When I Fall In Love:
The Lettermen began as a singing trio for Warner Brothers records in 1960, but found little success. In 1961, Tony Butala, Jim Pike and Bob Engemann moved to Capitol records. Their first relese for Capitol was "The Way You Look Tonight" -- it reached #13 on the pop charts. Their follow-up, "When I Fall In Love" did even better, climbing into the top ten and peaking at #7. Their biggest succes came in the lp market. In February of 1962 they released "A Song For Young Love" that contained their first two hits. It would be on the album charts for 58 weeks. There weren't a great number of single hits for several years, but in 1968 the group entered the top ten again with the medley, "Goin' Out of My Head / Can't Take My Eyes Off of You." But there albums have always been popular, a streak of 32 consecutive album releases that made it onto the Billboard list.
title week debuted highest ranking weeks on chart
The Way You Look Tonight 9/25/1961 13 9
When I Fall In Love 12/4/1961 7 11
Come Back Silly Girl 3/10/1962 17 7
Theme From A Summer Place 7/17/1965 16 5
Goin Out Of My Head (Medley) 1/6/1968 7 11
Hurt So Bad 8/16/1969 12 10
The Lettermen
The Way You Look Tonight:
"A Song For Young Love" was an LP that was a standard for romance in the early 1960's. As teenage boy with his first "girlfriend" and the attending teen house parties of my 8th and 9th grade years, I found this album to be indespensable. Of course, the two leading songs, "The Way You Look Tonight" and "When I Fall In Love" were favorites and created just the right mood for slow dancing. But the rest of the album also did a good job of keeping pace -- maintaining that romantic mood. Listening to it today, I don't find much that I like (with the exception of the previous mentioned two). "Dreamer" isn't too bad. I do have a later Lettermen album -- "Spring" from 1967. And I really like their 1968 and '69 releases, "Goin' Out of My Head" and "Hurts So Bad." But regardless of the quality of the music as I judge it today, as you can see by the appearance of the album, it was well used in the early 1960's.