Before The Beatles, The Everly Brothers and The Beach Boys, there were The Four Freshmen, who essentially created the standard for white vocal harmony. This two disc set of 54 songs brings together their A and B singles as well as material from their classic albums like Voices in Modern, And 5 Trombones, And 5 Guitars, and Voices and Brass. Today, we take these rich vocal textures for granted, but at the time, they were like a gauntlet thrown down as if to say “Can you top THIS?!?”
The original team of Bob Flanigan/vcl-tb-b, Don Barbour/voc/g, Ross Barbour/vcl/dr and Hal Kratzsh/vcl/mello-b mixed voice with sparse instrumentals to create sonic wonders such as “Then I’ll Be Happy,” the deeply mooded “Baltimore Oriole” and the legendary aria “Poinciana” that mixes rich pitches and modern harmonics with deep lyrical interpretation. On the other hand, they also created sounds like a horn section as on the wordless smoothy “Tuxedo Junction.” They added dimension to pop pieces like “My Heart Stood Still” and created rich hues on “It’s A Blue World” while swinging like mad on “Lulu’s Back in Town.” With orchestras that included jazzers like Bob Cooper/ts, Barney Kessel/g, Ted Nash/as, Alvin Stoller-Shelly Manne/dr, Monty Budwig-Red Mitchell/b and arrangements by Billy May, Dick Reynolds and Pete Rugolo, the gents are a delight on pieces like “Candy,” a dramatic “Granada” and a bopping “Route 66.” These guys are still the standard by which all others are compared.