They linked up with Mumford, now released from prison, and with three members of The Southern Harmonaires, David McNeil, Hadie Rowe Jr., and Raymond "Pee Wee" Barnes.
This period was the height of The Larks’ popularity – they appeared on the Perry Como and Arthur Godfrey TV shows, toured with Percy Mayfield, and recorded with Mahalia Jackson.
Thermon Ruth relocated back to North Carolina, and The Larks as a group effectively then ceased to exist for a while.
[1][5] Gene Mumford joined gospel group The Golden Gate Quartet, but in 1953 he decided to return to secular music.
He recruited the quartet's Orville Brooks and pianist Glenn Burgess, and singers David "Boots" Bowers and Isaiah Bing of the King Odom Four, this group then becoming the new incarnation of The Larks.
In 1955, he succeeded for the first time in the history of American entertainment in signing a gospel group, the Selah Jubilee Singers, to play in a commercial theater.
[2] Bunn continued his musical career after his early solo recordings, initially as manager and guitarist of R&B group The Wheels and then, in 1956, as one half of The Lovers with Anna Lee Sanford, who became his wife.
The pair had a minor R&B hit in 1957 with "Darling It’s Wonderful", and another in 1959 with "It’s Too Late" on Bobby Robinson’s Fire label, this time credited as "Tarheel Slim and Little Ann".