From mid 1965 Frankie Valli was recording 'solo' tracks and due to a reluctance on the part of Philips to have the Four Seasons sound 'challenged', the 1965 45s appeared on the Smash Label. And whilst it would be 1966 before Philips took over such releases it would not be till mid 1967 that an album would appear with the release of the 'Solo' album in June 1967 after the huge success of 'Can't Take My Eyes Off You'.
Researching the Four Seasons Partnership[FSP] archive proved to be frustrating as not all the single releases had survived on Master Tape.......and the 'Solo' album had never survived as a MONO mix.
The PolyComp Tapes contained what had survived of the MONO mixes but we had to recover from vinyl dubs....
The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Anymore (MONO 45 YW1-36622)
This Is Goodbye (MONO 45 YW1-36623)
You’re Gonna Hurt Yourself (MONO 45 YW1-37523)
The Proud One (MONO 45 1-38789)
Can’t Take My Eyes Off You (MONO 45 1-40375)
Surprisingly the last song [a #2 hit] was not found on tape but an acetate of an earlier TAKE with an alternate and very relaxed vocal by Frankie did survive and is included with the above as BONUS Tracks.
In our research of alternate versions and MIXES we did find that This Is Goodbye and Cry For Me had survived on tape ONLY as Pseudo Stereo [or Fake Stereo as marked on the tape box] and these versions are the only ones to appear in the CD era. We also found that the GOLD album on Private Stock [PVLP1006] contained UNIQUE STEREO mixes on the vinyl album from 1975 that were worthy versions as BONUS Tracks. We salvaged four very well mixed STEREO versions here.
Can’t Take My Eyes Off You (STEREO Gold 1975 Alternate Mix )
You're Ready Now (STEREO Gold 1975 Alternate Mix)
The Proud One (STEREO Gold 1975 Alternate Mix)
You’re Gonna Hurt Yourself (STEREO Gold 1975 Alternate Mix)
The following album 'Timeless' released in June 1968 attempted to establish Frankie Valli as a singer of 'standards' like his hero Frank Sinatra.
With 16 track recording Philips were moving albums to 'STEREO only' as the mixes were so good and phonographs of the day could play STEREO albums in MONO. Only ever released in STEREO we did not think it had ever been mixed to MONO. But in searching for a tape of 'unreleased' tracks from 1969,[more re these tracks on a later blog] we discovered to our disappointment that the tape was damaged ….and not the songs we had wanted. Further detailed work revealed it as two track and one was distorted and one intact. We salvaged the intact track and found it contained 9 songs in MONO from this album as studio 'out-takes' with intros and outro chat on some songs. A truly amazing and lucky find.
Adding to that we found an unreleased song from the same sessions 'Stranger in Paradise', and an unreleased song from 1968 called 'Natural Morning'. The details are revealed in our Box Set Collectors Notes.
Overall these two Discs give a wonderful snapshot of the the start of Frankie Valli's solo career.
It remains to be seen if the Tape Box scan above actually contains the tracks listed as 'pulled'. Whatever the sound engineer finds on this tape we will have all the STEREO mixes listed from other tape sources.
DISC 13 THE FOUR SEASONS PRESENT FRANKIE VALLI SOLO [STEREO ONLY]
Philips PHM200247[NOT AVAILABLE]/PHS600247 No. 34 [6/67]
DISC 14 FRANKIE VALLI – TIMELESS [STEREO ONLY]
Philips PHS600274 No. 176 [6/68]
These discs also capture an amazing 27 BONUS tracks [12 of which are previously unreleased]
Ken Charmer – August 2021
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