February 27, 2009

No musician wants his handiwork to put audiences asleep, but in the case of “Jersey Babys,” it could be the ultimate compliment.

Released by Rhino Records last June in the wake of the hit musical “Jersey Boys,” which tells the story of the Four Seasons, the disc reconfigures the group’s music into lullabies and jaunty, playtime music. The biggest hits are represented, including “Big Girls Don’t Cry,” “Rag Doll,” “Silence is Golden” and “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You.”

It was available on the merchandise table when “Jersey Boys” set up shop at the Benedum Center in January, and is the brainchild of Danielle Gaudio-Lalehzar, the 42-year-old daughter of Four Seasons’ songwriter Bob Gaudio.

“It’s a better time to reach the moms who are having babies,” said Lalehzar, who is herself a stay-at-home mom with two young children. “Because we’re also going to be the people who are going to Broadway shows, and are maybe not as familiar with the Four Seasons’ music.”

A small industry has cropped up in recent years when it comes to giving pop music kid-friendly makeovers. Melodies made famous by Elvis Presley, the Beach Boys, Bob Marley, and even Metallica and Nirvana have been remade for the Barney-and-animal-crackers crowd, and Lalehzar first came up with the idea for a Four Seasons-for-kids disc when she heard “Beatles For Babies” at a friend’s house.

“My husband and I used to listen to it in the car all the time,” Lalehzar said from her home on Long Island two weeks ago. “I kept saying to my Dad, I want to have one of these with your music.”

It wasn’t a whole lot more than a “one-of-these-days” proposition until “Jersey Boys” bowed on Broadway in 2005 and became a critically acclaimed hit.

“It’s all about timing, and I’m happy that it happened later,” Lalehzar explained. “When I finally heard the final version, it brought me to tears, because it was so much better than I expected.”

Gaudio and Robby Robinson, the longtime arranger for Four Seasons frontman Frankie Valli, produced the CD. The cover art, which plays off the boys-in-the-spotlight images of the “Jersey Boys” posters and programs, was created by Shannon Gaudio, Lalehzar’s brother.

How many copies has it sold so far? “I don’t know exactly, but not as many as I would like,” she said. “Because a lot of people really don’t know about it, and that’s my task, to try to get the word out there.”

Seeing the most turbulent portion of her father’s life played out on-stage has been bittersweet for Lalehzar. She was born in October 1966, just as the Four Seasons’ success in the early-to-mid-1960s was starting to ebb, and she recalls that her father “wasn’t around very much” when she was growing up.

“Basically, for anybody in the music business, the family at home suffers. It brought back a little bit of sadness, because for all the success, there was a lot of suffering for many people. But (”Jersey Boys”) is wonderful.”

Lalehzar has seen “Jersey Boys” about 15 times now, and feels driven to expose her father’s music to listeners who weren’t around when it first turned up on the radio and in record stores.

“It’s innocent, great music. And I feel that any children who are exposed to that music, and even teenagers, if they’re exposed to it, how can they not like it?”

For information on “Jersey Babys,” go online to www.jerseybabys.com.