[1] The quartet won the 1950 International Championship and is best known for appearing in the 1957 Broadway production The Music Man and its 1962 film version.
Soon after their victory, they appeared on the national radio program We The People and were honored by the Manhattan and Buffalo chapters on their return trip to their hometown.
In the early 1950s, composer and bandleader Meredith Willson hosted a radio program called Music Today with his wife, Rini.
They were accepted immediately, but joining the cast of the musical meant they would all have to quit their jobs in Buffalo and relocate to New York City.
After the Bills committed to appear in The Music Man, baritone Dick Grapes ultimately decided to stay behind with his job and family life.
He was replaced by veteran barbershop baritone Wayne "Scotty" Ward of the Great Scots quartet of Steubenville, Ohio.
Mitch Miller, the director of artists and repertoire for Columbia Records, was a fan of barbershop harmony and signed the quartet to the label.
[6] For the next five years, the Buffalo Bills continued to perform regularly on Arthur Godfrey's show, appeared as a nightclub act, performed in regional and amateur productions of The Music Man and were headline entertainers at barbershop conventions and shows, as well as at state and county fairs and festivals around the United States and Canada.