24 Facts About Glenn Yarbrough

Glenn Robertson Yarbrough was an American folk singer and guitarist.

Glenn Yarbrough was the tenor lead singer of the Limeliters from 1959 to 1963 and had a prolific solo career.

Glenn Yarbrough was born in Milwaukee on 12 January 1930, later moving to New York where his parents were practicing social workers.

However, because there were few jobs available during the Great Depression, his father traveled around the country from one job to another, and Glenn Yarbrough lived with his mother in New York City, helping to support her as a paid boy soprano in the Choir of Men and Boys at Grace Church in Manhattan.

Glenn Yarbrough was offered a scholarship at St Paul's School, located in Brooklandville, Maryland, graduating in 1948.

Glenn Yarbrough said that initially Holzman had wanted to call the label Elektra-Stratford Records, but "I suggested Elektra Records because it was a little shorter, and that's what we went with: Elektra Records".

When Woody Guthrie performed an impromptu performance for the roommates, Glenn Yarbrough became interested in folk music and learned the guitar.

Glenn Yarbrough was approached by Fred Hellerman and asked if Pete Seeger could play the banjo on some tracks, and this put Glenn Yarbrough in touch with the politics of the McCarthyism era of blacklists of musicians.

However, Glenn Yarbrough was disappointed with Seeger's attitude and quality of work, leading him to replace Seeger on the record with Erik Darling, formerly of The Weavers.

Glenn Yarbrough served in the US Army during the Korean War, initially deciphering codes and later with the entertainment corps.

When Glenn Yarbrough was performing with Alex Hassilev at the Cosmo Alley coffeeshop in Hollywood in 1959, they impressed pianist and arranger Lou Gottlieb, who was working at the time on arrangements for the Kingston Trio.

Glenn Yarbrough had a working relationship with Rod McKuen and by 1968 had recorded around 45 of his songs.

Glenn Yarbrough later recalled in an interview that he had no memory of the first McKuen song he recorded, but said that he was thanked by the balladeer and they became close friends.

Glenn Yarbrough was said to be in full control, with an electric warmth, a "vibrancy that sweeps over the audience and envelopes it", even succeeding in doing material that involved audience participation, seen by the reviewer as "one of the riskiest tricks in show business".

In 1980 Glenn Yarbrough introduced what one journalist described as "his new sound", with less upbeat ballads and more mellow tunes, due in part to a case of strep throat at the time.

Glenn Yarbrough said on stage that it felt bizarre to be watching the Limeliters standing backstage, noting "it is an object lesson, if you think you cannot be replaced in this world".

Glenn Yarbrough had said that he "hated Christmas music", but after reading The Forgotten Carols which gave him "chills up and down [his] spine" and brought him to tears, he was inspired to tour performing Utah Composer Michael McLean's Forgotten Carols and creating a CD of the show.

Glenn Yarbrough told Michael McLean that Christmas was never interesting to him, but the composer's reply to Yarbrough was that his voice was God-given and he wanted it to be used to sing his music.

Glenn Yarbrough protested against the Vietnam war, claiming that it "had attacked the moral fiber of our country" and noted that after a performance of a protest song at the US Air Force Academy, the audience applauded.

The group stayed together until 1981, after which Glenn Yarbrough spent most of the next twenty years on his boat, only returning to record and give concerts when necessary to finance his sailing.

In January 1993, Glenn Yarbrough presented a programme of songs and a lecture at the Sailing Adventure Series at Orange Coast College.

Glenn Yarbrough began raising funds to establish a school for orphans in the late 1960s and said at that point, it was the only reason he continued to perform.

Glenn Yarbrough survived, but began to suffer from dementia and never sang in public again.

From that time, Glenn Yarbrough had to be cared for full time by his daughter, Holly Glenn Yarbrough Burnett, in Nashville and died there in 2016 from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.