On  September 19 I ended Part One  of my cruise series with: Our current state of mind is that, in the short time we have to travel ( I'm getting old ), might as well go for some luxury.  So Part Two of this series will describe a stage of our 21-day Regent Seven Seas Explorer trip from Dubai to Singapore in November, and a 53-day  Seabourn Odyssey journey from Sydney to Honolulu beginning in March of next year.  We welcome you to join us. To answer that question, my answer is no.  I've been on several Crystal cruises, but the company went bankrupt earlier this year.   All current signs show their ships being readied for service next year .  We were very close to reserving a cabin on a 2022 Crystal European Christmas river cruise, but backed off because we instead found another option which I'll talk about.  As far as I know, those who paid deposits have not yet been refunded, but  Royal Caribbean  said it will be acquiri...

The story of the  Jersey Boys  is the story of the Four Seasons.  Frankie Valli released a song,  My Mothers Eyes  in 1953 as Frankie Valley.  In 1954, he and guitarist Tommy DeVito formed The Variatones, which evolved into The Four Lovers.  All this occurred in Newark, New Jersey.  This photo was taken in 1954, with Valli to the left and DeVito in the middle.  The third person is Hank Majewski. The novelty was  Frankie Valli's falsetto .  Hawaiian music has long featured this form of singing, but Valli made it okay to sing pop music, with many others subsequently following. Of course, this is not new, for the use of falsetto has been traced back to the Middle Ages, and the Tokens had a hit in 1961 for  The Lion Sleeps Tonight , first made popular by the Weavers in 1951 as  Wimoweh , a 1939 African song. In 1959 the band began working with producer/songwriter Bob Crewe (on the right) when Valli was 25 years old.  The ...

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