Bob Gaudio, who wrote the Four Seasons songs that Frankie Valli's soaring voice helped take to the top of the charts, and Joseph Leo Bwarie, who plays Frankie in the touring company of the Tony-winning "Jersey Boys," made the same point in separate conversations, using different cultural touchstones.

The point was: The Four Seasons were a hit because of the music, but their story remained mostly untold until the stage production took us inside their personal lives.

As such, "Jersey Boys" is more than just a jukebox musical in which hit songs are distributed throughout a made-up story. Familiar songs such as "Sherry," "Walk Like a Man," "Can't Take My Eyes Off of You" and "December, 1963 (Oh What a Night)" are sung in the context and chronology that produced them.

"We were not MTV boys," Gaudio said recently by phone from his Nashville home.

"There weren't those VH1 shows, 'Behind the Music,' or 'Inside the Actors' Studio,' there wasn't all that personal information being put out there. And no TMZ" gotcha moments, echoed Bwarie by phone from Denver, where he was playing Valli in the touring company that arrives in Pittsburgh tomorrow.

Audiences who have flocked to "Jersey Boys" since it opened on Broadway in November 2005 often come for the familiar music, the oldies stations' standards, the five No. 1 hits -- and to see if the stage version can hit the high notes that were the trademark of the real Frankie Valli.

What they get is the music, plus a story that unfolds like an arc of episodes from TV's "The Sopranos," in which wise guys and bad choices take their toll. Only in this case, perseverance and friendship get their just rewards.

For Gaudio, hearing his music played in a cinematic context was the first germ of the idea for the musical.

"We didn't have the luxury of hearing our music attached to a visual, and that can be extremely potent, as it was for me the first time I saw 'The Deer Hunter' [in 1978] and they used 'Can't Take My Eyes Off of You' in the pool-room scene before they shipped out. It's very affecting to me, and that was actually the beginning for me thinking about the possibility of ever doing a Broadway show. Through the years there have been many moments like that for me in movies."

For now, those moments take place on stage, in companies on Broadway, in Toronto and London, and soon, in Melbourne. China and Germany may also be on the horizon. And a movie version, says Gaudio, is definitely in the works, but not before the musical has a good long run on stages throughout the world.

Even as the story of the Four Seasons reveals surprises, there's still a concert atmosphere to "Jersey Boys." Gaudio admits it's still "astonishing" to him that people are connecting to music he wrote and performed in the '60s and '70s, and watching the audience, now as an audience member, is a perspective not too many performers ever get.

Bwarie, meanwhile, is experiencing that energy connection between performer and audience from the stage. It hits him "like a slap on the back," he says, when the group hits the first notes of "Sherry."

"Up until then, we're laying the groundwork down, giving a lot of the back story that got [the Four Seasons] to that first No. 1 hit, and when it happens, it's like popping a balloon," he said. "Everyone's been waiting and waiting and waiting -- when are those songs going to come? -- and then they come and they come right out of the gate, and they explode, and the energy that comes back at you, you don't feel that in many other musical theater scenarios."

There's a medley of "Sherry," "Walk Like a Man" and "Big Girls Don't Cry" that has produced mid-show standing ovations at some performances. Sometimes, there's an ovation after Bwarie as Frankie sings "Can't Take My Eyes Off of You."

"That doesn't happen in any other show that I could ever imagine," Bwarie said.

While Bwarie has had the benefit of coaching from both Gaudio and Valli, Gaudio said it's easier for him to work with "the Frankies," because he observed Valli for so many years. Bwarie said that Gaudio has reminded him, "Don't get stuck in just sounding good or just trying to sound like Frankie. Because that was never the way the real Frankie approached the music; he always approached it from the heart."

Gaudio hasn't worked yet with Josh Franklin, who will portray him in Pittsburgh. But he's seen lots of "Bobs" on stage since "Jersey Boys" began.

"It's cliche, but it's certainly surreal," he marvels. "It's sometimes a little out-of-body experience. It's reliving my life with a 20-minute intermission."

Bwarie, on the other hand, has been living Valli's life for more than a year, in productions in Las Vegas, in Toronto, and now in cities like Denver and Pittsburgh, where the production runs for a month. He protects his voice like a pitcher protects his throwing arm, and he says he'll never tire of the role.

Someone else has caught on to his dedication to the part, too. He was hired to play a parking valet in the upcoming Disney remake of "Return to Witch Mountain," starring Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. His character's name, in the course of filming, was changed to "Frankie Valet."