Today's Song You Should Know: 'The Night' By Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons

I've been a fan of the Four Seasons since I was a kid, but it can be a frustrating band to love. Unlike most bands that cranked out hits in the 1960s, the band (or to be specific, the two member Four Seasons Partnership) owns most of the masters for their early hits. So much of the band's energy in recent years has been spent on maximizing that revenue stream and riding the success of the hit Broadway show and feature film "Jersey Boys." The band has been reluctant to focus any attention on lesser-known parts of their catalog and the result is that a lot of great songs recorded by the band in the 1960s and 1970s are unknown to anyone except the hard-core fans. Many of the band's biggest hits aren't available for streaming and unlike just about all of there contemporaries, there haven't been any rarities albums and extended version releases. 

Which is a shame, because one of my favorite time frames for the band is their brief 1971-1974 stint on Motown's MoWest label. The label was created by the classic Barry Gordy hit machine when the company moved to Los Angeles and despite having some talented acts, the label was never able to properly promote its acts. In the case of the Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons, a bunch of tracks were recorded, some produced by longtime producers Bob Crewe or Bob Gaudio and others by long-time Motown producers like The Corporation. Mowest released a Frankie Valli single in 1971 and the Four Season album "Chameleon" in 1972." Those releases, like the singles that were later released, sank without a trace. 

A second album was recorded but never released by MoWest and when the label and the band parted company, Frankie Valli bought the master of one unreleased track - "My Eyes Adored You" - for $4,000. That song was released by the small label Private Stock in 1975 and eventually became a #1 solo hit for Valli.

"The Night" is a track off of the "Chameleon" album that was never released as a single in the United States. But it started getting a lot of play by British DJs who worked in the northern soul circuit clubs and when it was released in the U.K. as a single in 1975, it made it to #7 on the British Pop Charts.

I've always loved this song, because it nicely bridges the 1960s hit singles by the band and its brief burst of success in the mid-1970s with "Who Loves You" and "December 1963 (Oh What A Night)." There are touches of the classic Motown sound and listening to it makes me wonder what direction the band's career would have followed had this track been a hit in the United States.

While there was a reissue of the previously released MoWest tracks by both Frankie Valli solo as well as the Four Seasons songs, there is also apparently a large number of unreleased MoWest tracks in the Universal Music vaults, the company which now owns the Motown catalog. There continue to be rumors some of those tracks might eventually be released, although the Four Seasons Partnership doesn't seem to be in any hurry to make that happen. Which is too bad, because if tracks like "The Night" are any indication, there is some great music still waiting to be heard.

And if you'd like to learn more about the many unreleased Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons tracks from their MoWest period, check out this Facebook group which is devoted to getting them released officially.