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Essentials in
History
Remembering the Maple City Four
Who were the Maple City Four
Updated: 9/30/2002 10:17:00 AM
Remembering the Maple City Four
by Ruth Blazina-Joyce, Former Curator/Archivist, Heritage Hall Museum of Barbershop Harmony
[The Maple City Four, a popular radio quartet, brought close harmony to midwest listeners for more than a quarter-century. The group will be featured in the Heritage Hall Museum’s 1995/96 traveling exhibit at the Miami Beach international convention, Harmony College, and Jacksonville midwinter convention.]
One day in October 1924, three fellows were sitting down to a meal in LaPorte, Indiana, when they heard a singer audition for the Elk Lodge’s annual talent show. They joined in, won a spot on the show, and found themselves billed as “The Maple City Four.”
During the next couple of years, they sang at a few private parties. Then, in 1926, came their first radio experience—they were hired to brighten some political campaign spots for the fall elections. This led to actual “paying jobs” at clubs and parties. A friend suggested the quartet try out at the fledgling WLS radio station in Chicago.
They were auditioned and signed. On November 19, 1926, the Maple City Four began a career that would span almost 30 years.
Called “the four Marx Brothers of radio,” the Maple City Four’s mixed bag of skits, comedy songs, ballads, barbershop, weird instrumentals, and light patter made them favorite artists. The quartet could literally be heard round the clock—though not always under their own name.
Many companies sponsored short “programs of entertainment” to showcase their products. The foursome often used a company-related alias in these spots. They became the Caterpillar Crew for Caterpillar Tractors; the Checkerboard Singers for the Purina Co. With songs, jokes, and light banter they extolled the virtues of everything from Kelloggs’ cereals to Ford motor cars.
The Maple City Four were also top performers on several of the longest-running programs on radio. These were variety shows, broadcast live before a studio audience and featuring a number of different acts. The quartet toured with three shows when they took to the road on gruelling multi-state vaudeville theater circuits. Critics called them a “snappy and clever,” “sure-fire,” “crack quartet,” “of more than ordinary excellence,” that set “a new standard for harmony” as the “hit of the show.”
Soon after their last tour, rumors hinted that the Maple City four would be heading west to Hollywood. In 1937 they appeared in the Gene Autry western Git Along Little Dogies. The following year they went back again to shoot Under Western Skies with Roy Rogers.
Soon after, Art Janes left the quartet, Al Rice dropped to bari and Chuck Kerner came in as lead. The group resumed radio work, and continued to make numerous personal appearances on stage, for corporate events, and at benefits. In 1946 they released Gaslight Ballads through Mercury Records. They remained perennial favorites on WLS until they retired in the mid-1950s.
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