- Genres: Rock
Biography
The Kirby Stone Four were one of those ubiquitous white vocal ensembles that seemed to pop up everywhere in the 1950's, drawing on several musical genres and melding them into an attractive pop sound -- they were more celebrated than most for their successes late in the decade and into the 1960's, and displayed a harder, more complex, and occasionally provocative edge than most of their rivals. Though never as conspicuously successful as, say, the Four Freshmen, the Kirby Stone Four generated a series of singles and a small number of albums that evoke their era about as well as those of the Four Freshmen, the Lettermen et al, with a very upbeat, swinging sound, not too far removed from the music that Frank Sinatra was making around the same time -- though Sinatra would never have stood still for their choice of certain novelty-type tunes.Kirby Stone (born Apr 27, 1918, New York, NY) was the group's founder/leader, and strangely enough, the quartet -- filled out by Eddie Hall,
Mike Gardner, and Larry Foster -- started out in the mid-1950's as an instrumental ensemble; vocals were only incidental to their sound in the
early days, when they played mostly in small clubs. Eventually, the singing took center stage in their work and, coupled with their exuberant, irreverent humor and a sense of showmanship, made their appeal more obvious. They started getting showcased in better night spots on local television in New York before being signed to appear on The Ed Sullivan Show, which led to a contract from Columbia Records. Their debut album, Man, I Flipped When I Heard The Kirby Stone Four, featured a mix of covers of pop standards by George Gershwin et al, interspersed with originals by Stone and Gardner, the quartet's primary in-house songwriters. Later in 1958, they enjoyed a number 25 single with their recording of "Baubles, Bangles and Beads" (from Kismet) -- which got them a Grammy nomination -- and a number 15 chart placement for the accompanying LP. Its success and their versatility led to the release of two complete LPs by the quartet in 1959, in those days an extraordinary achievement in itself.
The group's rendition of "Baubles, Bangles and Beads" was highly animated in its upbeat sensibilities, taking the song far from its more subtle
origins -- their music was funny, almost (but not quite) in a Spike Jones sort of way, and featured some very solid instrumental backing. The group tended to perk up the tempo of anything they were doing, making some of the more exciting pop-vocal group material of their time, and also tried to take advantage of the move into stereo releases that started the same year as their recording contract. At various times, their backing included Jimmy Carroll and his orchestra, the Kai Winding Quartette, and such luminaries as Alvino Rey, Shelly Manne, and Al Klink, among others. By the end of the 1950's, they'd reached a new plateau of sophistication with what became known as the "Go" sound, a mix of swing, jazz vocalizing, and "big beat" (as rock 'n' roll was called by those that didn't want to use the phrase), an uptempo sound that gave the group their most distinctive trademark and carried them into the following decade. They were also occasionally risque in their arrangements, such as getting
the girl chorus in "Let's Do It" to coo "do it" very softly -- they weren't your usual 50's vocal quartet and hardly the model for comedy's
later "Four Neat Guys." The group was a fixture of network variety television during the first half of the decade, including appearances on The Judy Garland Show. Their relentlessly upbeat, outgoing, exuberant sound retained a major audience among adult listeners right into the mid-1960's, by which time their brand of vocal pop was on the wane.
Still, they soldiered on -- there was always work for the group, if not room on the charts or the playlists of most radio stations for their brand of
music, and they did try to adapt. Although none of their 50's or early 1960's work could be mistaken for rock 'n' roll, they included some elements of
that music in their work -- sufficient to allow them to compete for attention into the 1960's -- and adapting it to their needs and sound. And by 1966 they were cutting genuine rock 'n' roll -- that year, they linked up with the Tokens, the legendary harmony vocal group on that quartet's B.T. Puppy label, to form the United States Double Quartet, and began cutting singles that were very much in a rock 'n' roll vein -- the first was "Life Is Groovy", a gloriously upbeat number. Though the effort didn't chart, it did become the basis for a commercial jingle. Kirby Stone himself served as music director for various television variety series during the 1960's, which is how he was best known in that medium.
In more recent years, Stone's daughter Gradie Stone has been getting some serious notice as a jazz singer. Meanwhile, the Kirby Stone Four's
music, including The Go Sound and The Kirby Stone Touch LPs, has been getting reissued by Collectables Records in America and on by Sony Music in Europe. They're part of a late 1950's American pop-vocal heritage that is appreciated overseas and beginning to be remembered in the United States. ~ Bruce Eder
, All Music Guide
