Tommy DeVito, a founding member of the Four Seasons who played lead guitar and sang baritone in the iconic doo-wop group, has died. NJ.com reports that he had recently been hospitalized after contracting coronavirus. He was 92.

DeVito was born in Belleville, New Jersey, the youngest of nine children. He quit school after eighth grade to pursue a career in music, forming the Variety Trio and then the Variatones in the early ’50s. When singer Francis Castellucci, aka Frankie Valli, joined the group, they renamed themselves the Four Lovers and signed to RCA Victor.

The Four Lovers had a minor hit with their 1956 debut single, Otis Blackwell’s “You’re The Apple Of My Eye,” and scored an appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show. But their subsequent records failed to connect, and they instead got their paychecks doing session work for songwriter and producer Bob Crewe.

In 1960, the quartet — at that point made up of Frankie Valli, Bob Gaudio, Tommy DeVito, and Nick Massi — became known as the Four Seasons, taking their name from a New Jersey bowling alley where they failed an audition. After one unsuccessful single, they hit #1 with 1962’s “Sherry” and went on to release a string of #1 hits including “Big Girls Don’t Cry,” “Walk Like A Man,” “Rag Doll,” and “December, 1963 (Oh, What A Night).”

DeVito left the Four Seasons in 1971. DeVito and the other original Four Seasons members were inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in 1990, and the group inspired the 2005 Broadway musical Jersey Boys and its subsequent film adaptation. DeVito released a solo instrumental album in 2007.