008, when the paucity of the physical CD catalogue and the missing masters stories gained strength. Then it became apparent that between 30 to 40 unreleased recordings by the group existed on 16 track 'multi's' in Universal Motown's NYC vault. As we gathered evidence of what might exist uncovering several acetate copies we got resistance from UMe and the Partnership that these existed. [Just the same refusal to admit to the assets and the need to preserve them that has existed for decades]. It took 2 years of publishing evidence of the archive tracks on Facebook in the Four Seasons Motown Unreleased Campaign for a forward thinking Record Company to ask the experts[THE FANS]....'What do you want?'

We clearly stated.....THE UNRELEASED......and have had great news of this since.

Ken Charmer will bring you news of this during the summer on the Four Seasons Motown Unreleased Facebook Group.

But progress on the box set has been made and the reason why it has been so slow is based on 3 problems.

 

1. The provisional track list and contracts have taken time to complete but the contract with Warner is complete and something like 34 of the proposed 40 albums are transferred to Snapper. Questions remain as to whether these are NEW analogue/digital transfers or existing digital copies.? Also the Re-mastering proposals and the inclusion/availability of MONO 45 mixes where different to the album mixes still needs to be addressed?

2. The Motown Tapes were confirmed as found in January and it took time to set up the contract to address these. Bob Gaudio's commitment was clear in his proposal to review with Frankie ALL Masters with his vocal on them. He asked for 2 track mix-downs from the 16/24 Track tapes, and with Snapper paying for these transfers he offered to mix the 16 track approved versions for Snapper. A big breakthrough and he recognises how many of you want to hear these 'lost gems'.

3. The sheer workload remains a problem. Memoribilia has been photographed and a designer and writer appointed.....BUT with Snapper committed to several Box Sets for the Christmas market 2019 the on-going pace of this project will slow as an issue date of August 2020 is now targetted.

Confirmation that the 'Bachelors 3' Fort Lauderdale 1974 and the 'Lucifer's' Boston 1973 concerts was really good news and Bob Gaudio will edit and provide what he has from other studio sessions. Re-mastering transfers and collation of 'Unreleased' tracks will in our view not happen till early 2020, and in the meantime the fan group will focus on locating alternative sources for missing Masters only available on vinyl. But Bob's commitment can clearly be judged as definite by this quote re the researching of the Motown Tapes......”revisiting the past can sometimes be painful.  But apparently, there is a world of fans who would appreciate everyone’s efforts.”

The paper records [and cassette tapes from the studio] show Motown's tapes contain lots of unheard 'gems' and we will post re the potential finds during the summer as well as celebrating the decades of releases in the catalogue. Bob Gaudio has said he has 'unreleased' “from every decade” and we'll comment on what that might be. We are in regular contact with Snapper and whilst the transfer of the Motown material is still awaited, we will advise as soon as we know more.

Casey Chameleon