Snapper Box Set - Four Seasons

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John
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Snapper Box Set - Four Seasons

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Due out this summer, and only happening thanks to my friend Ken Charmer, is the boxed set that spans the whole career of Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons. What I'm expecting it to be:

One vinyl album being the unreleased Mono version of The Genuine Imitation Life Gazette
One coffee table book
43 CDs that will include:
Every released album in Stereo
Every released album in Mono
13 unreleased tracks from their time at Motown
Unreleased recordings pre-Four Seasons from the 1950s and early 1960s
Unreleased final tracks made for Philips records around 1970/1971
Unreleased 1970s disco album, first recordings of what became the Heaven Above Me album
Unreleased Four Seasons Orchestra for planned instrumental album
3 Live shows from 1970s, recorded from the sound desk
Lots of bonus tracks/alternate takes/extended versions, etc.

Sounds good to me, I'll let you know what the neighbours think later! Release date is mooted as June/July, but it's been delayed quite a bit by the pandemic already, so I'm expecting late 2022.....
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Re: Snapper Box Set - Four Seasons

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Latest reports suggest August/September, so I'm guessing it will be in time for the Christmas market. Or just after.......

Come on guys, get it organised before we're all too old to care! :shock:
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Re: Snapper Box Set - Four Seasons

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Pre-orders are now open, so mine has been sorted. The set is now in production, so it's just a matter of forgetting about it until one day a courier arrives to brighten up my day! There are 43 CDs and 1 LP, so at one a day that's 43 days of entertainment.

5s
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Re: Snapper Box Set - Four Seasons

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Release date is set to be 9th December 2022.
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Re: Snapper Box Set - Four Seasons

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And now the release date has been set back to 14th April 2023. :(
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Re: Snapper Box Set - Four Seasons

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And then it was 2nd June 2023. However, news has it that this date will hold firm as the product is now manufacturered, checked, packed and ready for 2nd June delivery. Some of these things I have been waiting over 50 years to hear, so I can wait till 2nd June. After that I might start to get a bit tetchy if it's deferred again!
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Re: Snapper Box Set - Four Seasons

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It wasn't deferred again but actually arrived, all 6.3kg of it, a couple of days early. Such is the benefit of pre-ordering perhaps?

Anyway, bit by bit we are listening to the set, and at 44 CDs it may take awhile. The vinyl album is a complete reprint of The Genuine Imitation Life Gazette, quite rightly so I think as it was something special for the group to be proud of and it has grown in appreciation over the years. Way ahead of its time. The six page LP cover plus 8 page comic insert are all completely presented, and I know that because I can compare it to the original. The album itself, to make it even more special is actually the mono master that was ready for release in the days when albums were released separately as mono and stereo versions. Producer and Four Season Bob Gaudio has made this a centre-piece of the boxed set, and I suspect that he wanted to do something that diluted the poresence of the bit that he really didn't want to release and that is the CD of Motown Unreleased. He finally agreed 13 unreleased from their stint at Motown from 1972-1973. Although a time that generated some really great music, it was not a time that Bob and Frankie Valli remember all that fondly. The only thing they took away with them in 1974 was My Eyes Adored You, which they were right to have faith in, and others made The Night a bit hit for them, albeit the second time around. And yet it was the Motown Unreleased that was the driving desire from fans, so without that there would be no boxed set.

Highlights aplenty, but the 1972 live show recording at The Steel Pier in Atlantic City is utterly amazing - pounding out the hits, plus my live show favourites "I Got Love" and "If". We have now also heard the Bathelors II concert from 1974, a real showcase for the emerging talents of a new Four Seasons in Gerry Polci, Don Ciccone, John Paiva and last, but certainly not least, arranger and conductor Lee Shapiro. The "lost disco album" starts with an unheard song "Back in Action", a cracker indeed, and goes on with full length versions of what became the "Heaven Above Me" album. New verses, extended instrumental sections, vocal variations, it's all there. Interestingly, Passion For Paris includes sections that we have only ever heard them do live, thinking particularly of when they had a dancer in the lineup in 1980. The extra long version of "Soul" includes totally unheard segments.....very special.

How about the Motown Unreleased? Well, they took the best of the unreleased with them, but should have taken the (later released by Motown) "With My Eyes Wide Open" and "Inside You" masters as well. However, we've had those for some time anyway. Of the new stuff, some is brilliant, some a bit convoluted and trying despeately to find a way through the quagmire of Motown. Vocally, Frankie is on top form, and these Motown years, although not wasted, were a side-bar before we arrive at Who Loves You and a whole new second wind of hit records. There are more to be had and even if they make Bob and Frankie cringe with bad memoreies I hope they can grit their teeth and let them out into the world.

This boxed set is a miracle in that it exists at all, so again I have say well done to Ken Charmer and the team for pushing, pushing, pushing and then pushing some more!
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