Barbara and I were selling bras and girdles. Part of our training was learning to set and achieve goals. One of my goals I wrote, signed, and achieved was, "To be in an entertaining barbershop quartet within one year. People would be willing to pay us to perform. We would sing well and have interesting choreography. I would learn to talk to the audience."
Using the Jones method of Counting to Four was a new thing for me, but I have used it often since. Count to Four means:
1. Write and define a goal.
2. Act as if the goal has already been achieved.
3. Say Yes, and do anything needed to achieve the goal, and say "No" to anything or anybody negative to reaching the goal.
4. Do steps 1, 2, and 3 in order.
To form the quartet, I found three other singers who agreed to the same goal. After a few rehearsals, I realized one of the singers was not willing to put in enough practice time on his own, so I replaced him, although it was a very difficult thing for me to do. I went to San Diego to talk to Pete Monzo who had recently moved from the Downey area in Los Angeles. He had been singing with THE UPSIDE DOWNEYS, a funny quartet who performed during the Vietnam War in the South Pacific with the U.S.O. He liked my idea and agreed to rehearse with us. Then, I discovered another quartet member was not taking time to learn his part. He apparently was not well motivated, so I replaced him with a new member of our Vista chorus. This is the part of goal achievement that I hated the most because, it hurt someone's feelings. I found a new singer with a high sweet sounding voice who knew how to read music.
His name was Bill Phelps, a gifted singer, able to sing tenor, lead or baritone. He was intelligent and jovial. He was an actor and comedian. Someone influenced Bill to become a responsible, kind, family oriented person. HIS FATHER IS A PREACHER. Out of the three singers, John Pohlman was the only original one left. I had talked him into switching from singing melody to singing the more difficult baritone harmony.
I said, "Any dope can sing the melody. It takes brains to sing baritone. You must be able to sing above and below the melody line. You must know when to sing sharp above your written pitch. You will learn when to sing quiet or louder in relation to the other parts. John Pohlman, I don't think we should waste your intelligence singing lead. You should sing baritone."
After we learned a few songs together, I often had goose bumps when we hit certain chords. It happened when the baritone and bass were both singing low and loud, creating overtones. Barber shoppers hear the high pitched overtones created by perfect harmony and call the sounds “angel’s voices.”
The Raisin' Caine performed first by singing for neighbors of John Pohlman. One was an Escondido radio disk jocky. He didn’t care much for our singing at night at his front door. Maxine Monzo, Pete's wife was always there to help the quartet with her enthusiasm and good coaching. We decided to enter the Southern California Novice Quartet Contest in 1975 held in Orange, California. We worked hard to perfect the two contest songs, and the night before the contest, we sang them while Dick Stern observed. Dick was our assistant chorus director, and we respected him. He advised us not to sing THAT OLD GANG OF MINE. He said, “Sing ROW, ROW,ROW.” He let us know it was impossible for us to win. Dick said, "Just go out there on the stage, and have a good time. Don't worry about winning."
We took Dick's advice, and before the contest started the next day, we went to see my brother Ron Browne in Anaheim. He coached us and changed the choreography. Then he went with us to watch the contest. Back stage, I listened to some of the competing quartets warming up. They all sounded pretty good. One group, that sounded like professionals to me, did not win that night, but later won contests using the name CALIFORNIA GOLD. (Years later I bought one of their records.) Anyway, we won the contest. My brother was pleased. He decided to form a new quartet called YER FADDERS MUSTACHE. (During the next few years they became the most popular barbershop show quartet I ever saw. They were featured on more than two hundred SPEBSQSA shows all over America. They performed on national T.V. shows and were in two popular movies.]
The RAISIN' CAINE was frequently paid to sing after winning the novice contest in Orange. We performed on many chapter shows of the SPEBSQSA in Southern and Northern California.
The Sweet Adeline women's barbershop chapter at Trinity Bay hired us. Trinity Bay is on the coast of Northern California near Eureka. The previous year, they had hired the world champs, THE SIDEWINDERS. It was expensive for the girls to hire us. They paid for air fare, lodging, food, and local transportation for us and for our wives. We also charged a small fee. Each of us in the quartet felt insecure. We were hired as a comedy quartet, and we didn't believe we were funny. The truth is, many people who observed our act thought we were funny. I have a tape of our performance, and the audience laughed a lot during our act. That was the time John Pohlman said, "It's been so hot and dry the past few weeks, the trees have been fighting over the dogs."
The young ladies who hired us said they were well satisfied with our performances. It turned out people expected us to be funny and we were.
Months later on our way to the Modesto show, on the plane, we sang to the airline hostesses and passengers who bought us alcohol mixed drinks. The trip had already turned into a fun time.
We were met at the airport by three barber shoppers who drove us to town in a large R.V. that was like a house on wheels. It stopped at a nice restaurant on the way to town. After eating, we were asked to sing. We had a good time singing for everybody in the restaurant.
The men in the large Modesto chorus had purchased new costumes for their show using borrowed money they hoped to make on the show. We were billed as the headliners. We were expected to give the audience their monies worth. We performed on the show Friday night, at a chapter brunch Saturday, at the matinee show, and at the Saturday night show.
The chapter gave us a house and car to use, meals, and our fee. They treated us like movie stars. A school teacher owned the house we slept in. Early the next morning, he sent his beautiful girlfriend over to cook breakfast for us. Before we left Modesto, the chapter officers thanked us for helping to make their show a success. They made a profit more than enough to pay for the chorus uniforms. The Raisin' Caine performed often for twelve years. My goal for the quartet was a dream that came true.