By Joe Pinchot
Herald Staff Writer

The members of the Vogues did not want to be remembered as one-hit wonders.

So they kept their day jobs until after their second hit.

Once "Five O'clock World" stormed the charts, the quartet left the 5 o'clock world behind.

It was a slow climb to the top of the charts for the four buddies from Turtle Creek, Pa., tenors Chuck Blasko and Hugh Geyer and baritones Don Miller and Bill Burkette.

"We all went to school together," Miller said. "We grew up together. We played ball together on the same teams. We were in high school and we would be in the shower in the locker room after a game and we would start singing -- the acoustics were so great. That's how it started."

The singers listened to groups such as the Four Freshmen, the Hi-Los and the Four Aces.

"When we were in high school, it was doo wop," said Blasko, who has kept the group going with new members for 38 years. "You stood on a corner and did doo wop. That's what kind of put us to good, close harmonies."

Although the quartet did some recording as teen-agers, they let their musical aspirations fall by the wayside. A couple of the guys went into the military, and the others found jobs.

Once the military service was up, the quartet regrouped.

"In the beginning, we really didn't have a direction," Miller said. "We were hoping to get lucky. We put together a few of our own dollars to go into a small studio in Pittsburgh and do a demo record, a few things we just learned on our own. We were hoping that somebody would hear them and help us out along the way."

Someone did -- producer Nick Cenci, who was in the studio when they recorded.

"Nick didn't particularly care for the songs we recorded, but he liked the sound," Geyer said.

Cenci signed the group to a label he had formed with partner Herb Cohen, Co & Ce.

"We really were looking for songs that had already been recorded on albums by other artists," said Miller, of Clearwater, Fla., the only original member who does not live in the Pittsburgh area. "Our very first hit recording was 'You're the One.' That was something that was written by Petula Clark and she had recorded it."

"You're the One" was a hit in 1965, and was followed quickly by "Five O'clock World," "Magic Town," "The Land of Milk & Honey" and "Please Mr. Sun."

Although they were successful, Cenci believed the group was not satisfying its potential.

"He thought we would get better record distribution if we were with a major label," Geyer said.

Cenci worked out a deal to get the Vogues signed to Reprise, a Warner Bros. subsidiary.

The change also marked a shift in material, from a rock approach to a ballad style.

Geyer said the idea for the style change was Dick Glasser's. He had played guitar on the group's teen-age demo, and had gone on to bigger and better things as a producer.

"Dick Glasser saw the style and harmony of the Vogues and thought it would be good to bring back some of the standards 15, 20 years after they were hits for someone else," Geyer said.

"At first, there was a discussion about it," Blasko said. "Being it was the British Invasion when we hit with 'You're the One,' 'Five O'clock World' and all that, we felt that we should have stayed up-tempo. We didn't know if the market could bear what we were trying to put across."

At first, the market couldn't bear it. The group recorded four songs, only two of which were released, and they flopped.

"But, when we came out of the studio with 'Turn Around Look at Me,' which was our first major hit on Warners, we felt it," Blasko said. "We felt it that night when we came out of the studio, went into our producer's house and listened to a demo of it. 'Yeah, that's a hit.' "

"Turn Around Look at Me," which was written by Glenn Campbell and released in 1968, was ignored by radio at first.

"There was one radio station in Denver, Colo., a radio station called KIM radio, that believed the same thing that we did," Blasko said. "They kept playing it and playing it and playing it, and suddenly WLS in Chicago picked up and then this picked up and that picked up. It was three months, and then three months after everybody started playing it, it was a million seller. The public was ready for that type of change."

Reprise gave the Vogues access to some of the best studios, musicians and songwriters in the country, Geyer said.

The Warner sides included "My Special Angel," "Till," "Woman Helping Man," and covers of "Earth Angel" and "Moments to Remember."

"We had many more successful records with Warner Bros.," Geyer said.

The band last charted in 1969 with "Greenfields."

Geyer was the first to leave the group, in 1973.

"I was married and I had three kids," he said. "You can't stay at home and be in this business."

The group continued as a trio, and Miller left a year later and Burkette sometime after.

Blasko keeps the group going as a trio with Bo Wagner and Keith Dix, but is surprised that the Vogues still draw.

"You thank your lucky stars because you're at the right place at the right time, as a group, and as the general public accepting what you put out," he said. "I really didn't think that it would be this long. Thank God, it has. It's wonderful. I still enjoy doing what I'm doing. I love it."

The original members hadn't sung together in about 30 years when they harmonized at the concert following their Oct. 4 induction into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame Museum, Sharon.

"It was certainly a thrill to perform up in Sharon," Geyer said. "It kind of proved to me, even with the passage of time, we were able to do it. We had started as teen-agers. When you do something that long, it really doesn't go away. It's like riding a bike."