Frankie Valli was the voice of the Four Seasons, possessing an astounding high tenor voice that could ascend effortlessly into falsetto range at the beat of a heart, a Jersey boy who knew how to sing pop inside and out, from street-corner doo wop to uptown Vegas crooning. The bulk of his legacy will always be based on his work as part of the Four Seasons, who placed some 50 classic singles in Billboard's Top 100 charts before all was said and done. Valli enjoyed a moderately successful solo career as well, and since the songwriter and arranger behind most of the Four Seasons' hits, Bob Gaudio, continued to work closely with Valli during the solo years, his recordings make an easy transitional sidebar to the Seasons' material. This set collects eight of Valli's ten solo albums in facsimile fashion, missing only 1975's Inside You, which was released and is still controlled by Motown Records, and Valli's most recent album, 2007's Romancing the '60s. The end result is a lot of Frankie Valli in one place, which will probably be too much for the casual fan, but as an addendum to his work fronting the Four Seasons, this set is a valuable archival release, in part because Valli's soaring falsetto was simply one of the most amazing and distinctive voices in all of 20th century pop music.
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