For a while in the hectic mid-1960s, the Four Seasons and the Beach Boys, respectively the champions of America's east and west coasts, were all that seemed to stand between the Beatles and the wholesale capitulation of the US pop music industry. For stubbornly maintaining their run of hits in the face of British invasion, the Four Seasons were indebted to the songwriter and record producer Bob Crewe, who has died at the age of 83.
Crewe had already written and produced a hit record The Rays' Silhouettes, a doo-wop classic that reached no 3 in the Billboard charts in 1957 when he met the Four Seasons. Starting in 1962 with Sherry and Big Girls Don't Cry, his relationship with the group and their lead singer, Frankie Valli, fellow natives of New Jersey, led to more than a dozen top 10 hits in the US and around the world. Crewe would become one of the most influential back-room figures in 60s pop: among the many compositions on which he shared the credits were Rag Doll (1964), Let's Hang On! (1965), Can't Take My Eyes Off You (1967) and My Eyes Adored You (1974).
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