This Montana Life: The Hit Men took us back to a long-forgotten decade

“May I join you?” the young man asked Bernice.

“Sure. Sit down,” she said.

Sitting in a diner in New Jersey, the two enjoyed their lunch together, mostly in silence. The man was a bit older, maybe 25. She was 20.

Back at her job at Household Finance, Bernice received a phone call from her mother.

“I need to speak with you when you get home,” her mother said.

Bernice’s mother confronted her the moment she got home from work. The mother reported that a neighbor had seen Bernice that day, having lunch with a man. He was black.

Bernice was aghast, but those were the times they lived in, back in the early 1960s.

Civil unrest was rampant throughout the country and race riots flared frequently.

“Music was our outlet,” Bernice, or “Bernie” told me at intermission of the The Hit Men concert last Saturday at the O’Shaughnessy Center in Whitefish.

The Hit Men —Lee Shapiro, Gerry Polci, Jimmy Ryan, Larry Gates and Russ Velazquez — are former members of Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons, Tommy James and the Shondells, and other legendary groups of the late 20th century. They performed hits like “Sherry,” “Who Loves You” and “Can’t Take my Eyes off You.”

Bernie was taken back to her youth, when music meant something. She sang almost every song by heart. She even knew when the band skipped a verse in “You’re so Vain,” a song one of the members had performed with Carly Simon.

“I haven’t heard these songs in 40 years,” Bernie said. “But I know every word.”

In her mid 70s, Bernie was about the average age in the audience. Some were much older than that, too, and it was exciting to see our “seniors” dancing, singing and laughing along with this great music. The band members once performed with such greats as Elton John, Barry Manilow, Carole King, Cat Stevens, Carly Simon, Jim Croce, and others.

The show sold out two nights at the O’Shaughnessy Center, which seats about 300 people.

The energy in the place was electric. Next to me, Bernie was seriously “boogying” to the music! We walked out into the June evening with songs on our lips and a bounce in our step. This was music you could sing to!

Without the financial help of generous benefactors like Jerome Broussard, Doug Pitman and other patrons of the arts, The Hit Men would not have been a hit in Whitefish.

And people like Bernie wouldn’t have been able to enjoy being taken back to their youth one more time.

Much has changed since in our culture since Bernie was 20 and was watching acts like Frankie Valli in New Jersey in 1962.

Great music has remained timeless.  

You can have lunch with anyone you choose, too.