Singer Frankie Valli voices love for locals

Right out of the gate, the musical about Frankie Valli is a more prestigious Las Vegas booking than anything the real Valli has seen on the Strip.

"Jersey Boys" has its own custom-built theater in a high-end hotel, the Palazzo. Tickets top out at nearly $270. Valli's two most recent stints on the Strip were cut short.

One of the story's main themes is that Valli just kept rolling. He's depicted as a tireless performer who did whatever it took, played wherever he had to, to stay in front of an audience.

In Las Vegas, we didn't need "Jersey Boys" to tell us that. In 2005, the year the musical opened on Broadway, Valli twice attempted to re-establish his name on the Strip; first at the Flamingo Las Vegas, then Luxor. Both pulled the plug early to cut their losses.

No wonder the 73-year-old singer gets animated when he talks about the good ol' days: those years from 1997 through 2004 when he played The Orleans.

"As crazy as it may sound, I prefer working in those hotels where the locals come, because they're the real fans," Valli said by telephone recently. "I like working in places where people come specifically to see you."

His voice takes on a pulpit ring when he says corporate casinos on the Strip don't understand that Bill Medley and Tony Orlando still have an audience "and work all year long. They don't need to work in Las Vegas. ... That's why the smaller hotels are terrific. Somebody had to be thinking about (the locals). And caring about them."

Valli never got the deluxe treatment on the Strip. He remembers The Four Seasons sharing the Flamingo Las Vegas lounge with Fats Domino. "As much as everybody loved him, he'd stand and watch who went on before him. If the act did too well, he went right back to his room."

Yes, he confesses with a laugh, the Seasons made him beat a retreat.

"It was almost impossible for a record act to play a main room," he says. Valli headlined the Aladdin as a solo act in the '70s, but that too was a dubious honor. "The guy who gave me the biggest shot I had in Las Vegas" was Aladdin executive James Tamer, who offered a three-year deal "when nobody else would hire me."

But during that stretch, Nevada gaming authorities pushed to remove Tamer from management; he eventually was tied to Detroit mobsters and convicted of heading a hidden ownership conspiracy.

Valli and longtime creative partner Bob Gaudio recently reunited for a new album, "Romancing the '60s." Gaudio confirms that Valli sees no irony in the deluxe treatment of "Jersey Boys" on the Strip.

"I suppose you could, but I don't think he does," Gaudio says. "I think it's just kind of energized him, and the music and everything that goes along with it."

Mike Weatherford's entertainment column appears Thursdays and Sundays. Contact him at 383-0288 or e-mail him at mweatherford@reviewjournal.com.