EDITOR'S NOTE: This story is the last of a series on groups inducted into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame and Museum, Sharon.

When Jim Pike and Bob Engemann started singing together, they wanted to be a duet.

"We were going to be like Simon and Garfunkel or the Righteous Brothers," said Pike, who had met Engemann at Brigham Young University.

But, Engemann was called to active duty with the Air National Guard, which left Pike with little to do until Engemann was discharged.

What he did was meet up with a guy named Tony Butala, which led to the formation of the Lettermen.

Pike said he was hired for a lounge act called Bill Norvas and the Upstarts, which Butala had recently joined.

Norvas had co-written "Make Love to Me," one of the signature hits for Jo Stafford.

"That gave him enough credibility to do the Vegas-Tahoe-Reno circuit, and he hired these four back-up singers called the Upstarts," Pike said. "It was two guys, two girls."

The girls were "built for Vegas" and stuffed into sexy gowns, but couldn't carry a tune, said Pike, interviewed with Engemann at the Lettermen's 2000 induction into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame and Museum, Sharon.

"The group was horrible," Pike said, but he noted that he and Butala, a Sharon native, showed promise.

"When Tony would step out and sing solo, he'd get a bigger hand than the group did," Pike said. "When I would step out and do a solo, I'd get a bigger hand than the group would."

On the harmony parts featuring Butala and Pike, "Tony and I had a real good blend together, very similar to the one Bobby and I had together," Pike said.

"That group was a lounge group that never ever was going to go anywhere, so I convinced Tony that when Bobby got back out of the Air National Guard that Tony should come and sing with Bobby and me because it was group that was gonna happen.

"What happened was, when Bobby got back, the three of us got together. I gave us the notes to 'Love is a Many-Splendored Thing,' the harmonies, just for us to hit a chord and see how the blend was going to be. We hit that chord and we looked at each other. It was like ..."

"Magic," Engemann chimed in.

Pike said he wanted a three-voice group that sounded similar to the Four Freshmen, but used a soft rock 'n' roll beat.

Pike also wanted three guys "that looked like they could be models in a magazine."

"You look at pictures of some of those groups back in the '50s -- they were the ugliest guys," he said. "I thought, in order to have some success, we needed three guys who were relatively nice looking, and could not only sing great harmony, but all three were expert soloists."

Pike was a mail carrier, and had enough money saved for the trio to record a demonstration record, "Their Hearts Are Full of Spring," a song Jimmie Rodgers had recorded as the flip side to "Honeycomb," to shop to record companies.

"Within two weeks from the first note that we hit together we had a record contract," Pike said. "Two weeks!"

"Warner Brothers," Engemann added.

The Lettermen hoped Warner Brothers would release the record nationally, but the label decided to test-market it in San Francisco.

"They put it out and it went to number one in two weeks up there," Pike said.

Instead of capitalizing on that response and releasing the single nationally, Warner Brothers shelved it, saying it was not "master material," Pike said.

Engemann and Pike said they believe it wasn't released because it wasn't written by a Warner staff writer. Warner would not own the publishing rights, denying them a source of revenue.

Warner Brothers picked two songs the singers didn't like for them to record, and gave them 15 minutes at the end of a Joni Summers recording session to cut them in.

Pike called the recording "terrible," and the record garnered no notice. The singers asked to be released from their contract.

Ignoring the Warner Brothers single, the Lettermen took their demo to Capitol, and signed a new contract.

Capitol took more time with the group, and allowed it to record a number of songs.

Capitol released a rock tune, "That's My Desire," which Engemann described as "kind of a Frankie Valli thing before Frankie Valli."

"They put it out, nothing's happening, nothing's happening," Pike said. "Weeks go by, and they're almost ready to drop the record. We're going, 'Oh, no, our first big bomb.' Some guy in Buffalo, New York, on a big rock station up there, in the middle of the night, flipped it over, played the B-side, 'The Way You Look Tonight,' and the phones came off the walls at the radio station."

Capitol chewed out the guy for subverting their push on "That's My Desire," but he played "The Way You Look Tonight" again, and stations in Massachusetts and Michigan did the same.

Capitol relented to promote the B-side.

"Everybody flipped the record and just, boom, that quick," Pike said.

"Big hit," Engemann said.

The song, released in 1961, set the group's image and style, Pike said.

The Lettermen were booked to tour, which, in those days, often meant appearing on a bill with a dozen other artists and singing one or two songs, sometimes lip synching to them.

The group's "romantic energy," as Engemann put it, stuck out in the era of rock 'n' roll, giving the trio a niche as a "cry group."

"The kids would dance to every other single act that was on the show," Pike explained. "When they got ready to introduce us, the girls would drop their boyfriends' hands, and they would gather around the bandstand, just like the old Tommy Dorsey big band days. We would start to sing 'The Way You Look Tonight' and all the girls would start crying."

The group rode that niche throughout the '60s with "When I Fall in Love," "Theme From a Summer Place," "Goin' Out Of My Head/Can't Take My Eyes Off You," "Put Your Head On My Shoulder" and "Shangri-La."

In the mid-'60s, Engemann gave Butala and Pike a year's notice that he would be leaving the group because of family concerns.

The group auditioned people such as Kenny Rogers and Glen Campbell, but settled on Pike's brother, Gary.

Gary Pike traveled with the trio for a while to learn the show, but wasn't given a chance to prove what he could do on stage.

Jim Pike, who lives in the mountains over San Bernadino, Calif., said he and Butala were afraid to upset something good, aware that the Kingston Trio "went downhill" after Dave Guard left the group in 1961 and was replaced.

"Finally, one day, I didn't show up for a concert," said Engemann, who lives in Provo, Utah.

He was around the corner from the venue, but called and said he was 300 miles away.

"I had a big lump in my stomach," Jim Pike said. "I took Gary out, I started putting make-up on him and fixing him, trying to make him look as much like Bobby as I possibly could."

Ironically, fans assumed Jim Pike and Engemann were brothers.

"It worked out," Engemann said. "It was Gary's first show, by rights he would be nervous. I went out and watched it, and he looked really good."

Engemann left in 1967, and Jim Pike in 1973 due to voice problems. Jim Pike still has a speech impediment but it no longer affects his singing.

Butala has kept the group going with new members. Nine men have worn the Lettermen sweater over the years.

Mark Preston, who joined in 1984 and stayed for 792 shows, said that while he felt he had to prove himself when he joined, the Lettermen's standing with its fans made it easier.

"It gives you a little credibility," he said of being hired, because fans assume, ' "Well, he must be good or he wouldn't be with the group.' ''

Donovan Scott Tea, who joined shortly after Preston and has spent more time in the group than anyone besides Butala, said he works hard to maintain that credibility.

"It's a responsibility to uphold the reputation that all the guys previous to you have worked hard to maintain," he said.

The Lettermen is a good gig because each member gets a chance to solo, Preston said.

"That's one of the things that always made the Lettermen unique: the fact that it was three soloists that sang together," he said. "During the course of every show, every Letterman would always do solos. You always had your time in the sun, which was really fun."

While the Lettermen haven't done much on the Billboard charts since 1971, the group continually releases new albums and filters new material into its show.

"That's the best part about it," Tea said.

Jim Pike, 64, who sings Lettermen songs with Engemann, 66, in a group called Reunion, said Butala, 62, has done a great job carrying on the tradition that the original three started.

"These two new guys are fantastic," Jim Pike said. "They've got great solo voices, they harmonize good and they're nice looking. He's kept the integrity of the Lettermen going all these years."

030401