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The Four Freshmen is the longest lasting vocal harmony group. The Freshmen enjoy a unique fan club offering the support of over 3,000 members across the United States, Europe, and Japan. Bob Flanigan is the spiritual leader of every Four Freshmen combination. He retired from performing with the group in 1992 and became the group’s manager. While no longer the manager today, he still remains actively involved with The Four Freshmen. Bob Flanigan’s imprint on music is an undeniable legacy. In their 60 plus year history The Four Freshmen have bragging rights to over 50 albums, an overwhelming 70 top selling singles, and 6 Grammy Nominations! The Four Freshmen were one of the top vocal groups of the 1950s, and formed the bridge between '40s ensembles like the Mel-Tones and harmony-based rock & roll bands such as the Beach Boys as well as groups like Spanky & Our Gang and the Manhattan Transfer.
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The group's roots go back to the end of the 1940s and a barbershop quartet-influenced outfit called Hal's Harmonizers, organized at the Arthur Jordan Conservatory of Butler University in Indiana by two brothers, Ross and Don Barbour. Their repertoire centered on standards such as "Moonglow" and "The Christmas Song," and they began to show an unusually free, improvisational approach to their harmony singing. A couple of membership changes brought Bob Flanigan, a cousin, into the fold alongside Hal Kratzsch, and suddenly the Four Freshmen were assembled in all but name, and that fell into place a little later. |
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“Their first hit single was "It's a Blue World," released in 1952, and they enjoyed further success with "Mood Indigo" (1954), "Day By Day" (1955), and "Graduation Day" (1956). They released their first LP, “Voices in
Modern”, in 1955 (and some dozen more 12" discs over the next five years); that album was as impressive a jazz document as it was a vocal pop effort, showcasing the group members' playing as well as their singing and showing that these guys had lots of complex musical strings in their bow. It was on these albums that the quartet also showed itself to be a very smart outfit, not just in musical terms but logistically as well. Rather than simply doing any 12 songs that might have been working well in its stage act, the group made these releases into conceptual works, either musically (built around the sounds achieved by combinations of the group's sound and specific accompaniments, (such as “Four Freshmen and 5 Trombones”, “Four Freshmen and Five Guitars”, etc.) or as thematic arrays of songs (such as “Voices in Love and Voices in Latin”). This approach to devising and creating albums (which paralleled the kind of work that Frank Sinatra was doing concurrently on the same label) would have an influence on groups like the Beach Boys that was nearly as important as their harmony sound; it's also an important reason why, in combination with their virtuosity, their albums have held up so well across 40 years. Their sound and range were helped by the fact that their benefactor, Kenton, was on the same label, which made it possible for them to record together on occasion.
Most of their late-'50s albums were good sellers -- most have been reissued several times on vinyl and CD.” Stan Kenton and his orchestra was a major force in big-band jazz in the '50s. Bob is thankful for all of the help he lent to the group from the 50’s up until his death. Stan first heard the Four Freshmen at the Esquire Lounge in Dayton, OH. Someone told him that there was this quartet that "sounded just like the band." Stan went to hear them and was blown away: Four young guys singing what sounded like five- or six-part harmony and, at the same time, playing a dozen instruments. Stan bugged Capitol Records so vigorously that they gave the Freshmen a recording contract in 1950.
As the Wall Street Journal exclaims, “Long live The Four Freshmen. May they never graduate!” |
