The Four Lads

The Four Lads specialized in close-harmony and a cappella singing while drawing deep inspiration from Negro spirituals and gospel repertoire. Early in the 1950s they placed multiple titles on the pop Top 100, among them “The Mockingbird” (1952), “Skokian” (1954), “Moments to Remember” (1955), and both “No, Not Much!” and “Standing on the Corner” (1956). Their first major exposure arrived when they supplied background vocals for Johnny Ray on the Columbia sides “Cry” and “The Little White Cloud That Cried.”

Professional work began for the quartet in 1950 with engagements in Toronto nightspots. Every founding member had previously sung in choirs. Lead singer Bernie Toorish, born John Bernard Toorish on March 2, 1931, came from a musical household and started performing at age three; he later studied violin in elementary school. While an eighth-grader at St. Michael Choir School he formed a gospel group called the Jordanaires—distinct from the ensemble that later backed Elvis Presley—after being impressed by the Golden Gate Quartet. Two of its members eventually helped create the Crew Cuts. Alongside Toorish the lineup featured James Arnold on first tenor, Connie Codarini on bass, and Frank Busseri on baritone. After adopting the name Four Dukes, the singers toured successfully across the northeastern United States and Canada. An audition at New York’s Le Ruban Bleu supper club was arranged, yet because another Detroit-based act already used the Four Dukes name, club impresario Julius Monk proposed Four Lads instead. Their initial booking there extended for thirty weeks.

Mitch Miller signed the group to Columbia Records in 1951 for background work. Toorish subsequently handled vocal and instrumental arrangements for a Johnnie Ray single, “Cry” backed with “The Little White Cloud That Cried.” Both tracks became massive sellers, eventually surpassing five million copies. The exposure earned the Four Lads their own Columbia contract and prompted a shift from spiritual material toward mainstream pop.

Columbia issued the quartet’s first chart success, “The Mockingbird,” on its OKeh subsidiary in 1952. A gold record followed in 1953 for “Istanbul,” and further hits accumulated. Across their Columbia tenure the Four Lads cut seventy-three sides, including “Rain, Rain, Rain,” “Turn Back,” “My Little Angel,” “Skokian,” the 1955 number-two hit “Moments to Remember,” “No, Not Much!”—penned by the Bob Allen–Al Stillman team responsible for Johnny Mathis’s “Chances Are”—and “Standing on the Corner.” Their polished, crisp sound featured a distinctive vibrato on sustained notes, and many of their heavily orchestrated releases were conducted by Frank DeVol or Ray Ellis.

The group also issued several long-playing albums, among them the 1962 Kapp set Dixieland Doin’s, released in stereo on the London label. One track from that album, their rendition of the traditional Negro spiritual “Dem Bones,” later appeared in an episode of the British series The Prisoner. American television exposure began with The Ransom Sherman Show on NBC; additional appearances included The Pat Boone-Chevy Showroom on ABC and Perry Presents on NBC in 1959. In 1955 the Four Lads served as guest hosts for the CBS summer series Upbeat.

Collectively they sold roughly fifty million singles and albums. At the height of their popularity fan clubs claimed as many as 150,000 members, with twenty thousand in Pittsburgh alone. After peaking in 1957 their audience diminished as folk and rock & roll gained favor. Following several personnel shifts the original configuration disbanded in 1977.

Toorish left music in 1978 to work as an insurance underwriter, yet he returned to performing after the Four Lads were inducted into the Canadian Juno Awards Hall of Fame in Toronto in 1984. The renewed attention prompted him—now using the shortened surname Torish—to revive the quartet, remaining its sole link to the 1950s lineup. The act continued to appear at supper clubs, on cruise ships, and on oldies bills, eventually establishing the website www.thefourlads.com. Original pressings of their early LPs remain scarce, with pristine 1960s copies occasionally commanding more than two hundred dollars.