The Brothers Four bear a distinction as one of the longest surviving groups of the late-'50s/early-'60s folk revival and perhaps the longest running "accidental" music act in history -- 43 years and counting as of 2001, without any break and with two original members still in the fold. If few recognize that distinction, then it's because the Brothers Four were also part of a largely forgotten chapter in the history of folk music in America.

Most accounts of the post-WWII folk music boom focus on the political and issue-oriented branch of the music, embodied by Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan, at the expense of the softer, more entertainment-oriented branch, embodied by the likes of the Kingston Trio, the Chad Mitchell Trio, and the Brothers Four. Those acts and the music they made -- though it sold well and, indeed, for many years defined what most Americans visualized when the phrase "folk music" was mentioned -- are scarcely mentioned in most histories; the Brothers Four aren't even listed in the Guinness Who's Who of Folk Music. One major misconception about the Brothers Four is that they were an attempt to emulate the Kingston Trio. Actually, Bob Flick (upright bass, baritone, bass), John Paine (guitar, baritone), Mike Kirkland (guitar, banjo, tenor), and Dick Foley (guitar, baritone) had met as undergraduates at the University of Washington in 1956 and began singing together in 1957, more than a year before the Kingston Trio made their first record. Folk music was booming at most liberal arts colleges in those days, and every campus seemed to have its share of trios and quartets, mostly drawn from the ranks of their fraternities. Flick, Paine, Kirkland, and Foley were all members of Phi Gamma Delta and aspired to careers in medicine, engineering, and diplomacy -- as amateur performers, however, they were good on their instruments and delighted campus audiences with their ability to harmonize on traditional tunes, novelty songs, and romantic ballads. They turned professional completely by accident, as a result of a practical joke. A member of a rival fraternity arranged for a woman to telephone the group members, identifying herself as the secretary to the manager of a local Seattle venue, the Colony Club, and invite the quartet down to audition. When they got there, they discovered that there was no invitation or any audition scheduled, but since they were there anyway, the club manager asked them to do a couple of songs and ended up hiring them. The engagement lasted through most of 1958, and while they were often paid off only in beer, the experience was invaluable in that it allowed the group -- christened after their impromptu audition as the Brothers Four -- to pull its sound together as they never would have if they'd remained confined to occasional performances on campus. As it turned out, if they'd planned for careers in music, the timing of the Brothers Four couldn't have been better. In July of 1958, the single "Tom Dooley" by the Kingston Trio began its climb to three million sales, and the folk revival boom snowballed from there. During Easter week of 1959, the Brothers Four made their move to San Francisco for some better gigs and earned a spot at the Hungry I club. It was there that they were seen by Mort Lewis, who was the manager of jazz pianist Dave Brubeck -- Lewis persuaded the group to cut a demo tape, which he brought to Columbia Records. The label liked what it heard and suddenly the quartet had a recording contract and a full-time manager. They arrived in New York on Independence Day of 1959 and spent the next few weeks polishing their sound and repertory for their recording debut. The group's first single, "Chicka Mucha Hi Di"/"Darlin' Won't You Wait," disappeared without a trace in late 1959. Lightning struck, however, with their second single, "Greenfields," a somber, moody piece that had been written four years earlier by Terry Gilkyson, Richard Dehr, and Frank Miller of the Easy Riders. The Brothers Four version, highlighted by their elegant harmonies, was issued early in 1960, charted in February of that year, and eventually ascended to the number two spot in the course of a 20-week run in the Top 40. Suddenly, the Brothers Four were second in prominence on the burgeoning folk revival scene only to the Kingston Trio and their near-contemporaries, the Limeliters, and had concert engagements across America. A debut album, The Brothers Four, was released late that winter and reached the Top 20 nationally as well. The group's third single, "My Tani," a piece of Hawaiian-flavored folk-pop released that spring, passed relatively unnoticed, but their fourth single, "The Green Leaves of Summer," brought them significantly greater exposure. The Brothers Four version of the song, drawn from the score of the John Wayne movie The Alamo (the soundtrack rights to which Columbia owned), only reached the lower regions of the charts, but the group performed the Oscar-nominated song on the 1961 Academy Awards television broadcast. "The Green Leaves of Summer" was only a modest success as a single, but their second album, BMOC (Best Music On/Off Campus), was released late in 1961 and made the Top Ten. The quartet's albums presented a very different and far more diverse sound than their singles had up to that point -- those first two long-players, in particular, were well-devised, featuring a wide variety of moods and sounds within a folk context; "Greenfields" and "The Green Leaves of Summer" were balanced on each by upbeat, outgoing, spirited songs such as "Hard Travellin'" and "I Am a Rovin' Gambler." Fans got real value from those LP purchases, and the albums only built up the group's concert audience. Bob Flick, John Paine, Mike Kirkland, and Dick Foley met at the University of Washington, where they were members of the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity in 1956 (hence the "Brothers" appellation). Their first professional performances were the result of a prank played on them in 1958 by a rival fraternity, who had arranged for someone to call them, pretend to be from Seattle's Colony Club, and invite them to come down to audition for a gig. Even though they were not expected at the club, they were allowed to sing a few songs and were subsequently hired. Flick recalls them being paid "mostly in beer". They left for San Francisco in 1959, where they met Mort Lewis, Dave Brubeck's manager. Lewis became their manager and later that year secured them a contract with Columbia Records. Their second single, "Greenfields", released in January 1960, hit #2 on the pop charts,[3] sold over one million copies and was awarded a gold disc by the RIAA.[4] Their first album, Brothers Four, released toward the end of the year, made the top 20. Other highlights of their early career included singing their fourth single, "The Green Leaves of Summer", from the John Wayne movie The Alamo, at the 1961 Academy Awards, and having their third album, BMOC/Best Music On/Off Campus, go top 10. They also recorded the title song for the Hollywood film Five Weeks in a Balloon in 1962 and the theme song for the ABC television series Hootenanny, "Hootenanny Saturday Night", in 1963. They also gave "Sloop John B" a try, released as "The John B Sails".[5] The British Invasion and the ascendance of edgier folk rock musicians such as Bob Dylan put an end to the Brothers Four's early period of success, but they kept performing and making records, doing particularly well in Japan and on the American hotel circuit. The group, with Jerry Dennon, built a radio station in Seaside, Oregon (KSWB) in 1968.[6] The station was subsequently sold in 1972 to a group from Montana, and later to a self-proclaimed minister, and finally merged into a larger conglomerate of radio stations. The group attempted a comeback by recording a highly commercial version of Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man", but were unable to release it due to licensing issues, and The Byrds eventually stole their thunder by releasing their heralded version.[7] Mike Kirkland left the group in 1969 and was replaced by Mark Pearson, another University of Washington alumnus. In 1971, Pearson left and was replaced by Bob Haworth, who stayed until 1985 and was replaced by a returning Pearson. Dick Foley left the group in 1990 and was replaced by Terry Lauber. Despite all the changes and having spent 62 years in the business, the group is still active.By this time, the Brothers Four were maintaining a full-time concert schedule, with 300 shows a year, as far away as Japan, as well as appearing on such television variety showcases as The Pat Boone Chevy Showcase, Mitch Miller's Singalong (a no-brainer that, since Miller was in charge of the Artists and Repertory division at Columbia), and the Ed Sullivan Show. The Brothers Four Song Book, released later in 1961, drew on traditional material, most of it adapted with new words by Homer Sunitch or Stuart Gotz. .>