The quartet started out as an unnamed foursome, singing for community groups around Buffalo. The original members were tenor Vern Reed, an executive for the Tonawanda Boys' Club; lead Al Shea, who was a City of Buffalo policeman; baritoneHerschel Smith, a corporate executive; and bass Bill Spangenberg, a truck driver for a steel company. During an appearance at the Buffalo Quarterback Club, the nameless quartet was introduced as the "Buffalo Bills", which was meant to be just for the occasion, but the name stuck from that day on. Coincidentally, a football team known formerly as the Buffalo Bisons also changed its name to the Bills around the same time; the name proved popular enough that the current Buffalo Bills team also picked up the name when they debuted thirteen years later. Phil Embury traveled with the quartet around the world. The Bills competed in the 1948 and 1949 SPEBSQSA International Quartet Contests, placing sixteenth and sixth, respectively.
Champions
Baritone Herschel Smith left the quartet after he received a job promotion and was transferred to Madison, Wisconsin. Unable to find a replacement, the Bills temporarily broke up. They soon found baritone Dick Grapes and success quickly followed. In 1950, the Bills won the Barbershop Harmony Society International Quartet Contest, earning them the title of International Quartet Champions. Soon after their victory, they appeared on the national radio programWe The People and were honored by the Manhattan and Buffalo chapters on their return trip to their hometown. Their first national television appearance was on The Faye EmersonPepsi-Cola Show broadcast on CBS in April 1951. The Bills also performed at military bases in France, Germany, Austria, Japan, and Korea. That same year of 1951, the Bills released an eight-song LP album for Decca titled Barbershop Gems which was also issued on 45 and 78 RPM records.
Discovery
In the early 1950s, composer and bandleader Meredith Willson hosted a radio program called Music Today with his wife, Rini. Hearing the Bills records, he began to admire their work, and he and his wife travelled to Buffalo three years later to meet them. Afterwards, he began featuring the quartet regularly on his radio show. In February 1957, the Buffalo Bills competed on Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts, won first honors, and received an invitation to perform on Godfrey's morning show for the rest of the week. Later that year, Willson finished writing his new musical play, The Music Man, which featured a barbershop quartet in the plot. Willson suggested the Bills come to New York City and audition for the show. They were immediately accepted, but joining the musical meant they would all have to quit their jobs in Buffalo and relocate to New York City.
Broadway and film
In the end, Dick Grapes decided to stay behind with his job and family life and was replaced by veteran barbershop baritone Wayne "Scotty" Ward of the Great Scots quartet of Steubenville, Ohio. The quartet took one-year leaves from their jobs and moved with their families to New York City. They continued to make television and radio appearances, including the Arthur Godfrey show, where they met Walter Latzko, a CBS staff music arranger. They were such a hit in The Music Man on Broadway, that they were cast in the film adaptation of the musical in 1962. Shortly after the film was completed, Bill Spangenberg became ill and was forced to leave the quartet; he died in 1963. Spangenberg was replaced by Jim Jones, bass of the Sta-Laters quartet.
Final years
For the next five years, the Buffalo Bills continued to perform regularly on the Arthur Godfrey Show, appeared as a nightclub act, performed in regional and amateur productions of The Music Man and were headline entertainers at barbershop conventions and shows, as well as at state and county fairs around the US and Canada. Their total career consisted of 1,510 performances on Broadway, 728 concerts, 675 radio shows, 672 night club and hotel appearances, 626 conventions, 218 television shows, 137 state fair performances, and 1 film. Internal issues and some health problems among the members caused the quartet to disband in 1967. The Buffalo Bills made their final official appearance on May 24, 1967 at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York. Al Shea and Vern Reed were the only members with the Buffalo Bills throughout their entire 20-year existence. The last surviving member of the quartet is Jim Jones, who lives in Orlando, Florida.Shea died in 1968, Ward in 1988, Reed in 1992, Smith in 2007, and Grapes in 2015.
