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.

Newcomers of 1928 opened on February 28, 1958, at the Desert Inn in Las Vegas, Nevada.

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).

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.

[10] 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.

[7] In 1961, The Lettermen started performing live concerts,[7] doing over 200 shows a year, an unbroken string that continues to the present.

In 1974, the group decided to drop the "the" in their name, as a way to appeal to younger audiences at the time, on their album "Now and Forever" and their song "Eastward".

[11] 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.

This is also evident in the addition of Rob Gulack to the group in 2019 as Butala eased into retirement.

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[6][7] 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.