Buffalo Bills (quartet)
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The Buffalo Bills were a barbershop quartet formed in Buffalo, New York. In 1950, they won the Barbershop Harmony Society International Quartet Contest, earning them the title of International Quartet Champions.
The quartet is without a doubt the most famous quartet in the history of barbership, primarily because of its involvement in Meredith Willson's The Music Man. In the musical Vern Reed sang tenor, Al Shea lead, Wayne Ward baritone and Bill Spangenberg as bass. The Bills included seven singers over their twenty year run; personnel changes are fairly common in barbershop quartets. The Bills went through three periods of performance levels beginning with that of the competition/show quartet, then as Broadway stage performers, and finally as professional nightclub entertainers.
They were the first quartet in the role of the school board when the musical opened in 1957, logging more than 1,500 performances on Broadway. They also appeared as the quartet in the 1962 feature film adaptation. For the next five years, the Bills performed on the Arthur Godfrey Show as a nightclub act, as guest performers in productions of Music Man and as headline entertainers on barbershop shows as well as county and state fairs around North America. Their final performance in 1967 capped a career of more than 4,500 performances.
| Preceded by Mid States Four |
SPEBSQSA International Quartet Champions 1950 |
Succeeded by Schmitt Brothers |
| Barbershop Harmony Society | |
|---|---|
| Districts: | Cardinal District, Central States District, Dixie District, Evergreen District, Far Western District, Illinois District, Johnny Appleseed District, Land-O-Lakes District, Mid-Atlantic District, Northeastern District, Ontario District, Pioneer District, Rocky Mountain District, Seneca Land District, Southwest District, Sunshine District |
| Champions: | 1939, 1940, 1941, 1942, 1943, 1944, 1945, 1946, 1947, 1948, 1949, 1950, 1951, 1952, 1953, 1954, 1955, 1956, 1957, 1958, 1959, 1960, 1961, 1962, 1963, 1964, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 |
| Links: | Official website |
