Lord Larehip

I'm surprised all this talk about the Beach Boys and nobody mentioned the Four Freshmen unless I missed it somewhere. BB songs as "In My Room" and "Surfer Girl" definitely have the FF thing going on. The Four Freshmen formed as a barbershop quartet out Indianapolis in 1948 and underwent personnel changes several times before signing a recording contract under the auspices of Stan Kenton in 1950. They had their first hit single in 1952--"It's a Blue World." The group was Ross and Don Barbour, Bob Flanigan and Hal Kratzsch. In '53, Kratzsch was replaced by Ken Errair. The similarities to the Beach Boys are striking. Like BB, most the the original lineup were related (Ross and Don being brothers and Flanigan was a cousin) and they also played their own instruments.


four freshmen- it's a blue world - YouTube

Brian Wilson was greatly influenced by FF and sought to emulate their vocal styles which kept the group alive in people's minds enough that they could continue to tour. About two dozen members have been Freshmen over the years. This wasn't some label's attempt to keep capitalizing off the name. The original members chose replacements after retiring and trained them to sing in the FF fashion. Flanigan was the last original member to retire (1993) but continued to manage the band and owned the name. Today, all the original members are dead but the band survives and does 100 bookings a year. In fact, here is the latest incarnation of FF from 2010 performing live their own version of "Surfer Girl":


Surfer Girl - The Four Freshmen - YouTube