Our Own Hall of Fame
THE MILLS BROTHERS
ON TOP FOR THREE DECADES
Mills Brothers Still Click With Barbershop Harmony
DAYTON DAILY NEWS, MARCH 7, 1961
BY MARY ELLEN LYNCH
Daily News Staff Writer
Miami County’s Mills Brothers don’t remember if it happened in 1930 or 1931, but they do remember it was 7 o’clock in the morning when they were discovered by Duke Ellington in a Pullman car in Cincinnati.
The teenagers were jamming in the lobby of the Broadway hotel at 5 a.m. when Ellington’s manager heard them, whisked them off to the train, woke the Duke and auditioned the quartet.
Ellington liked what he heard and that was the beginning of the big time for the Mills Brothers.
NOW 30 YEARS later, they are still one of the nation’s top vocal groups.
The boys were all born in a ramshackle house on Spring St. in Piqua—John Jr. in 1911, Herbert a year later, Harry in 1913 and Donald in 1915.
Their father, John Sr., ran a barbershop, coached his young sons in barbershop melodies between shaves and haircuts.
The boys made their professional debut in 1925 (Donald was only 10), singing at May’s opera house in Piqua for $4 a night and all the change the customers were willing to throw. A Rin-Tin-Tin movie got top billing. They had to borrow the clothes they wore.
In between bookings they hung around Piqua dance halls (especially the old Winter Garden) pleading for a chance to sing for pelted pennies.
BY 1928, THOUGH, the boys were picking up a reputation and they moved on to Cincinnati where they got a regular radio show on WLW.
After Ellington discovered them, they were off to New York where they made it big fast.
Their trademark was an ingenious vocal imitation of instruments—Herb the saxophone, Harry the trumpet, and John Jr. the tuba—with Donald interpolaters vocal hot licks.
The Mills Brothers got their own twice-a–week, 15-minute CBS radio show, snared club and vaudeville dates and a recording contract.
THEN DEATH broke up the quartet.
John Jr. died at 25 and his father, a lean, serious-faced man who didn’t look old enough to have grown sons, stepped in to fill the gap. He sang with the brothers until illness forced his retirement a few years ago.
In the ‘40s, the Mills Brothers hit new heights. By 1947 they were pulling down $5,000 a week for stage appearances plus another $1,750 on the Kraft Music hall radio show.
They hit the recording jackpot with “Lazy River,” “Paper Doll,” and, later, “Glow Worm.”
Cut to a trio now, the brothers are still recording, still in demand in the nation’s top night clubs and for TV guest shots.
BUT THE MILLS Brothers haven’t forgotten where their roots are.
In the ‘40s, they introduced “Dreamsville, Ohio” and Harry, the rotund member of the group, summed it up for the rest:
“When we sing it,” he said, “I close my eyes and dream of Ohio. It’s a good feelin’.”
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