- Album list
- Singer Intro
The Ames Brothers were a singing quartet from Malden, Massachusetts, who were particularly famous in the 1950s for their traditional pop music hits.
Biography
The Ames Brothers got their beginning in Malden, where all four were born. The act consisted of brothers Joe (May 3, 1921 – December 22, 2007), Gene (February 13, 1923 – April 4, 1997), Vic (May 20, 1925 – January 23, 1978) and Ed (born July 9, 1927).
Born into a non-professional, but musically talented, family the boys were raised to enjoy classical and operatic music. Their parents, David and Sarah Urick, were Russian Jewish immigrants from the Ukraine who read Shakespeare and semi-classics to their nine children from the time they were old enough to listen.
Three of the brothers formed a quartet with a cousin named Lennie, and had been touring United States Army and Navy bases entertaining the troops when they were offered a job at The Fox and Hounds nightclub, one of the fanciest clubs in Boston. This one-week engagement turned into several months when positive word-of-mouth about their appearance got around. At the time, they were using Vic's middle name and calling themselves the Amory Brothers. They were becoming quite popular in the area and it was at this time that Joe decided to rejoin the group. He said they were just having too much fun together for him to miss out.[citation needed] Taking their act to New York City, they got a job with bandleader Art Mooney. One day while at Leeds Publishing Company in search of a song called 'Should I' that their mother had asked them to sing, Milt Gabler of Decca Records overheard them singing it and asked them to cut a few sides for Decca Records, just before the AFM recording ban which James Petrillo imposed in January 1948.
The ban was lifted a year later. The brothers shortened Amory to Ames and became the first artists to record for the newly founded Coral Records, a subsidiary of Decca. They were swept into national top billing with their first hit record, 'Rag Mop', in January 1950. Doing radio shows for free at times, just for the experience, they later became regulars on such shows as Arthur Godfrey and His Friends. One of the first acts to appear on the original The Ed Sullivan Show when it was known as Toast of the Town, they made their debut with him when the show was telecast live from Wanamaker's Department Store.
Soon, they were the top paid group in nightclubs and supperclubs everywhere and their popularity on television was nationwide. In 1956 they starred in their own show, The Ames Brothers Show, which was seen on Friday nights. It was the first syndicated television show to be shown in foreign countries. The brothers also appeared on ABC's The Pat Boone Chevy Showroom.
Over their fifteen-year career, their prolific work notched up 49 US chart entries, 21 of them on the Coral label before signing with RCA Victor. The group disbanded in the early 1960s, but Ed Ames continued with a successful singing and acting career, including playing Daniel Boone's sidekick, Mingo, on the popular Daniel Boone television series.
They were inducted into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 1998. Ed Ames, as the youngest brother, is the only surviving member of the group. Vic died in a car accident in 1978 at age 52, Gene died of cancer in 1997 at age 74, and Joe died of a heart attack in 2007 at age 86.
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