The Four Seasons recorded at least a dozen singles that are woven into the fabric of pop. They were one of the very few American groups to withstand the Beatles-led British Invasion, and they'd sold 175 million records worldwide before they were 30.

Over the next four weeks, Paul Sexton tells the story of how an underachieving bunch of singers from the mean streets of New Jersey rose from several years in obscurity to international stardom. The centrepiece of the tale is the extraordinary relationship between lead singer Frankie Valli and the writer of many of their classics, Bob Gaudio, which began in the late 1950s and continues to this day on nothing more than what they now famously call a "Jersey handshake".

The series contains interviews with Valli and Gaudio as well as original Seasons member Tommy DeVito, the cast and crew of the New York production of Jersey Boys (including writers Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice and director Des McAnuff) and the writer and arranger respectively of many of their hits, Denny Randell and Charlie Calello. Other guests include Valli's contemporary Dion DiMucci and British record man Bob Fisher, a leading authority on the group.

In part one, Valli confides that as a young man he never wanted to be a pop singer, preferring the music of Stan Kenton and Dinah Washington. Gaudio explains how he suddenly became a pop star at just 15, as the writer of the Royal Teens' top three US hit of 1958, Short Shorts. There are examples of Valli's early work as a member of the Four Lovers, with fleeting American chart success as early as 1956, and on solo outings in such guises as Frankie Tyler.

This episode also tracks Gaudio's arrival as a Four Season and his formidable pairing with co-writer and producer Bob Crewe that led to the massive chart breakthrough of 1962, Sherry. And Sexton talks to actor-singer Ryan Molloy, as he prepares to take the stage for the first time before a London audience in the role of Frankie Valli in Jersey Boys.

This series first broadcast on Radio 2 in 2008. Show less