Don Ciccone obit

Don Ciccone, Songwriter and Lead Singer of the Critters, Dies at 70

 He was not on the list.

Don Ciccone, singer/songwriter, passed away suddenly on October 8, 2016 at the age of 70. Don was the lead singer and songwriter of The Critters, whose hits in the 1960s included "Younger Girl" and the Billboard Charts #17 hit "Mr. Dieingly Sad" which he wrote for his first wife Kathleen. He was one of Frankie Valli's Four Seasons from 1972 through 1982 and as such, perhaps most famously, he sang an instantly recognizable falsetto vocal solo in the #1 hit “December 1963 "(Oh What a Night)”.

In the mid-1980’s he became the musical director and bassist for Tommy James and the Shondells collaborating with Tommy on many recordings. Don was also a successful jingle composer and solo artist with loyal fans around the world.

He is survived by his wife Stephanie Mennen Ciccone, his daughter Marli DeFilippis, his son D'Arcey Ciccone, his two grandchildren Atticus and Violet, and his siblings William Ciccone, Lucretia Mintel, and Teresa Hernandez.

He wrote “On February 14, 2014, I performed what I thought would be my most challenging project, my own one-man show of songs and stories. Thankfully it went well to a packed house, two standing ovations, and an encore. I'm pretty sure I'd like to "go out” with the memory of that one-man show.”

Services for Don will be in late October in New Jersey where he will be buried.

iccone was born in Jersey City, New Jersey, on February 28, 1946. He was the son of an immigrant father, Vito Ciccone, who owned and operated Bill Williams Auto Sales in the 1950s. From the age of 5, Ciccone grew up in a 56-room mansion in Plainfield, New Jersey.

During his time with the Critters, he wrote "Mr. Dieingly Sad", produced by Artie Ripp, which reached #17 for the group. He also wrote and recorded "There's Got to be a Word", which was later recorded and released by the Innocence in December 1966. Their version reached #34 on the charts. Facing the threat of being drafted into the Armed Forces, Ciccone left The Critters to enlist in the United States Air Force.

After Ciccone's time in the service, Frankie Valli recruited him to join a revamped lineup of The Four Seasons, where he played guitar and bass and contributed lead vocals to songs including "December, 1963 (Oh, What a Night)" and "Rhapsody". Ciccone was the original lead singer on the Seasons' comeback hit "Who Loves You" before Valli, who was overseas during the original recording, refused to relinquish his role as lead vocalist and replaced most of Ciccone's vocal with his own. After leaving the Four Seasons in 1981, he spent time running a commercial jingle business. He joined Tommy James and the Shondells as their bassist through 1987.

In the early 2010s, Ciccone, at the time performing with a partially re-formed Critters lineup, suggested to his former Four Seasons bandmate Lee Shapiro that they assemble a supergroup consisting of musicians assembled from other bands. Ciccone recruited his Critters bandmate Jimmy Ryan to join Shapiro and Gerry Polci (partially capitalizing on the Jersey Boys resurgence in the Four Seasons' popularity) to form The Hit Men, a group that continues several years after Ciccone died with Shapiro as its manager.