The show required three male singers to impersonate The Rhythm Boys, the vocal group that traveled with Whiteman and his orchestra in the late 1920s, and gave Bing Crosby his initial fame.

Barnett and Russell were replaced midway through the run by Gary Clarke and Jerry Paul.

When the show ended, Butala landed a job as singer/bass player in a lounge group, "Bill Norvis and the Upstarts", along with Clarke.

After a few months, Clarke left the group and was replaced by Jim Pike (November 6, 1936 – June 9, 2019).

[citation needed] As "The Lettermen", Pike, Butala, and Engemann released two singles in 1960 for Warner Bros.

About that same time, there was a third group called the Lettermen Trio, headed up by Sammy Vandenburg, who also had no record success.

[1] Their first single for Capitol, "The Way You Look Tonight", succeeded on the Billboard Hot 100 pop chart and climbed to No.

The last successful single was in 1971, John Lennon's "Love", a solo by Jim Pike.

The Lettermen were featured on the TV show Dobie Gillis in the episode "Vocal Boy Makes Good" which originally aired on January 16, 1963.

{S14 Ep25} In 1976, Jim Pike left the group because of vocal problems and sold the Lettermen name to Butala.

In 1961, The Lettermen started performing live concerts, doing over 200 shows a year, an unbroken string that continues to the present.

Over the decades, the group has had various line-ups, replacing members who left for various reasons with new people to maintain a trio.

Butala also said this of the previous line-up of himself, Tea, and Mark Preston (11 years), thus highlighting the high standard of vocalists The Lettermen always had.

Among their many songs include renditions of several traditional Filipino kundimans such as Dahil sa Iyo ("Because of You"), Sapagkat Kami Ay Tao Lamang ("For We Are Only Human").

Bob Engemann died at age 77 in Provo, Utah on January 20, 2013[5] of complications from his December 13, 2012 heart bypass surgery.

Jim Pike died from complications of Parkinson's disease on June 9, 2019, at his home in Prescott, Arizona.

[7] Tony Butala retired from active performing since 2019, but still maintains a background presence with the group.