- September 8, 2024
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Aug. 3 is a special day for John Michael Coppola. But it's not his birthday or his wedding anniversary. It's the anniversary of a Chicago area bride who asked him to do a pop-up show featuring the music of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons at her 2013 reception.
That performance led Coppola to create his Four Seasons tribute show, "The Four C Notes," which will play at Florida Studio Theatre's Goldstein Cabaret from Aug. 6 through Oct. 13.
The bride-to-be got Coppola's name from a wedding planner who had seen him in the Midwest production of the Broadway hit show "Jersey Boys," which played in Chicago more than two years.
"We keep in touch every year on Aug. 3," Coppola said in a recent telephone interview. "She's got two little girls now."
A native of New Rochelle, New York, Coppola and his wife moved to Chicago in 2007 so he could become part of the "Jersey Boys" Midwest production. "I've never looked back. All of the guys from the Chicago tour moved back to the East or West coasts, but we stayed. We love it here," he says.
Coppola says he owes his livelihood to Frankie Valli, who is still on the road himself at age 90. (Valli performed a show in Sarasota in November 2023 at the Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall.) "My entire adult life has been about Frankie Valli," says Coppola.
Actually, that's not exactly true since Coppola is also the creator of a 2011 show, "A Jersey Voice: Sinatra to Springsteen ... and Everyone in Between."
Coppola says his late Uncle Frankie would be proud of his role in keeping the tradition of doo-wop alive on stages throughout the Midwest and in Florida. The Four Seasons fan taught his nephews (Coppola has a twin brother) how to sing "I Wonder Why," by Dion and the Belmonts, when they were growing up. By the age of 6, Coppola was performing professionally.
Following the success of "The Four C Notes," which Coppola produces, directs and choreographs, he has stepped back from performing. He relies on a roster of 15 singer/dancers. "I have a first-rate group of guys that I keep in rotation," Coppola says. "It's not like there's an A team and a B team. Everybody is great."
The four crooners making their FST debut in "The Four C Notes" are Max Trotter, Ethan Lupp, Tyler Meyer and Michael Ferraro.
Catherine Randazzo, FST associate artist/literary manager, will be the line producer for the show. She has been trying to bring "The Four C Notes" to the summer cabaret since she discovered it about five years ago.
The FST run is the longest residency to date for "The Four C Notes," which mostly does one-night appearances, Coppola says.
Its Sarasota run continues FST's tradition of presenting doo-wop shows in its summer cabaret series that began about two decades ago with "The Wanderers."
"It was a huge hit," says Randazzo. "The audience demanded more of this musical era and FST developed two more shows." One was "Unchained Melodies" and the other was updated "Wanderers" that played two seasons ago.
Like Coppola, some of the performers in FST's recent summer cabaret shows were veterans of "Jersey Boys." Among the shows they have performed in are last year's "The Surfer Boys," "The Jersey Tenors" (2017) and "The Jersey Tenors Part II" (2022).
In the process of creating a 90-minute ode to the Four Seasons (cut down to 75 minutes for FST's specs), Coppola has become an expert in all things Frankie Valli.
Fun fact: "Can't Take My Eyes Off You," the 1967 single released by a solo Valli and written by Four Seasons bandmate Bob Gaudio along with Bob Crewe, was actually three different songs before it was distilled into one.
It rose to No. 2 on the charts, freed Valli from the restrictions imposed by always having to sing falsetto and was the singer's biggest solo hit until he recorded "My Eyes Adored You" in 1975.
Who knew that the Four Seasons did a cover of Carole King's "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow," which was a hit by the Shirelles? That song is in the long version of "The Four C Notes," but ended up on the cutting room floor in order to whittle the show down to FST's 75-minute requirement.
As the name of the Broadway show inspired by Valli implies, the singer hailed from New Jersey, but the Four Seasons and other doo-wop bands were favorites in the Midwest, says Coppola, due to the efforts of the late Chicago deejay Dick Biondi.
Biondi, who died in 2023 at age 90, was a fast-talking deejay on WLS, was a huge promoter of doo-wop and is also given credit for being the first disc jockey to play the Beatles in the U.S.
Given the Chicago-Sarasota connection that has existed since Bertha Palmer arrived in Florida by train from the Windy City in 1910, it makes sense to bring "The Four C Notes" to FST.
"After all these years, doo-wop never goes out of fashion," Coppola says. "Having four guys sing in harmony brings out a certain reaction."
Even if you're not old enough to have been around in "December, 1963," the Four Seasons song known to many as "Oh, What a Night," "The Four C Notes" is bound to bring back memories and make new ones.
