We were very saddened to hear the news that Tommy passed away on Monday 21 September 2020 at 9.45 p.m. in Las Vegas. He had recently been admitted to hospital after contracting Covid 19 and was making a slow recovery but died from complications of the Coronavirus. Frankie Valli and Bob Gaudio have expressed great sadness over the death of their former bandmate. We understand that a service will be held in Tommy’s native New Jersey. We send our sincerest condolences to Tommy’s daughter, Darcel, all his family and friends from all his fans here in the UK. A truly sad time for everyone who knew and loved him.
Born Gaetano DeVito, 19 June 1928, the original Jersey Boy was one of the founding members of the Four Seasons who had great talent and taught himself to play the guitar and he became a baritone vocalist and lead guitarist in the group. He grew up in Belleville, New Jersey, the youngest of nine children. He formed The Four Lovers with Frankie Valli in 1956 and, after various other names changes, became one of the original Four Seasons along with Frankie Valli, Bob Gaudio and Nick Massi. Nick sadly passed away Christmas Eve 2000 age 73. Tommy left the Four Seasons in 1971 but was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1990 along with Frankie, Bob and Nick.
Certainly a larger than life character and full of fun, Tommy was a very important part of the Four Seasons as depicted in the musical Jersey Boys, telling the rags to riches story of Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons which became a massive hit following its Broadway debut in 2005 and then went onto be played in many parts of the world including Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Canada and the UK. It was made into a film in 2014 directed by Clint Eastwood.
A true music legend, Tommy will be greatly missed by everyone who’s lives he touched. Thanks for the wonderful music and treasured memories.
Bye Bye Baby, Tommy, Bye Bye xxx
And more here:
Many thanks to George Ingram for this further information about Tommy:
After being a dealer at the now-defunct Sahara hotel in Las Vegas, backers of Tommy enabled him to do about 4 records in 1973 and slowly built up over the next 6 -7 years. Tommy formed and became president of Gold Sound Productions based in Las Vegas in late 1979/early1980 as a mainly C&W label for independents and producers. He signed and recorded local Las Vegas artists such as Dolly Coulter, Patti Shelton, Tommy Bell, Terry Richards and the R&R funk group Shauntee and produced several albums and promoted various singles over the years. In the spring of 1982 Tommy opened the labels new distribution division headed by experienced veteran performer Ciro Graziano (producer of Bridge Records and had hits with The Dovells and Chic) who had toured with such artists as Billy Joel and The Drifters. Tom thus aided new writers to publish new songs and acted as a distributor and enabled full service promotion and distribution from coast to coast, and indeed overseas over the years. Tommy also produced an album by Joe Pesci (for whom he became a chauffeur later on).
By Lynn E Boleyn MBE for George Ingram, Ray Nichol and Ken Charmer UK Appreciation Society
23.9.2020
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