Close harmonies brought success to the Lettermen, whose initial thrust in the pop music market nailed them a No. 13 in the Billboard charts, the first of several hits for the trio. It all began in 1960 when Jim Pike and Bob Engemann, students at Brigham Young University in Utah, joined nightclub singer Tony Butala and went to work. Since athletic Pike had lettered at BYU, the trio decided to call themselves the Lettermen. Pike (b. 1938) had already had an unsuccessful single for Warner Bros. the previous year and Butala (b. 1940) had also had some recording experience. When Engemann (b. 1936), an ex-Mormon missionary, joined they went after a recording contract and signed with Capitol. The trio's first single for Capitol was "The Way You Look Tonight" and it zoomed up to No. 13, setting the stage for an even more successful "When I Fall In Love," which captured No. 7. Three months later, they struck gold again with "Come Back Silly Girl" making the Top 20. In 1968, they hit the Top 10 again with the medley "Goin' Out of My Head/Can't Take My Eyes Off of You."
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