The Lettermen

Last weekend, we went to see "The Lettermen," (surely you recall them from the '60's and '70's) who were appearing at a new casino out on the far south side of town. We all enjoyed hearing those old tunes, some of them their exclusives ("Hurt So Bad", "Traces/Memories", "Goin' Out Of My Head/Can't Take My Eyes Off You", "Shangri-La", "Put Your Head On My Shoulder", and many more.... ), others just old stand-bys of the era . They briefly showed, on the showroom TV, some tape from the beginning of the group, including this shot of the original three with Jack Benny. Only one of the original three (Tony Butala on guitar) is still with the group, but he's been there for 48 years now. And what's absolutely amazing is that he, together with various others, has been putting on at least a hundred shows like this every year since 1961!




The lighting in the showroom was great for the show but absolutely awful for any photography (so bright it washed everything out, or so colorful it distorted everything) but I did manage one shot when they had a member of the audience on stage briefly. The old coot with the gray hair is Tony, the original.

Two other things of note – the drummer in their accompanying group was sitting in an acrylic-walled room, apparently so that he could hear only the "pure" sound from the microphones through his headphones. The second thing is, I believe, related to this . . . this "background" accompaniment, especially the drums, was so loud that it seemed as if the singers were almost screaming into their mikes to be heard. We had some discussion about this – you can pick what you think is the correct explanation for it:
1) Today's "young" people are almost deaf from listening to so much loud music, so they insist on very loud presentations. They don't think the music is any good unless it's very loud.
2) The back-up group has it written in their contract that they must be heard, even above the singers.
3) The musical arranger for the group is a young guy, hence number 1) applies to him specifically.
4) The showroom manager is (probably) a young guy, hence . . .
5) Beats hell out of me, but it sure was loud . . .