By Melissa Griegel . . .

John Lloyd Young delights his fans on stage doing what he does best: crooning to the tunes of old-time rock ‘n’ roll, Doo-Wop, and R&B. He has taken residence for the week at Feinstein’s/54 Below with shows from January 25th through the 30th at 7 pm nightly. The original Frankie Valli on Broadway in Jersey Boys, Young is the only American actor to have won all four major Broadway Awards as a Lead Actor for his debut performance – -the Tony Award, the Drama Desk Award, the Outer Critics Circle Award, and the Theatre World Award, he went on to win a Grammy for the cast album. Young is the lead vocalist on the now multi-platinum album.

Tommy Faragher

Along with Music Director and pianist Tommy Faragher, JLY has put together ten set-lists. “We kept busy during our ‘COVID vacation’,” he laughs. “We live in LA now but during the pandemic we would do live streams from Vegas every month to six weeks. We had to keep coming up with new songs to sing so people would tune in. We also got to do a live stream from Feinstein’s in LA.” The set lists include lots of songs from Jersey Boys and music of that era and also include tracks off his solo album My Turn. “In order to keep you coming back all week, I am going to put all the set lists in a hat and an audience will pick the next night’s set list.” That honor went to a Feinstein’s regular, Jo Ann Veneziano.

The night was filled with hit after hit as he encouraged people to clap along, and occasionally sing along, to favorites such as “December, 1963 (Oh What a Night)’, “In the Still of the Night” and “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You”. Faragher frequently sang background vocals as he accompanied Young at the piano. Young stepped away for a song to give Faragher the spotlight to sing “Bring It On Home”.

JLY

Each song was better than the next and the audience cheered every time he hit the high falsettos that many of the songs required. “Guys, you need to learn to sing like this. The ladies love it!” he joked. Listening to Young was like being in the room with Frankie Valli incarnate. His banter, friendly smile, dance moves, and amazing vocal range brought the songs to life. It’s no wonder Clint Eastwood chose Young to play Valli in the movie rendition of Jersey Boys.

In between songs, Young talked about meeting and becoming friends with some of the greats, such as Valli, Smokey Robinson, and others. He accompanied Robinson on the first Arts Delegation to Cuba. Young was appointed by President Barack Obama to the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities. He was sworn-in by Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan on November 21, 2013. During the Cuba trip, he sang a Smokey Robinson song that impressed Robinson so much that on the flight back, he sent his assistant to coach and asked Young to join him in first class.  

Jo Ann Veneziano with JLY

Young appreciated everyone who came to hear him sing at Feinstein’s. “Tommy and I had some dates in LA when Omicron first started to bang us over the head. We didn’t cancel. I said to Tommy that there was this famous quote from a Broadway figure that I first heard when I was just a student coming up wishing I would be on Broadway some day. It was ol’ Bo Jangles Robinson who said: ‘I give the same performance to an audience of ten that I do to an audience of ten thousand’. So, we didn’t know if we would have an audience last week in LA, and we didn’t know if we would have one tonight, but we did. So thank you everyone for coming out.”

The audience loved every bit of it and cheered for him to do an encore. He obliged with “Cara Mia” and a mash-up of “Working My Way Back to You” and “Sherry”. For the latter, he encouraged everyone to get up and sing and clap along with him. People were dancing in the aisles and no one wanted the night to be over. I highly recommend getting tickets to one of his shows this week. It will not disappoint. https://54below.com/

Photos by Melissa Griegel Photography

www.griegelphoto.zenfolio.com