The Mills Brothers

The original Four Mills Brothers were John C. Mills Jr., bass vocalist and guitarist, Herbert Mills, tenor, Harry Flood Mills, singing baritone, and Donald Mills, lead tenor. Their barber father founded the barbershop quartet as the Four Kings of Harmony. The boys would sing and play kazoo's on the street corner after church on Sunday mornings, and one day when one of the boys lost his kazzo he got the inspiration to fold his hands around his mouth and imitate the sound of a trumpet. He became such a hit with his instrument imitation that the other brothers also learned to imitate music instruments . . . on many of their early hits you can clearly hear the brothers imitating musical instruments along with their singing. The brothers went on to sell more than 50 million copies of their hit records and were inducted into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 1998.