NEWARK – As a 25-year old Newark School teacher in 1966, Ralph Caputo ran for a councilman at-large seat the same year that Mayor Hugh Addonizio ran for reelection.

Caputo’s headquarters was next to the Silhouette, which was a nightclub where the Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons played on weekly basis.

When Caputo showed Mayor Addonizio the invite with the Four Seasons’ listed as special guests, the mayor was shocked.

“The basic issue was education,” Caputo told InsiderNJ. “We are all educators involved in union organizing. Our concern was kids. Kids had many challenges and this was the era of the Great Society, and so there was money coming in for educational purposes. It was a case of education spilling over into the political arena.”

We’ll let Assemblyman Ralph Caputo (D-28) continue to tell the rest of the story below:

As for the Four Seasons that night, they played all their hits from that era, including the 1962 classic “Sherry.”

Following this InsiderNJ interview, incidentally, Caputo was preparing for the evening ahead.

He was going to see his old friend Frankie Valli.