Joe Long: His Story

Stuart Miller

Joe Long

When and where were you born?

In Elizabeth, New Jersey on September 5th. 1941.

Your parents, were they born in America or were they Italian immigrants?

They were born here. They were first generation Americans. Their parents were born in Italy but my parents were born in America. My father in Elizabeth and my mother in Wilmington, Delaware but she moved to Elizabeth when she was a very young girl.

What were their names?

My father Joe LaBracio, same as mine. My mother Mary Picaro.

Did your grandparents speak English?

Yes they did. They murdered it, they certainly didn't sound like you Stuart!

Your education?

I had some college. After High School I took some courses at a Conservatory for arranging and conducting. And then after I left music I went back to college and took some courses in computer science. So I've got High School education and some college.

Which High School was it?

Thomas Jefferson High School in Elizabeth.

How old were you when you became interested in music?

Well, probably when I was about 18 or so, but I got involved in music when I was 6 years old. My dad, being from an Italian family where everybody had to know a little bit about music and play an instrument, he brought me an accordion and I began taking lessons. I took lessons until I was I believe 13. By that time I had also gravitated over to the piano, so I was playing piano and accordion. Then I became interested as all guys do at the age of 13 or 14, I was more interested in girls than in baseball. So I dropped music and stayed out of music until.......now let's see now, my father got sick when I was 17 and I had to forgo college and go to work and support the family. I was 18 at the time.

So at the age of 18 it fell on your shoulders to become the breadwinner.

Yeah, it kind of fell on my shoulders. But then I unfortunately suffered a pretty severe accident to my left hand, which required lots of surgeries and reconstruction.

What was the accident Joe?

I was working for a company that manufactured sewing machines, Singer. I was working for their Time Study department doing time analysis and I was doing an analysis on a particular machine when the machine malfunctioned and I got my hand caught in the machine and it just cut it to ribbons, just made a mess of it.

Was there any danger that you might lose the hand?

There was a very strong danger. In fact I spent the first two weeks in the hospital just waiting to see if the reconstruction surgery got any of my circulation back and if it hadn't, they were going to amputate the hand at that point. So I was very lucky to keep the hand. I have very limited use of my left hand but thank god I at least have it. So during all that surgery and convalescing which I guess lasted maybe three years, I was 21 or so when they finally finished with the fourth surgery and all of the therapy and during that time I became re-interested in music but of course with a bad left hand I couldn't do much piano playing, it requires both hands. So I began tinkering around with a bass. I bought myself an upright, a double bass and just began playing along with the radio. When I was strong enough to go out again I began taking formal lessons. I studied with a man who at the time was the primo bassist, the first bassist for the New York Philharmonic. His name was Alfonse Strazza. I studied classical bass. My intention then was maybe to get back into music but as a classical player. But the hand was not strong enough to put up with the rigors of playing classical music so I switched to fender bass. I began listening more to rock 'n roll and then became a rock 'n roll player!

Did you get into bands at that point?

Oh yeah, I was into bands in the early 60's. Mostly I had my own bands, traveling around the country and Canada.

What age was that?

22, 23

So you were already in a band then performing professionally.

Oh yes.

Can you remember the names of any of them?

My first band was called The Rockets. We did the rock music of the day plus a lot of rhythm and blues from the 50's. Then I had a band called the Accents. This was a four guys and a girl band that did a lot of four part vocals, traveled to Vegas and most of the country.

Were you earning a reasonable living do it or was it a bit of a struggle?

Both! There were times when I did well and there were other times when I struggled. There were two friends of mine, Al Nittoli who at the time used the name Al Loring, Al and his wife Jet Loring had a Vegas revue, I worked with him in '65 I believe, and we did mostly Vegas work. There was lots of comedy, a floorshow kind of thing, like a cabaret. It was during that time in 1965 that I got a call from Tommy DeVito who had been talking to a friend, an agent who was booking me, a guy named Frankie Fame. That was when Nick left abruptly and they were looking for another guy and Frankie said, "I think I've got the guy for you. He plays bass, he's got a gruffy voice like Nick, sounds like he has a cold all the time, and he might be the guy." So Tommy wanted to talk to me and I met Tom at a music store in Bellville New Jersey. I played a little bit for him. And he said, "Well, it sounds good. I'd like you to meet the rest of the guys." The next week I had a meeting with Frankie and Bob and Tommy of course. We sang a little, played a little and they liked what they heard and they offered me the job.

Then and there?

Pretty much. They said, "Looks like you're the guy. We're talking to a few other people but it looks like you're the guy, so just hang on." Which I did. About a week later, I think this was September '65 but I can't really be sure, I got a call. I was at my mother's house, still living at home, still working for Al and Jet Loring and I got a call from Tommy DeVito. He called from the road, they were down south somewhere in either North or South Carolina and he said, "Look, can you be on a plane and meet us in Los Angeles? We want you to come with the band." It was about 2 or 3 days further on. I had this loyalty to Al and his wife and I said, "I can't leave without giving my current band 2 weeks notice." And Tommy got a little miffed and said, "Don't you realize we're offering you the job?" And I said, "Tom, look, you know, I really can't just walk out on a band this way. It wouldn't be fair to them." And he kind of hung up abruptly. Two days later he called back and said, "Look, we talked it over. Any guy that would be that loyal to his band is the guy for us." I guess they were still feeling a little burned from Nicky leaving so abruptly. He said, "Give Al two weeks notice and come with us" and that's what I did. That's how I started with the group.

And the first gig, can you remember?

Yes I can! And the reason I can remember Stuart is because it was traumatic. The first gig was in West Virginia at a university. When I first went with the boys, I met them in L.A. to do these T.V. shows and on the way back they said, "O.K., you'll be working with Charlie Calello for the next couple of weeks and he'll be teaching you all of the parts, all of the songs." I said "Great." They told me, "Just call Charlie when we get back to New Jersey." I called Charlie and he said, "OK. I can't do it today, it may be tomorrow." This kept getting pushed back and in the meantime the first job that I was supposed to do was coming up very quickly. And finally it's like the day of the job, and I had been traveling with them by the way listening to the shows, and the day of the show they said to me, "Charlie isn't making it. You're on tonight!" And I said, "You know, I haven't had one rehearsal!" So they said, "Well, do the best you can!" So in front of 6500 people I went out there practically wetting my pants, and did the show.

Who'd been playing bass when you'd been watching for those previous two weeks?

Charlie. He was playing and singing. Charlie was only with the band for a couple of months or so, I'm not really sure how long but it wasn't very long. He was an interim guy because he didn't really want to do that. Charlie's main goal was to produce and arrange. It was only after that when they found out I hadn't had any rehearsals that Bob said, "We better get you in shape". From that point on we went into very serious rehearsing for the next couple of weeks. That's why I remember the first job. I did it absolutely cold. Faking bass parts and so on. Thankfully the little bit of knowledge that I had told me where parts should reasonably go. So I had a good starting point. I got to the end in fairly good shape.

Do you think anybody noticed?

Nah, I don't think so. The shows back then were so loud. The crowd was yelling and screaming most of the time. Plus we did a lot comedy and a lot of goofy things on stage. If somebody noticed a bad note, they probably didn't know who it came from! And secondly I'm sure they overlooked it because they always had a lot of fun back then at shows.

They were doing comedy before you joined?

Yuh. Tommy and Nicky, Nicky was doing some but Tommy was the comic in the group and when I went with the band, Tommy and I just formed a relationship that was really astounding. We just kind of tuned into each other as far as timing and bouncing off each other and so the comedy got enhanced from that point on and it was like all hell broke loose. Tommy and I would run away with things and it got to be really funny.

How scripted was it, the original ideas?

Not at all. We would do something spontaneously, it would work so we would work on it. Not script it but just kind of enhance it or polish it a little bit. The one time we tried to script something, Freddie Weintraub was our manager at the time and his associate Billy Fields said, "Look, you guys do comedy so well. Let's get some professional writers in and really do it." He hired a guy to write a show for us and the guy wrote this silly thing. It might have been great for actors but we weren't actors and we tried to do it and it never came off. So we dropped the idea and just went back to our ad-lib routines. It's not a lie but back then in the 60's until Tommy left, it was more fun than anything I've done in my life really.

Had you ever been in a recording studio before you joined the Seasons?

Yes. I had done some recording with groups that I had been with in the hopes of maybe getting a release - never happened. I had also done some session work, some back up work, work as a studio bassist. I had studio experience.

Have you appeared on any commercially released recordings other than the Seasons either before joining them or after?

No.

It was "Opus 17" that was your first recording with the group. What are your recollections about how recordings were made? How did you experience it?

I knew pretty much the mechanics of making records in the 60's. I knew there was multi track although of course there were only 4 track machines at the time, but I knew things were done differently from the old Sinatra days where the whole orchestra, singer, and singers went into the studio and did it live together. So I did know that we would be going in and laying down rhythm tracks and adding horns and strings and whatever. I knew that the vocals would be done last. So as far as the mechanics of making records, I was pretty much familiar with how that was done. It was no big surprise to me to do it with the Seasons but of course the excitement of doing it with the Seasons, that was something else.

You were aware you might be making a hit record every time you went into the studio?

Yes. When I first went with the group, I think "Working my way" was still pretty much happening and we recorded "Opus" and then there followed a large number of other hits. I was sitting on an airplane and Gaudio and I were talking about having hits and he said, "One day they'll stop. It will be a whole different ball game then" And we'd just had our 7th. or 8th. consecutive smash hit but sure enough eventually it stopped happening. At that point it was very traumatic for me and I guess for the other guys as well. I came on a band that was on top of the world and we stayed there for a number of years so when we stopped having hits it was a little shocking.

You felt that disappointment when a record didn't sell?

Absolutely. And my biggest disappointment was "Genuine Imitation Life Gazette" because that should have been a hit if only because for no other reason that there was some great writing and some great performances.

You know Joe, it's a very, very strange phenomenon that album because we talk about it as if it wasn't a success but in the end the bottom line was 150,000 copies.

Maybe by our standards at the time it might not have been tremendous but I'm sure 99% of the people who make records would love to sell 150,000 albums back in the late 60's. Now, maybe 150,000 albums is not so impressive. But you're right Stuart, that was not a failure. I think the disappointment was more the fact that A, the people who were our fans rejected it, which we didn't want to happen and B, the people who were not our fans turned it down, not because they didn't like it but because they didn't think we had any business recording it, if that makes any sense.

You said a moment ago that old Seasons fans rejected it. How were you made aware of that? By letters sent in?

Oh yes, letters, talking to fans, there was no feedback. Generally you get some kind of feedback, even if it's not one on one - it's just via calls or letters to radio stations or if it's like in fan magazines and so on. There are always ways that you find out that something wasn't what you thought it was going to be. And we knew, we could tell just generally that it didn't have the impact that we were hoping it would have.

It's well known generally about your affection for that project but what was it that struck a chord with you about "Genuine". What was it about it?

A couple of things. First of all it was the most involved I had ever been in the actual production of a project. When Bob first talked about the idea I immediately fell in love with it, I thought it was great. So he had an ally in that sense. Secondly, we did all the tracks ourselves. It was the first time that the whole band did the whole album. I had played on most of our records but the rest of the band hadn't. So we had our band in every day doing tracks. So I became really involved in the instrumental end of it. Then we put the vocals down. I was so totally immersed in the whole thing with Bob that I was there for all the re-recording, the re-mixing, the actual postproduction stages. So it became a project for me, certainly not at the same level as it was for Bob, but more of a project for me than anything prior had been. That's one reason. The other reason is, and I hope this doesn't sound egotistical but the fact that I had some kind of training in music made it important to me to do something other than the simple rock and roll music. I don't mean to sound like I'm putting the old music down but we were venturing into uncharted waters musically. We were making statements musically that took a little more thought, a little more preparation, a little more ability. It was something that we hadn't done before and it was very challenging to us and I, as a musician liked being challenged. It was a great vehicle. It did a lot for me, for my head.

Did you wish or feel at the end of that project that that was the direction with that type of material that you would have liked the Seasons to move on to or were you very happy with "Half And Half" which followed next.

I wanted to have that as part of our repertoire. I didn't want to let go of the old stuff. I guess I had so much love and respect for that stuff that I didn't want to let it go. But I did want to move in a parallel direction and go with the "Genuine" type of material side by side.

I don't know if you can remember much about "Half And Half" but did you feel that it was a step back?

No, I didn't at all. There's some stuff on "Half And Half" that's very good. There are songs on that album that are as challenging as songs on "Imitation Life". "And That Reminds Me" I thought was a great performance by the group, it was a great standard. We did things like the "Happy Days" medley. There was some good stuff on that album.

I thought it was a very good follow up to "Genuine". It sort of took half a step back slightly.

Well to stay in the same area as "Genuine" would have been almost impossible. So anything that succeeded it was going to look like a step back. Then "Chameleon" and I liked the direction the group was going with those two albums. They kind of retained the core sound of the Seasons but they moved in that direction that I was mentioning before, forwards instead of just kind of marching in time.

You mentioned "Chameleon". Just as an aside, do you know what the group's contractual arrangement with Motown was in terms of the masters at Motown?

I can clear one thing up right away. When I went with the Seasons, they did not make me a partner in the group. So I was not privy to most of their business. I was an employee, I actually worked for the group. As a result I didn't know too much about what was going on at the business end. We would talk amongst ourselves but as far as detail like that went, I had no idea.

You've never publicly to my knowledge stated why you left. Now I have to say that I do know, I've since been told a reason by someone who should know, the Seasons' attorney. Is this something you'd care to talk about?

I don't know what Peter might have told you. I can tell you what it looked like from my perspective. After Bob left we went through a whole series of replacement guys. The further we got into that area, the less connection there was with these guys and the old group, and I told you before I respected what the group had done. The new guys like Lee Shapiro, I'm not sure he was born when "Sherry" came out, you know. Their whole musical idea was very different from mine. At the same time Gaudio, and this was from my perspective, this was how I looked at it, he had visions of separating the group. Sending the 4 Seasons out as a group and sending Frankie out as an act on his own, splitting them, which he actually did do. He attempted it but it didn't work. Meantime, and word came back to me through the back up musicians, certain guys on the band were saying "Joe Long is like a dinosaur and he's holding us back and we'll never be able to make it on our own with Joe. We need a fresher, younger thinking guy". And I think Bobby began to agree with them, you know. Now this is my perspective. So we talked about it. I was beginning to feel a lot negativity and a lot of pressure from the other guys anyway by this time. They weren't that happy that I was around. Plus I represented, again in my mind, a throwback to the old guys so "get rid of the last vestige of the old regime and now we got our own little kingdom out here, you know?" And so Bob decided that maybe it was better if I wasn't there. That was my idea of what happened but I think it's only fair that you tell me what Peter said.

Sure. What he said was that you approached the Partnership with a view to being made a partner and that was rejected, and that was it.

I never asked to be a partner. I did ask at times for a little better cut of the pie but I think that's normal. You get a job, you think you're doing a good job. When I first came into the band I was hired as Nicky's replacement. Within a year I was Mc'ing the band, I was conducting the musicians whenever we used an augmented orchestra. I was going out doing promotions. I was actually doing more than what Nicky was doing.

I must stop you because even if Peter's version is the absolute truth, I don't think any reasonable person who knew the 4 Seasons, who knew what you meant to the fans and the work that you did, which you just mentioned, I don't think anybody would think that a request like that would be unreasonable, after the length of time that you were there.

Thank you. I don't think that would be unreasonable either although I never did say, "Make me a partner or I'm gone".

Were you disappointed with the way it was handled?

Oh absolutely, absolutely. I felt that my loyalty meant nothing. That the 11 or 12 years that I spent with them meant nothing because I was very easily dispensed with in favor of three other guys who had no loyalty. I hope I'm not sounding vicious on this Stuart but I was disappointed. I don't think I would have stayed much longer with the band anyway because I didn't like the direction the band was taking but the way it was handled I thought was just not proper.

Was it the suddenness of the decision or the way it was dealt with afterwards in terms of the .............

They treated me OK. I was earning money from them for a year afterwards, pretty good money as a matter of fact. It was a separation.

They continued to pay you for a year after you left?

Oh yeah. They treated me very well. They treated me well throughout the whole thing. There was a time back in '66 when I married my first wife. I saw a nice house in suburban New Jersey and they actually gave me the down payment for it. Just wrote out a check. When the group at the end of the year had disposable income, they used to use it to buy automobiles or clothing and I was always part of that. 1970 we went out and bought four Cadillac Eldorados and the next year bought four more. Or clothing at the end of the year like, "Let's go out and buy ourselves new wardrobes." They treated me very, very well until the time that I mentioned.

Do you think that was just down to discomfiture in that it's very, very difficult, I'm trying to look at it now from Bob and Frankie's point of view but for somebody who you've worked with for some time, who's a very integral part of the set up, somebody that you probably like a great deal as well. To turn round and terminate that person's employment must have been difficult to say the least.

It must have been tough on them. Really tough. Frankie wasn't even in the country when it happened. He was over in your country. Frankie went over to England. I sometimes wonder whether he wanted to be as far away as possible from the whole thing. It must have been a very, very tough thing for them to have to do. I'm not angry for what they did. I'm angry for the way they did it.

What would your attitude be if in the unlikely event they decided to do a reunited tour with yourself, Bob, Frankie and Tommy? If you were approached, what would your attitude be to that request?

I would do it in a heartbeat. The reason I would do it is first of all, just to do it, just to go back and put that group back together again, if only for like a month or two. But here's another reason. I would like to earn the money to get my daughter through college for example. My son, (Joe laughs) he's hopeless, I'm not going to worry about him. But you know what, this might sound very weird to you Stuart but I would want my kids to see me up there with them. I would really want them to be sitting out in that audience and looking up and seeing me. They've seen me on T.V., on tapes, they hear me on records, they've seen pictures but they've never really seen me perform. Joey came close. A very dear friend of mine, Joe Demeo who was very close to the band contracted lung cancer. The group did a benefit for him and I was asked to MC the show. Later in the show I went up and I did some songs with the group and my son, who was only about 6 or 7 at the time was yelling, "That's my dad, that's my dad!"

What year was this Joe?

Maybe '88, '89, maybe '90.

And it was for Joe Demeo?

Joe was a very dear friend of the band. He was an Essex County policeman and at a very young age he developed lung cancer and died. Being that close to the band, Frankie decided to do the benefit which was very admirable and they asked me to MC. So I MC'd the show and later went up on stage and performed with them. I've been on stage with them a couple of times. I was at Cape Cod and I went to see a show and Frankie asked me to go up on stage. So there have been times when I have been up there with them subsequent to leaving.

I don't know if you've mentioned this before to fans but I wasn't aware of that.

Yeah, I did a couple of little guest spots. But I would love my kids to just see a show. And I'm sure if it was that group, Tommy, Bob, Frankie and me, there'd be a lot of the old group in there. There'd be the comedy, the humour, the adlibs, and I would love for my kids to see that.

How much subsequent contact after you left was there between you and Frankie and Bob? With the passage of time did it gradually decrease?

Definitely. I saw Frankie quite a bit. I used to go and see some shows back then and we would get together and spend some time. I still see Tommy. I'm in touch with him. He lives out west a couple of thousand miles from here but when he's back here on the East Coast we often times get together and talk a little bit. In fact the last time I saw Tommy, he threw himself a birthday party. Tommy, Joe Pesci, Frankie Vincent another actor were there and we all kind of hung out and relived old days. We used to produce records for Pesci back in the 60's. So it was an old timers kind of thing. I've seen Bob only once since I left the group and that was when Frankie married Randy. It's odd too because Bob and I had gotten to be so close when I was in the band. Whatever I might know about rock music and recording I learnt from Bob. He's a very brilliant man.

Is he anti-social?

No. Bob's shy. He's very shy. In fact that's the reason I think he left performing. He dreaded going on stage. He'd get very nervous. He'd stand up there with this look on his face that people thought was condescending or whatever but it was really fright. Bobby really, really didn't like performing.

When you went back and saw the occasional show, what was it like for you, sitting in the audience watching?

Not bad. I don't suffer from an ego. That's why I was able to get out of the whole thing as easily as I did. It was great going to see shows. I really enjoyed going. I know there are a lot of performers who get out of the "limelight" and then go to pieces because they can't live out of the limelight but that never bothered me. I have no ego Stuart, unfortunately.

What was your feeling about the debacle, because I think that's the best way to describe it regarding the Hall of Fame and your omission from that?

That was another thing I was disappointed about. I didn't think that Nicky should not have been there but I thought I should have been. I think there should have been five awards! Of course Nicky was a founder and that goes a long way but I spent I guess 6 of the most productive years that the group had, as a part of that group. I thought they should have considered having me along.

Were you aware that Frankie pressed to get you included?

I heard that after the fact, but I didn't know it at the time. At the time all I felt was that they had a chance to get me there and they didn't. And then I heard all these excuses like. "Well you had to be an original" and I said, "That's a load of baloney". Here's what I was thinking back then Stuart: If those three guys really wanted me there, I would have been there.

That's interesting. The brutal conclusion that one might draw from that was that they didn't want you there enough. Can you put your finger on the reason for that?

No, and I'm not even sure that is the reason but that's the one that comes to mind. It might have been where they were told by the committee "You know, if he's not an original he can't be here, if he didn't spend so much time etc." They might have told the guys that and the guys might have said OK without pressing it. But I think if they'd pressed hard enough I would have been there. But it doesn't really matter because my late wife and my son's godmother threw me a Hall of Fame Party and I was elected into my own Hall of Fame. My son's godmother, Marianne Maloney had her late uncle who was a machinist make a gold record for me, a plaque. We got all these great decorations and they decorated the house. Had all my friends over, they inducted me. So screw 'em right?!

Indeed, screw 'em! That's brilliant. Now you mentioned your first wife. Who was that?

Laura Pomponio, it was '67 we got married.

Oooh, of course. I hadn't realized you got married then. Of course I remember her well. I met her a few times, even wrote to her.

Did you really?

I'd complained at the time I remember that I wasn't getting much information out of your then management.......

So what else is new?

True. She very kindly said........

How did you wind up getting in touch with Laura?

It was when you came to the UK, when you were still married.

She accompanied me that first time, yeah. Well how about that, OK. Well we got married in '67 but eventually it, you know, blew apart. We divorced around '78 or 79 but after a long separation. Then I met Pam. Pam was a big fan of the group and I knew Pam as a follower of the group. But then we began to date and we got married in 1980. Pam died of leukemia.

That must have been an extremely painful period of your life.

Yeah, yeah, more painful for my kids. Joey was 14 or so at the time and Kimmy was 6 or 7. To see her go...... Pam and I were separated at that time by the way Stuart, we weren't together but we were together enough. It was a strange kind of separation, we remained best friends. I don't know if you know anybody that's passed away with leukemia but it's a horrible disease. She went from being a very pretty young blond girl to a ...well, I can't even describe how she looked. And to have my kids see that. My daughter still has nightmares.

Still?

Still. And there are times she kind of just breaks down and I've had them both in therapy. There are often times she'll be sitting, something will trigger a memory and she'll just start crying. Tough, really tough. Thank god memory has a way of eliminating the bad parts and you retain the good memories. So there are fewer and fewer bad memories of Pam and Kimmy is now more remembering the times when Pam was young and vital and healthy. But there are still occasions when those demons sneak through and make her very upset.

What about you though Joe?

I miss her a lot. She was very important to me and, yeah I do, I'm getting choked up here Stuart. I do miss her.

Have you given any thought to marrying again?

I dated a little bit afterwards and then when Pam got sick I became Mr. Mom. I was raising a young boy who was angry at the world because of what happened. Joey went through a bad, bad period of time. And then I had Kimmy. She was only young, she was only a kid of 7 or 8 years old and I guess I didn't have time for anything else in my life. That's a time I got out of everything except raising those kids and it still stands to this day. Joey is now 21 and out on his own. He still lives here but he's basically his own person. But Kimmy is 13 and still needs a full time parent. I have no desire to do anything else. I don't know if that's good or bad, but that's how I feel about it.

Well, I was just thinking, you know Kimmy will eventually obviously reach adulthood and........

GAh, I'll be an old fart by then. What's the difference? She'll take care of me. I don't think I'd try and coral a woman at that point Stuart.

Employment wise after you left the group, how did you go on after that?

My first thing after leaving the group was, I mentioned Al and Jet Loring before? By this time it was Al Nittoli, he went back to his real name and he and I got together and we put together a band we called LaBracio. That was 5 guys and two girls. The band was working very steadily on the east coast and then we recorded some original stuff, in fact some of the stuff I think Frankie (Rovello) released some of it to the website, and we came very close to getting a record deal. But it would have involved moving, at one point it would have involved going down to South America for a while. Most of the band who were young kids didn't really want to do that. So the band blew up because to keep a 7 person band working without a record deal is next to impossible. So that broke up but Al and I stayed together with one of the girls out of the group, a girl named Sharman Howe. Sharman is a piano player and very good singer and we found this young drummer who was originally from Minneapolis out in the mid west and who had since moved to New Jersey to study with Joe Morello who was Dave Brubeck's drummer. He was a very accomplished young man. And we hired Steve and we put together a jazz band we called Jersey Bounce. We worked up and down the coast; a lot of work in Atlantic City and New York City. Because it was a jazz group jobs were selective. We didn't work everywhere anywhere, but it was a very, very good band. All four-way vocals, we did old swing out of the thirties and forties and oldies out of the 50's. Everybody sang, everybody had a good time, it was a good band. That band lasted for 3 years. But I was raising a young child, Pam and I had a young boy and I needed something more substantial so I went back to school, took some computer science courses and then went to work as a programmer for Dunne and Bradstreet. While I was there I continued playing but on a part time basis. I did that until I just got tired of work, I guess and I retired and moved down the Shore. Actually I moved while I was still at Dunne and Bradstreet, I live about 5 minutes from the ocean. Basically I wanted Joey to be raised in a better environment. I was living up north, I don't know if you know too much about New Jersey but the northern part of the State is very industrialized and very commercial and very urbanized. With the central and southern part of the State you wouldn't think you were in the same place. Lots of woods, lots of farmland and the seashore. That's very nice. So I moved down here. Then Pam got sick and I guess that was the reason I left work altogether because the sicker she got the more the kids needed attention and I couldn't give them all the time that I felt they needed. So I left work, and that's it. More recently I have been playing on and off with a blues trio, guitar, bass and drums, doing a lot of Stevie Ray Vaughn kind of stuff.

You've been playing professionally or just jamming?

Yes, we play local clubs. We haven't played for a while because of another misfortune. I'm like full of sad news here. The guitar player's wife suddenly got sick and passed away from a brain tumor. That kind of took the wind out of his sails so we disbanded temporarily. We'll probably put it back together again.

What did it feel like when you went to Dunne and Bradstreet and got a "regular" job as opposed to being an entertainer? Was there a period of readjustment?

No, I told you earlier I'm not cursed with a fat ego so I knew that I had to do something else. And if I wasn't going to play music I was going to be involved in computers. That's still a big love of mine. I love computers and I love working with them. Of course what I was doing wasn't like sitting at home going on the Internet. I was doing programming and maintenance work using mainframe equipment. It was computing and it was something that I enjoyed doing. Musicians and programmers have a kind of symbiotic relationship because I think reading a musical score and reading computer code is very similar. There's no ambiguity. Black is black. It's not half a shade of grey and it's the same thing with a music score. If you're in the key of B flat it's not like it's almost B flat. It is B flat and if you go to the coda you don't go to the bar maybe before the coda, you go right to the coda. So musicians make good programmers because they're trained not to be ambiguous. They're trained to be very analytical. So I was dealing with people who reminded me of musicians so we got along very well.

Memorable incidents when you were working with the Seasons. Anything that stands out?

A lot of crazy things happened but two of them stand out though. One is, Bobby and Frankie liked to sleep late and we found ourselves being late, missing airplanes, missing deadlines. Tommy who was the kind of self appointed road manager one day called us in to a meeting and says, "From now on, I'm taking charge of our travels. I'll get you guys up. I'll make sure we get to the airport, I'll make sure that we get on the airplane. I'm in charge and if somebody isn't there, they're going to have to pay. There will be a fine." That was OK with me because I was always early and Bobby and Frankie were the ones that were going to have to pay up. Anyway, Tommy gets us up the next morning, we were on the road at the time, checks the schedule and it's for Bowling Green, he says in Indiana. Fine. We were driving. We were doing a number of jobs in the Midwest and they were within driving distance so we rented a couple of cars. So we drove to Bowling Green in Indiana to the university and when we got there, there was no activity. Everything's closed down. The field house is locked up. We don't see our trucks around, they should have been there by then. It was really crazy so we started looking for someone and we found one of the custodians and we said, "We're the 4 Seasons. We're here for the concert tonight". They guy said, "I don't know of any concert. Maybe you should go and check with the Dean of Activities." So we looked up the Dean, we found him and he said, "There's no concert here tonight." So Tommy gets very insulted and very loud and says, "What do you mean there's no concert? Here it is right here; Bowling Green Indiana." So the guy says, "Well this Bowling Green Ohio". We went to the wrong dam State! Needless to say we missed the show. The next one that I can think of was this. We were the first rock group, when we decided to expand into nightclubs, to play The Empire Room at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York City. Very prestigious room. We got all nice new white outfits and white shoes, we decked ourselves out real well. At that time, the orchestra would play a medley of Seasons hits while we got ready to come on, and then on cue we would run up on stage. It used to be that I went up first, then Frankie then Tommy then Bobby, so we were in size place order when we got on stage. Two tall guys on the end and two smaller guys in the middle. And we had brand new shoes on and I had not scrapped the bottom of the soles so they were slippery. I remember saying to the guys, "OK, here comes our cue. Now lets get out there and lets really look sharp." By the way, Sinatra was in the audience, half of the New York elite was in the audience including this guy Tim Mortimer. He was a Broadway columnist. I ran up the steps to get to the stage. When my shiny new shoes hit that polished stage, my feet started to slide out from under me. I was like flying across the stage headfirst. As I approached for a landing, I put my hands down to break the fall and then I realized there were some nails on the stage that the previous drummer had used to anchor his drums and I ripped my left hand on the nails. So anyway, I got up, the guys followed me looking like, "What the hell just happened?" We got around the mike. The first song we did in that show was "Love you more today than yesterday" and as we started off with "I, love you more…." Gaudio and I would put our hands out. I put my left hand out, he put his right hand out as a stage gesture. So I put my hand out and blood was dripping from it. So Gaudio saw the blood and almost fainted and like everything stopped. He band kept vamping but nobody was singing. So I went up to the mike and I said, "That's the worst trip I've ever been on!"

Presumably the house collapsed?

It took the edge off and the next day this guy Mortimer wrote me up in the New York Daily News. I made his column! We got a good review and he mentioned the whole thing.

Can you remember the biggest audience that you appeared in front of when you were with them?

The biggest audience I appeared in front of would have to be L.A. W did the Coliseum. It seats about 70,000 and it was jam-packed. It's a football field and the ground was completely filled too. They estimated there was close to 90,000 people there. The group had played in New Orleans at an outdoor venue where there was supposedly over 100,000 people.

Is it very intimidating to go out in front of that many people?

No. Not really. Once you're used to playing in front of people, it doesn't matter whether there's 5 or 5,000 or 50,000. They're people. The audience didn't intimidate me as much as the venue itself. Like for example the first time we played with Sinatra opening for him, I had such stage fright which I hadn't had for years that I almost had diarrhea. That would make me more nervous, the venue itself, the quality of the venue or who was on it as opposed to how many people were in the audience.

So you were intimidated by whoever may have been appearing with you if it was somebody you respected?

Exactly.

You came to the United Kingdom for the first time in 1971. Do you remember thinking, "Gosh, these people are different" or "These audiences are different"?

Absolutely.

They were? Can you say how?

Positively so. The UK audiences are great. I just can't remember when I felt so much warmth coming up from an audience. Entertainers talk about getting off the edge of the stage meaning your personality, your performance. If you can't get it off the edge of the stage and into the audience, it ain't gonna happen. The audience is not going to relate to it. So you would try hard to project whatever it is you were doing. Whether it was singing, dancing, playing, telling jokes, as we used to say you get it off the edge of the stage and into the audience. And we've have audiences here in America who would get onto the stage with their personality, with their feelings. But in the UK it was almost every night. It was just this flow that came on stage. You could feel it. First of all I'm very partial to your country, I love it. I love the people, I love the country, I love the accent. I love the UK and if your weather wasn't so bloody awful, I'd probably be living there. So I went there already looking forward to being there. The audiences were marvelous.

What other countries did you play in with the Seasons?

Never played in any other countries.

I thought you went on elsewhere after the UK. Have you not played in Europe or South Africa? So it was just the UK and nowhere else.

Right.

I must say Joe, the last time I spoke to you was more than 30 years ago and your voice hasn't changed in the slightest. And I just want to thank you personally Joe. You were always the most approachable and not only that, you put yourself out. You probably don't remember this but it might have been the mid or early 70's I might have come to America for the first time. You gave me your then number.....

What show did you come to? Where did you see us?

Well actually I first came to New York and I don't think you were performing there but you'd given me your number and said give me a call and maybe we can get together.

I can remember that. I can vaguely remember talking to someone but I thought it was at a show.

I later went on to Miami where you were performing in a club down there, but I'm sure most fans from that period will have similar memories of you. Really on behalf of all of us I want to thank you for the personal touch, because it was very, very much appreciated. In many ways it was one of the things that left us scratching our heads after you left. It was "Who's doing Joe's job?" There was nobody really before and in truth there's not really been anybody since that connected with the fans as you did.

Thank you Stuart and I can't tell you how much I appreciate those kind of words. To this day I do like to snoop around some of the sites. I like to browse and every once in a while I throw my 2 cents in but to see that 30 years after the fact, people still remember me and still think well of me

Oh very fondly.

You have no idea how comforting and how nice that is. I guess people like to be remembered and they like to be remembered in a positive way.

Well that certainly applies to you Joe.

Well thank you very much. I really do appreciate those words.