Who sang the definitive versions of these doo-wop hits?

Cafe Society
1

I’ve heard these songs in various places and liked them all. I’d like to collect them, but I really don’t know who sings them. These are the titles, I think:

Walk Like a Man
Oh What A Night (1963) - has piano intro. I think there are a couple different versions.
The Lion Sleeps Tonight
Working My Way Back to You Babe
Everybody Plays the Fool
Stay Just a Little Bit Longer

The versions I’ve heard of “Walk Like A Man” and “Working My Way Back to You Babe” have a lead singer with a strong voice that goes into an extremely high falsetto, and gets a bit gritty at the lower ranges. I’m told this was Frankie Valli, but I’d like to confirm that. Also, is there a difference between “Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons” and just “The Four Seasons”? Are they two different groups?

2

WAGing, but I think “Walk Like a Man” was the OJs, and “Oh What A Night” was the BeeGees. “Stay” was Maurice Williams & the Zodiacs, according to the back of the Dirty Dancing soundtrack.

3

Working My Way Back To You was done twice by The Spinners. The second version is a disco’d up take on the slower original. I never heard Frankie Vallie’s version of the song.

My favorite version of Everybody Plays The Fool is from The Main Ingredient. Aaron Neville has an Aaron Nevilly cover.

4

Walk Like a Man - Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons
Oh What A Night (1963) - has piano intro. I think there are a couple different versions. - The Four Seasons
The Lion Sleeps Tonight - The Tokens
Working My Way Back to You Babe - Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons
Everybody Plays the Fool - The Main Ingredient
Stay Just a Little Bit Longer - Maurice Williams and the Zodiacs

5

Walk Like a Man - Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons
Oh What A Night (1963) - has piano intro. I think there are a couple different versions. - The Four Seasons (Frankie sings on this, but not lead)
The Lion Sleeps Tonight - Tokens
Working My Way Back to You Babe - Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons
Everybody Plays the Fool - Main Ingredient
Stay Just a Little Bit Longer - Maurice Williams

Four Seasons existed with and without Frankie Valli, but he’s the voice you’re thinking of. Frankie also had a solo career - I think his biggest solo hit was the theme from Grease (“Grease is the word…”)

6

“Walk Like a Man”, “Oh, What a Night (December '63)”, & “Working My Way Back to You” were Franki Valli and the Four Seasons (AKA "The Four Seasons)

“Working…” was also covered by the Spinners in the 70’s.

“The Lion Sleeps Tonight” - The Tokens (and later by Robert John)

“Everybody Plays the Fool” - Main Ingredient

“Stay” - Maurice Williams (also Franki Valli and Jackson Browne)

7

Whoops, looks like I got beaten to the punch here, but I’d like to bolster *Biggirl’s comment about the Spinners - their version of Working My Way Back to You is excellent. I do own the Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons version as well though, and I think it’s pretty close to being as good. BUT… the Spinners probably have the “definitive” version.

8

These songs ain’t “doo-wop.”

Possible exception for Maurice Williams and the Zodiacs(formerly the Gladiolas–the ORIGINAL 'Little Darlin .

They might be rock and roll but not “doo wop”

9

Then what IS doo-wop? How is it defined? What are these songs considered?

10

I don’t know what the official definition of doo-wop is, but I’m guessing it’s pretty much a capella, with vocalists providing the instrumentation in the form of “la la la” and “do wop sha-bop” stuff. The music you’ve asked about, I would personally classify as simply oldies.

11

Walk Like a Man - (1963): Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons

December 1963 (Oh What a Night) - (1976): Frankie Vallie and the Four Seasons. The actual title of this song is “December 1963,” not “Oh What a Night” and there’s actually only one hit version of it. However, it is endlessly confused with “Oh What a Night” by the Dells, a different song (the first line runs “Oh what a night/to love you, dear”). There are two different hit versions of that by the Dells, one from 1956 and one from 1969.

The Lion Sleeps Tonight. The definitive version is by the Tokens (1961) but it was remade in 1972 by Robert John.

Working My Way Back to You Babe - (1966): Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. Remade in 1980 by the Spinners.

Everybody Plays the Fool - (1972): The Main Ingredient. Remade 1991 by Aaron Neville.

Stay (Just a Little Bit Longer) - (1960): Maurice Williams and the Zodiacs. Remade 1964 by Frankie Vallie and the Four Seasons, and in 1978 by Jackson Browne.

“Stay” and “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” are pure doo-wop, no ifs ands or buts. They feature the distintive sound of doo wop: a lead singer backed by a vocal group which uses nonsense syllables in a rhythmic way (the “doo wops”). While doo wop can be a capella, it certainly doesn’t have to be, and most of the big doo wop hits had a backing band on them.

Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons were very heavily influenced by doo wop, but aren’t normally considered a doo wop group. That’s for a couple of reasons–first, doo wop was already dying out when the Four Seasons started to hit it big in the early 60s–it would have been considered uncool for them to associate themselves with an outre musical trend. Second, the Four Seasons tended not to use “doo wops,” and more typically stuck to straight harmonizing with the lead singer.

“Everybody Plays the Fool” is the odd man out here. It’s a straight 1970s soul song, with no connection to doo wop (other than both are forms of R&B)–the lead singer doesn’t even have vocal accompaniment.

12

Actually “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” was an update to an old song called “Weemaway” (not sure of the spelling). I remember hearing this version back in the 50s on the flip side of a more popular song, but can’t recall the artist.

For some reason, my memory keeps telling me that it was on the flip of the Jo Stafford hit “Shrimp Boat Are Comin’”, but I don’t think that’s right.

13

Question has been pretty much answered, especially in Wumpus’ detailed post, but I thought I’d just chime in by adding that, rather than waiting around for a proper message board response (not that we want you to stop posting, Lizard :smiley: ), you can find your song-singer questions answered quite rapidly on The All Music Guide website.

Here is their results page for “Walk Like A Man”. While the list is a little long, the square brackets after the album titles give the release year for easier process of elimination. You could look at how the number of entries for The Four Seasons is larger than anyone else, notice that it appears on an album from 1963, and investigate further from there to see if that’s the song you’re looking for (I notice that Jan & Dean released a song by that title in the same year, but the most familiar recording of “Walk Like A Man” doesn’t sound a thing like Jan & Dean. Also, there’s no way for the website to know if that is in fact the same song, they only track titles)

14

It’s a takeoff on an Yma Sumac song, also spelled phonetically. Now, SHE is something else!

I used to be annoyed by the 4 Seasons but in the last few years have really gotten to appreciate them. Love Frankie Valli’s turn on “Sopranos” - more of him next week.

15

Bingo!. And thanks for clearing up that brain fart for me. Also, it’s spelled “Wimoweh”, which is why my Yahoo search turned up zero.

16

I think the do-wop version of Oh What A Nite was done in the mid 1950s by the Dells.

17

Thanks Wumpus! I’m going to have to get some more of Frankie Valli’s stuff. He sure could wail.

18

CAPRIS, FLAMINGOS, KODAKS.

I’ll date myself and say that I can go back to the Alan Fredericks ‘Night Train’ show, on AM station WHOM.( I was in New York, by the way, but I’m not sure if it was a N.Y. station. Sometimes we could pick up Philly on the plastic AM radio .FM hadn’t come into popularity at that time, and, in fact, most radios were sold with only AM reception.

DELTAIRES, IMAGINATIONS, ROCKETONES.

Definitely broadcasting from N.Y., was Alan Freed, WINS AM, I think. These songs were our youth in the late fifties. Do you know that to this day, with the opening notes, I can sing along and nail the songs word for word.

EXCELLENTS, FIVE DISCS, STARLITES.

When you watch a movie like “Looking For An Echo’ with Armond Assante…( I bought it on DVD, but probably few saw it in the theaters) or, the opening shot in ‘A Bronx Tale’ with Robert DeNiro, with the accapella rendition of ‘Streets Of The Bronx’ by the group ‘Cool Change’, well, I get flashbacks you wouldn’t believe.

VIDEOS, EMBERS, PARAGONS

Doo Wop was a form of music that catered to the obscure. By that I mean, hundreds of groups…many hundreds…recorded ONE record, never to be heard from again, and sometimes that one record was all they needed in their neighborhood. ‘Yeh, that guy, the one who checks at the A&P?..yeh, him…have you heard the falsetto at the end of the song his group recorded?’

PYRAMIDS, TEENCHORDS, JESTERS.

Guys were looking for a break, they knew they were good, the neighborhood knew they were good. They stood in vestibules and on street corners, harmonizing their hearts out, appearing as opening acts for established groups at shows in Times Square or Palisades Amusement Park, in N.J.

VISIONS, RAINBOWS, CHARTS.

Many groups hit the right connection with a sponsor and a manager, and moved away from obscurity and into the limelight. Names you should recognize are the Flamingos, The Moonglows, Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers, The Five Satins, The Capris…as Doo Wop was fading, these guys moved on and,today, are still performing at oldies shows.

ENCOUNTERS, FRANKIE AND THE FASHIONS,DELNEROS.

The obscure groups? They live on in memories. They live on in my record collection, and they are residing on my juke box as we speak. DOO WOP LIVES!