Reunited Live

This album, released in 1981, was roughly the Four Seasons' equivalent of the Dion & the Belmonts' reunion album of a decade earlier, except that this wasn't a reunion of the original Four Seasons. The producers tried to make it seem like it, in the original title ("Reunited"), and the fact that Frankie Valli makes a point of introducing producer/composer Bob Gaudio, who is present on the piano. Valli is here along with Gaudio and singer/drummer Gerry Polci, who sang on the 1975 hit "Who Loves You." The rest of the group featured at this concert, recorded at the Garden State Art Center around 1980, includes Jerry Corbetta (keyboards, vocals), Larry Lingle (lead guitar, vocals), and Don Ciccone (guitar, vocals), and there is a backing band as well as a pair of auxiliary vocalists. Purists may love parts of this album, which does show off impeccable singing and is very well recorded (with, one suspects, some sweetening in the studio), and offers most of the group's hits, although their '60s material is done as medleys rather than as complete, free-standing songs. There is more reverent treatment accorded the '70s material, such as the group's final number one hit, "December 1963 (Oh, What a Night)," and "Who Loves You," and even Valli's last chart entry to date, "Grease" is represented. The slickness of the performance, coupled with the presence of synthesizer and melodica in the backing band, may be off-putting, and the era in which this album was recorded also assures that the group's detour into disco is represented as well, which is another reason why purists may want to avoid this release. "Swearin' to God," "Spend the Night in Love" (featuring Tobee Tyler dueting with Valli), and other material in this vein may repel potential listeners, but it isn't done badly and is very good as disco material, and, linked through Valli's singing, the repertory does slide easily enough across the decades. Overall, this is a decent representation of where Valli and the Four Seasons were in 1981, and the audience doesn't seem to mind.