THE FOUR PREPS
The Four Preps are an American popular music male quartet. In the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, the group amassed eight gold singles and three gold albums. Its million-selling signature tunes included “26 Miles (Santa Catalina)”, “Big Man”, “Lazy Summer Night”, and “Down by the Station”. The Four Preps’ numerous television and motion picture appearances included four years on Ozzie and Harriet backing heartthrob Ricky Nelson and with Sandra Dee in the Gidget movie. Their most recent television appearance was with the award-winning 2004 PBS special, Magic Moments: The Best of 50s Pop.(More from Wikipedia)
Much to my amazement, Ed Cobb turned out to be a member of a band from the 1950’s called the Four Preps that could hardly be more different from the Piltdown Men and the Standells – come to think of it, those two later bands don’t have much in common either. (The other man behind the Piltdown Men, Lincoln Mayorga has had a long musical career, mostly behind the scenes, that began when he assisted his high school friends in that band; he became known as “the fifth Prep”). While instrumental rock bands like the Piltdown Men are extremely scarce these days – though a fine surf/psychedelic band called the Mermen released a new album this year (their first since 2004) – the musical genre from which the Four Preps arose was considered old-fashioned by the mid-1960’s and is almost completely extinct today. These all-male, all-white singing groups often had names evocative of bourgeois college days – in addition to the Four Preps, examples include the Lettermen and the Four Freshmen – and they sang in precise three- or four-part harmonies with a clean-cut look. The Four Preps’ big hit was a long-time favorite of mine called “26 Miles (Santa Catalina)”, a paean to Santa Catalina Island off the coast of California: “the island of romance, romance, romance, romance”.
(October 2010)
