Glenn Yarbrough

Born on January 12, 1930, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Glenn Yarbrough first performed at church functions while still a child. Throughout a lengthy career his high, clear tenor brought him steady work, including the widely aired “Things go better with Coke” commercials, and he retained a sizable, devoted audience long after his last appearance on the pop charts.

In 1951, while enrolled at St. Johns College in Annapolis, Maryland, he spent an evening singing with roommate Jac Holzman—who would later establish Elektra Records, the label that eventually issued several of Yarbrough’s recordings—and visiting musician Woody Guthrie, an experience that led him to purchase a guitar the following day. After serving as a radio operator in Korea during his Army stint and then hosting radio and television programs in South Dakota, he moved to New York City in 1957, where he recorded the album Come Sit by My Side for New Traditions Records and began appearing regularly on the national coffeehouse circuit.

He eventually settled in Aspen, Colorado, and acquired the local folk club known as the Limelite. Joining forces with banjo player Alex Hassilev and bassist Lou Gottlieb, the trio adopted the venue’s name and became the Limeliters. The group enjoyed widespread success, releasing multiple albums and the noted Coke commercial, until Yarbrough departed at the end of 1963.

His first RCA solo album, Time to Move On, yielded the 1965 pop hit “Baby the Rain Must Fall,” which reached number 12 and confirmed his viability as a solo artist. Several further RCA releases followed, among them the 1966 collaboration The Lonely Things with pop poet Rod McKuen. In the early 1970s Yarbrough founded his own Brass Dolphin label, rejoined the Limeliters in 1973, and remained with the ensemble until 1981. During the 1990s Folk Era Records issued his recordings, including the 1994 album Family Portrait recorded with his daughter Holly. He died at Holly’s Nashville home in August 2016 at the age of 86.