Easternaires
From Barbershop Wiki Project
The Easternaires were a quartet in the Barbershop Harmony Society. Between 1956 and 1970, they earned three medals in the International Quartet Contest, rising as high as 4th place.
Contents |
Quartet Members
Medalist Members:
- Tenor: Dan Heyburn (55-58), Tom Dames (59-60), Ed Ryan (65-76)
- Lead: Tom Dames (55-58), Dan Heyburn (59-76)
- Bari: Bob Bohn (55-68), Dave Mittelstadt (69-76)
- Bass: Harry Richter (56-58), Bill Annichiarico (59-66), Bob Bohn (69-76)
Other Members:
- Bass: Ray Michalski (55), James Jones (68)
Membership by Year
| Year | Tenor | Lead | Bari | Bass |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1955 | Dan Heyburn | Tom Dames | Bob Bohn | Ray Michalski |
| 1956-58 | Dan Heyburn | Tom Dames | Bob Bohn | Harry Richter |
| 1959-60 | Tom Dames | Dan Heyburn | Bob Bohn | Bill Annichiarico |
| 1965-66 | Ed Ryan | Dan Heyburn | Bob Bohn | Bill Annichiarico |
| 1968 | Ed Ryan | Dan Heyburn | Bob Bohn | James Jones |
| 1969-76 | Ed Ryan | Dan Heyburn | Dave Mittelstadt | Bob Bohn |
Contest Placement
International
| 1955 | 1956 | 1957 | 1958 | 1959 | 1960 | 1961 | 1962 | 1963 | 1964 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 12th | 5th | 8th | 7th | 4th | 7th | ||||
| 1965 | 1966 | 1967 | 1968 | 1969 | 1970 | 1971 | 1972 | 1973 | 1974 |
| 13th | 14th | 18th | 9th | 5th | 6th | 8th | |||
| 1975 | 1976 | ||||||||
| 31st |
District
Represented the Mid-Atlantic District.
Recordings
The Easternaires - Once over Lightly
RCA Victor (LSP-2263) (C) 1961 Produced by Bob Bollard Recorded in Webster Hall, New York City Recording Engineer: Bob Simpson
Track Listing - All Tracks ASCAP Side 1 Bye Bye Blues (1:40) Peg O' My Heart (1:17) Me and My Shadow (2:02) The Bells of St. Mary's (2:08) I'll See You in My Dreams (2:04) Ramona (2:11) I'm Always Chasing Rainbows (3:30) Goodnight, Sweetheart (1:06)
Side 2 My Blue Heaven (2:33) Wonderful One (2:05) Sweet and Lovely (1:51) You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby (2:17) When Your Lover Has Gone (2:20) Tea for Two (3:18) Hello, Young Lovers (2:32)
Album Notes The Easternaires are a barbershop quartet who abandoned the old-fashioned harmonies. Instead, they present the pop songs of today with a fresh breath of sincerity, good fellowship, and humor. Bob Bohn is a steamship company traffic dispatcher. Tom Dames, an efficiency expert. Dan Hayburn, electrical contractor and Bill Annichiarico is a trailer-truck driver. They've been singing together and winning SPEBSQSA prizes for seven years. The preservation of barbershop harmony, as we know it, is the work of Owen C. Cash, a Tulsa attorney, who in 1938 founded the Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barber Shop Quarter Singing in America. Twenty-six enthusiasts attended a first meeting--a songfest held on the roofgarden of the Tulsa Club. Today, 26,000 members from every walk of life, organized into more than 600 chapters in the United States and Canada, are members of SPEBSQSA. No one knows where the term "barbershop" originated, perhaps in the early days of the West when men chimed in to alleviate boredom. It is masculine. It is lusty. It is also tender and sentimental, and probably was never sung in barbershops at all. The Easternaires were organized in 1954 to meet an emergency. A television network had asked the Society's chapter in Jersey City to provide a quartet for a show eight days away. Since the chapter's member quartets had already appeared on television, Robert J. Bohn, an otherwise unattached baritone, volunteered to recruit a new group in that brief space of time. Since then, The Easternaires have been among the top ten in annual international competitions of the Society. Their engagements each year range from New York to Los Angeles, from Florida to Canada, at least forty weekends of the year--in addition to their regular jobs. There are certain SPEBSQSA music morals that may be violated in this album. But for us non-SPEBSQSA-ites, here are great songs all dressed up in wonderful, new clothes. We hope the Society will forgive any transgressions and join with us at the turntables. -- Joseph Gale, Newark News
Extended History
Also Sang With
Dan Hayburn
No other quartets at International.
Tom Dames
No other quartets at International.
Ed Ryan
- Tradewinds - Int'l Competitor, 1987-89 (?)
Bob Bohn
- Four Pages - Int'l Competitor, 1950
Dave Mittelstadt
- Main Street Four - Semi-Finalist, 1964
- Play-Tonics - Two medals, 1956-57
- Village-Aires - Finalist, 1950-51
Harry Richter
No other quartets at International.
Bill Annichiarico
- Hometown Quartet - 3rd place, 1958
Ray Michalski
- Four Pages - Int'l Competitor, 1950
James Jones
- Oriole Four - Semi-Finalist, 1960
See Also
- BHS International Quartet Medalists - 4th place, 1959
