‘Oh, What a Night:’ The Hit Men hit the spot, musically

SPINDALE — Despite a two-hour power outage in the area that was resolved just before the show, The Hit Men — former members of Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons, Tommy James & The Shondells and other top bands — didn’t fire a blank, and repeatedly hit the target with nary a miss during an Oct. 12 concert at Isothermal Community College.

Besides the music, the nearly two-hour show that launched ICC’s year-long, 50th anniversary celebration also featured group members telling their “back stories” and sharing anecdotes from their time in the forefront of pop music. The concert drew about 600 people, mostly older and female, to ICC’s Foundation Performing Arts Center.

The band performed each “golden-oldie” song as a cherished treasure with obvious respect and enthusiasm. The Hit Men remained on the stage after finishing its show with the rousing “December 1963 (Oh, What a Night),”  sung by drummer Gerry Polci, who was the lead singer on the original.

Ironically, “December 1963 (Oh, What a Night), the biggest-ever hit for Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons, did not feature its biggest star, Valli, as the lead singer. The crowd stood and cheered for more.

After a dramatic pause, The Hit Men eagerly complied with an encore akin to a fireworks finale — a rip-roaring medley of some of best-known Four Seasons’ songs, including “Sherry,” “Walk Like a Man,” “Big Girls Don’t Cry” and ending, predictably, with “Bye Bye Baby (Baby Goodbye).”

Following the concert, the five group members, who performed individually or in combinations on more than 80 albums since 1966, patiently signed autographs and chatted with fans for more than 30 minutes. The group included electric pianist Lee Shapiro, who is the group’s leader and musical director; drummer Gerry Polci; guitarist Jimmy Ryan; bassist Larry Gates; and keyboard player Russ Valezquez.

Shapiro played with Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons, Tommy James and the Shondells, Barry Manilow, Bob Gaudio and Paul Schaffer; Polci with Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons and Barry Manilow; Ryan with The Critters, Carly Simon, Paul McCartney, Rod Stewart, Cat Stevens, Jim Croce, Elton John and Kiki Dee; Gates with Desmond Child, Phoebe Snow, Carole King, Janis Ian, Bon Jovi and Rick Derringer; and Valazquez with Sting, Carole King, The Ramones, LL Cool J, Luther Vandross, Korn, Paula Abdul and Chicago.

The show’s highlights included their spot-on, enthusiastic renditions of songs, as well as moments when it improvised vocally and instrumentally during jams in some lengthened editions of songs. On the negative side, there were too many medleys that just provided sample of songs, rather than the often-glorious full versions. The Hit men went overboard in trying to please the crowd by playing as many of the Four Seasons hits as possible — meaning lumping them together as medleys.

The band opened the concert with a Four Seasons medley of 1964’s “Dawn (Go Away),” “Working My Way Back to You,” “Rag Doll” and “Stay.” The first three were Four Seasons originals, while “Stay” was a 1964 top 20 hit for the group, but originally was written by, and scored a No. 1 hit in 1960 for, Maurice Williams, a Lancaster, S.C., native. “Stay” also is the shortest Billboard No. 1 song in American musical history.

At that point, Shapiro addressed cheering the audience for the first time, asserting, “Yeah, let’s get this party started! We are The Hit Men,” noting that they represent “the real Jersey Boys,” referencing the Broadway musical based on the rise of the Four Seasons. He then triggered some laughter from the largely Southern audience when he deadpanned, “We come from up north … somewhere.”

He added that the group calls itself The Hit Men because “we were on so many hit songs” in the 1960s through the 1980s. Shapiro added that the group had “two Seasons” on stage, as he and Pucci were two of the Four Seasons during the 1970s version of the band, which featured lead vocalist Frankie Valli.

After a hard-charging performance of the Four Seasons’ “Who Loves You?” with Pucci on the lead, Shapiro told the crowd that “we had a power outage at 6:30 and we thought this would be a quiet show.”

With much energy, the group ripped into “C’mon Marianne,” with Valazquez singing a highly energized lead.

In a nod to Ryan, who performed with the late Jim Croce, the group performed two of Croce’s biggest hits, “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown” and “You Don’t Mess Around With Jim.”

In offering some musical history, Shapiro noted that, with the Four Seasons, “where I grew up” musically, Frankie Valli always, always aspired to be a solo artist. To that end, he said Valli also had a stellar solo career, and that the next song ranks as “the most-recorded song” of those performed by Valli. “In any case, get close to the one you love….” The group then performed “Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You.”

The band had the audience singing along with the dramatic refrain:

The song also garnered the top applause of the night — at least until that point.

While Shapiro said he and Polci enjoyed their time as members of the Four Seasons, by 1980, “music had changed,” so they left the group and Shapiro was out of the business until 1983, when one day his telephone rang and the voice on the other side of the line asked, “Lee, would you like to be a Shondell?” The voice was that of Tommy James. Shapiro said “yes” to the offer.

The group then performed a medley of hits from Tommy James and the Shondells, including “I Think We’re Alone Now,” “Draggin’ the Line,” “Hanky-Panky” and the longest version I ever heard of “Mony Mony” that include spirited vocal and instrumental improvisation. I would have preferred one of James’ finest songs, the laid-back, psychelic-influenced “Crystal Blue Persuasion” to the not-very-memorable “Draggin’ the Line.”

Following intermission, the band returned with a full rendition of the Four Seasons’ “Let’s Hang On,” and then another romantic ballad hit from Valli’s solo career, “My Eyes Adored You.”

Ryan, the guitarist, noted that he had performed in a band called The Critters for about five or six years, and, “unfortunately, Tommy James didn’t call me” after the group called it quits. Therefore, he worked in a store that sold musical instruments handmade friends with a woman, Carly Simon, who later asked him to perform on her new song, “You’re So Vain” and “You Belong to Me,” among many hits. The Hit Men then performed those two songs.

He later asserted that, “winding the time back a little bit, it’s been said that Carly Simon burst onto the scene, but she’s said that not true — that (instead) she tiptoed onto the scene.”

Ryan also said that he was a frequent session musicians in the 1970s and was called in to do a recording with Reggie White, a name he never had heard before. “I look in the control room and there’s Elton John” — and Ryan learned soon that Sir Reggie White was Elton John’s real name, even though he goes by his stage name.

The band then launched into John’s “Crocodile Rock,” spurring much cheering and applause from the crowd.

Ryan said he also worked for Cat Stevens and lavished much praise on him, before the group performed a rendition of Stevens’ “Peace Train,” which seemed to move the audience deeply.

Shapiro joked that, “if you remember the ‘70s, you weren’t there.” He added that Valli had a huge hit with the title song from the film “Grease.” They then performed it.

The group then sang the Four Seasons’ “Silence Is Golden,” accompanied instrumentally only by Ryan on acoustic guitar, with all five members standing in a semicircle at stage center. It was greeted by big applause, prior the the show-ending “November 1963: Oh, What a Night” and the encore medley.