Frankie Valli

It has been a long wait for Frankie Valli fans, but the falsetto-voiced singer is preparing to get back into a recording studio. "I can't remember when my last album was - that's how long it has been," said Valli, who last night began a four-day engagement at the Tropicana. "To tell the truth, I just had no interest in the studio. I've been hearing what's out there, what's being played on the radio. "I'm just happy I'm not starting out in the music business today. I would never make it. The music, the values today, well, none of it is where I'm coming from.

Casinos Bally's Atlantic City Park Place & The Boardwalk, Atlantic City; 609-340-2000. www.ballysac.com . Legends in Concert. $32.50. 6/8. Karaoke Night. 6/14. Borgata Hotel & Casino 1 Borgata Way, Atlantic City; 609-317-1000. www.theborgata.com . Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons. $55-$65. 6/8. Sting. $96-$196. 6/9. 8 pm. Harrah's Philadelphia Casino & Racetrack 777 Harrah's Blvd., Chester; 484-490-1800. www.harrahschester.com . Drop Dead Sexy.

Jersey Boys , which will end its five-week run at the Forrest Theatre on Saturday, set records when the national tour was here last winter - and now it's setting new ones. The musical, still playing 90 miles away on Broadway, has done very well since it crossed over the home of the Jersey boys and into Pennsylvania, with a record gross for the Forrest of $1,617,700 for a week of eight performances that ended Jan. 8. The Tony-winning musical about the singing group the Four Seasons with Frankie Valli began here Dec. 6 with an all-new national tour cast.

EVERY TIME I turn on the news, there's another murder in Philadelphia. Born and raised here, it breaks my heart. An election is coming up, and everyone has a "solution. " They say there are no jobs. But you have to crawl before you walk. I graduated from college in 1972, and jobs were almost impossible to find. I worked for the minimum wage at Strawbridge's for two years. When they asked me to work on my days off, I was there. A great experience! Before leaving, the company offered me a position in management.

Sheldon H. Ginsberg, 46, a noted jazz musician whose compositions filled East Coast concert halls and the Broadway shows West Side Story and Kiss Me Kate, died of cancer yesterday at his home in Collingswood. Mr. Ginsberg, a major contributor to the jazz scene, played trombone, bass trombone, euphonium and tuba with some of the country's most popular musicians and comedians. He performed with Arsenio Hall, Dom DeLuise and Red Buttons at Atlantic City casino showrooms between 1979 and 1990.

Back in the late 1980s, when the Pet Shop Boys flaunted their anti-rock inauthenticity, Neil Tennant once justified a lip-synched TV performance with the quip, "I quite like proving that we can't cut it live. " That was long before the graying Boys - singer Tennant is 47, and keyboard player Chris Lowe is 42 - brought out the new Release, in which the dance-pop duo employs warm guitar textures and subdued grooves more suitable for listening to on the sofa than under a disco ball.

While the story told by "Jersey Boys" could pass for fiction, it pretty much portrays actual events in the lives of the four Newark, N.J.-area performers who sold more than 100 million records between 1962 and 1978. The group had its roots in the 1950s, when falsetto-voiced singer Frankie Valli (born Francis Castelluccio in 1937) joined forces with brothers Tommy and Nick DeVito and Hank Majewski to form a doo-wop-inspired quartet that was first known as the Varitones, then as the Four Lovers.

No one was going to rain on Betty Paglia's parade Sunday afternoon when she began dancing in the streets. The South Philadelphia woman has attended the Columbus Day parade for 40 years and appeared a natural when Joe "Asti" Pomante, 51, captain of the Durning String Band from Barrington, took her by the hand for a few twirls along South Broad Street. Paglia, 66, and neighbor Millie Aros, 68, live near the parade route, which ran from Morris Street to Oregon Avenue and ended with a festival at Marconi Plaza.

FUNNYMAN Joe Piscopo will perform publicly in his Frank Sinatra get-up for the first time since "Saturday Night Live. " On Aug. 28, the Jersey-born entertainer's show, "That's Life," comes to the Circus Maximus theater at Caesars Atlantic City, along with singer Michael Longoria , who played Frankie Valli in "Jersey Boys" on Broadway. Piscopo, a multi-instrumentalist, will play drums, guitar, piano, sax, flute and also appear as Bruce Springsteen . As far as his Sinatra garb, Piscopo told us yesterday that he had to dig around the basement of his home in Hunterdon County, N.J., to find the bow-tie and pinkie ring he wore as Sinatra, or "The Old Man," as he calls him, from his "SNL" days.

ASBURY PARK, N.J. - Mrs. Govett did not mince words on the report card of the second grader named Jack Nicholson at the Roosevelt Elementary School in Neptune. "Jack's work is excellent, but he needs more self control. " Is it any wonder that young Jack grew up to be the arguably still out-of-control actor whose work is nevertheless considered excellent? Nicholson's prescient and insightful report card - undated but presumably circa 1944, when he would have been 7 - is one of a handful of donated artifacts at the inaugural exhibition of the New Jersey Hall of Fame, which opened Wednesday on the boardwalk in Asbury Park.

No one was going to rain on Betty Paglia's parade Sunday afternoon when she began dancing in the streets. The South Philadelphia woman has attended the Columbus Day parade for 40 years and appeared a natural when Joe "Asti" Pomante, 51, captain of the Durning String Band from Barrington, took her by the hand for a few twirls along South Broad Street. Paglia, 66, and neighbor Millie Aros, 68, live near the parade route, which ran from Morris Street to Oregon Avenue and ended with a festival at Marconi Plaza.

MICHAEL J. FOX has decided to quit loafing around the house and go back to full-time work. The 51-year-old actor - can you believe that? - is pitching a sitcom based on his life, and given his track record ("Family Ties," "Spin City," "Back to the Future," a best-selling autobiography) he probably has a good chance to get it on the air. Vulture.com reports that Fox has teamed with writer Sam Laybourne ("Arrested Development," "Cougar Town") and director Will Gluck ("Easy A")

Casinos Bally's Atlantic City Park Place & The Boardwalk, Atlantic City; 609-340-2000. www.ballysac.com . Legends in Concert. $32.50. 6/8. Karaoke Night. 6/14. Borgata Hotel & Casino 1 Borgata Way, Atlantic City; 609-317-1000. www.theborgata.com . Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons. $55-$65. 6/8. Sting. $96-$196. 6/9. 8 pm. Harrah's Philadelphia Casino & Racetrack 777 Harrah's Blvd., Chester; 484-490-1800. www.harrahschester.com . Drop Dead Sexy.

Fans ask Jersey Boys star Jarrod Spector one question more frequently than any other: "Is that your real voice?" The Philadelphia native will showcase that voice Thursday night when he takes a break from his falsetto-intensive Broadway role as pop legend Frankie Valli   . He'll give a free performance in the Live from Loews concert series, recounting his journey to the spotlight. The stories, like the well-trained voice, are all his. In "Minor Fall, Major Lift," a 70-minute memoir in music, Spector will drop the accent he assumes for the Broadway hit about '60s hit-makers the Four Seasons.

CASINOS QUEEN OF POP Of all the "champions" who have come out of "American Idol," you'd be hard-pressed to find one with a more explosive post-"Idol" career than Kelly Clarkson, who on Sunday headlines Trump Taj Mahal Hotel Casino. The show's first winner has staked out some pretty impressive turf in the pop realm, releasing five albums since she beat out local Justin Guarini during the groundbreaking TV competition's first season. Her latest CD, "Stronger," recently debuted on the Billboard magazine charts at No. 2. Opening for Clarkson on her current road trip is singer-songwriter Matt Nathanson.

Jersey Boys , which will end its five-week run at the Forrest Theatre on Saturday, set records when the national tour was here last winter - and now it's setting new ones. The musical, still playing 90 miles away on Broadway, has done very well since it crossed over the home of the Jersey boys and into Pennsylvania, with a record gross for the Forrest of $1,617,700 for a week of eight performances that ended Jan. 8. The Tony-winning musical about the singing group the Four Seasons with Frankie Valli began here Dec. 6 with an all-new national tour cast.

WHERE would "Jersey Boys" be without the "Jersey Girls"? The success of the world-beating Broadway musical about 1960s chart-toppers the Four Seasons may ultimately depend on the individual and collective talents of the male actors who portray the four musicians from North Jersey in the tune-filled, rags-to-riches story that's on the Forrest Theatre stage through Jan. 14. But without Kaleigh Cronin, Natalie Gallo and Ruby Lewis, there wouldn't be...

The region's newest soap-opera actor is a kindergartner. Plymouth Meeting's Patrick Gibbons Jr. , 5, premieres Dec. 22 on ABC's One Life to Live as Sam Manning. Through plot twists that only daytime writers can muster, Sam is the son of Todd Manning ( Trevor St. John ) and was adopted by Blair Cramer ( Kassie DePaiva ). From birth, Sam had been played by sets of twins. Patrick was discovered by Barbara Kline , manager of his teen sister Anna-Marie , a model-actress.

ASBURY PARK, N.J. - Mrs. Govett did not mince words on the report card of the second grader named Jack Nicholson at the Roosevelt Elementary School in Neptune. "Jack's work is excellent, but he needs more self control. " Is it any wonder that young Jack grew up to be the arguably still out-of-control actor whose work is nevertheless considered excellent? Nicholson's prescient and insightful report card - undated but presumably circa 1944, when he would have been 7 - is one of a handful of donated artifacts at the inaugural exhibition of the New Jersey Hall of Fame, which opened Wednesday on the boardwalk in Asbury Park.

While the story told by "Jersey Boys" could pass for fiction, it pretty much portrays actual events in the lives of the four Newark, N.J.-area performers who sold more than 100 million records between 1962 and 1978. The group had its roots in the 1950s, when falsetto-voiced singer Frankie Valli (born Francis Castelluccio in 1937) joined forces with brothers Tommy and Nick DeVito and Hank Majewski to form a doo-wop-inspired quartet that was first known as the Varitones, then as the Four Lovers.