The prompt failures of Good Vibrations (The Beach Boys), All Shook Up (Elvis) and Lennon (you guessed it) on Broadway have led to the death knell being sounded for the jukebox musical, constructed — whether as new book musical, biographical revue or simply songbook showcase — out of the back catalogues of past (or sometimes just passed-it) musical greats. But last night’s Broadway opening of Jersey Boys — built out of the lives and pop careers of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons - may just have single-handedly revived the form, since this morning’s reviews have been almost uniformly favourable, and more importantly prove that if the songs are good enough, there’s always an audience for well-packaged nostalgia. Even if the group itself has largely faded from popular memory, the songs most certainly haven’t, and the back-story to how the group came into existence proves to be surprisingly compelling, too….
The season is duly simultaneously seeing jukebox shows built out of John Denver’s catalogue — Almost Heaven, opening this Wednesday’s at off-Broadway’s Promenade Theatre — and Ring of Fire, a new revue based around the songs made famous by Johnny Cash, heading to Broadway’s Barrymore Theatre next February.
