In my last post I made the case for researching the 200+ unmarked tapes in the Four Seasons Partnership Storage Unit in LA…..[and we all know that there are at least 15 unreleased tracks left in the Motown Vaults] and if proof were needed that unreleased recordings still exist buried and unheard here is a song that is clearly Frankie Valli singing.
It is salvaged from a fans cassette tape and I know nothing about who or where it comes from. It was in such a poor condition being a highly distorted recording and so I discarded it into a hard disc folder. But having been asked about it during the summer I decided to see what the AI Software made of it and so I did some extractions of ‘stems’ to try to reduced the distortion.
The track below is the best I could assemble….BUT the process led me to use my ‘music detective’ brain to look for clues. It is clearly taken from an acetate due to the nature of the stylus distortion. But listening to the individual AI extracted stem two things stand out.
Firstly the background singers. It is clearly BERNADETTE CARROL, PEGGY SANTAGLIA, and DENISE FERRI and they backed Frankie Valli on the Spring 1966 sessions to record ‘You’re Ready Now’[et al].
Secondly, it sounded like an ‘Commercial’ for Yellow Pages to me and reminded me of the Cousin Brucie Theme, recorded by the group in 1965 but it is clearly a FULL song. I can’t think of any other reason for the lyric than as an ‘ad’
These points taken together make it highly likely to be recorded in Spring 1966 as an Out-Take at the sessions for ‘You’re Ready Now’. Given that a tape box found in the LA Storage, with a few words on it turned out to be the ‘Beggin/What Good Am I’ unheard and lost DEMO track from 1966 that went into the Snapper Box Set….what is the sensible deduction?.
So why not look and listen to the 200+ tapes in the storage? The possibility a decent sounding copy still resides there on tape seems to me pretty strong to me. What do you think Frankie?
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