The Lettermen: Biography

• Overview
• Discography
• Biography
• Related Artists

• Videos
• Photos
• Groups/Boards
• Fan Sites

• The Fleetwoods
• The Beau Marks
• Ames Brothers
• Jay & the Americans
• The Crew Cuts
• The Four Freshmen
• The Association

• Ames Brothers
• Kingston Trio
• The Four Freshmen
• The Flamingos
• The Crew Cuts

• The Vogues
• The Sunrays
• The Arbors
• The Association

• Bill Tole

• Mack Discant
• Bobby Hart
• Bob Weinstein
• Matty Malneck
• John Lennon
• Edward Heyman
• Bob Crewe

Formed:

Jan 1, 1960 in Los Angeles, CA

Genres:

Holiday Music, Standards & Vocal Music, Traditional Pop Vocal Music

Decades Active:

1960's|1970's|1980's|1990's|2000's

Artistic Quality

High

Cultural Impact

High

Popularity

High

Ratings Guide

The Lettermen's close-harmony pop songs with light and easy arrangements made them quite a successful group with adult audiences during the 1960s, when changing styles and tastes made many older listeners feel just a bit left behind in the music world. Formed in 1960 by two students at Brigham Young University, Jim Pike and Bob Engemann, with a lounge singer named Tony Butala, the Lettermen recorded without success for about a year until they signed to Capitol Records. The group's first single for Capitol, "The Way You Look Tonight," did very well on the pop charts, and its follow-up, "When I Fall in Love," reached the Top Ten in late 1961. Though the group only reached that plateau one more time, with the 1968 medley "Goin' Out of My Head/Can't Take My Eyes Off You" (the same year Jim's brother Gary Pike stepped in for Engemann), successful album sales to adult listeners and popular concert tours kept the group going long after many of their similar contemporaries had died off. Another Pike brother, Donny, replaced Jim in 1974, and the Lettermen formed their own Alfa Omega Records in 1979, sporadically releasing albums of new material even into the 1990s. Jim Pike and Bob Engemann later formed Reunion (with Ric de Azevedo), a group which released several albums for Collectables.

- John Bush, All Music Guide