Florida Boys Retiring in July
It is official; the Florida Boys will retire in July. Their booking agency, Harper, posted a headline on their website (but no article yet, or at any rate a bad link if there is an article.)
Before Harper posted, I emailed Les Beasley asking if it was official for the record. He replied:
Much to our sorrow the retirement stories are true.
Thanks for your concern and may God bless you and yours,
Les Beasley
One can hardly blame them for going out at the top of their game.
Comment by Mary (June 12, 2007, 6:17 pm)
What a loss for the industry!
But, with Glen, Les, and Darrell’s ages, this is understandable.
Could this be another case simillar to the Statesmen, when Big Cheif died?
Gene McDonald is, like Cheif, an irreplaceable bass.
Comment by Mary (June 12, 2007, 6:20 pm)
Just remembered.
Harold Reed had joined the Kingsmen awhile back. Losing 2 great, young talents certainlly “deflated” the Flordia Boys’ “baloon”.
Comment by max fisher (June 13, 2007, 10:31 pm)
Actually after Allen left is when it really seemed like things went downhill. They didn’t do another studio recording of new material. They completely fell off of the map as far as the singing news was concerned. (If you know about the way Gene and Josh treated Allen you know why).
Their last song in the top 20 was the one featuring Allen doing It’s still true.
I know Allen wasn’t the best singer, but I also know there was a lot of stuff going on internally in that group and you could see it going on.
I thing Gene and Josh thought they were going to “take off” after Allen left and it never happened.
In fact it went in the opposite direction.
If you were at the convention in 2003 when Gene won Bass and heard what he did in his speech to Allen you know why he never won again.
Don’t look for it in the singing news fan award video, they deleted most of his speech.
Lots of facts the average fan doesn’t know, but things sure do come around!
Comment by Chuck Sims (June 14, 2007, 8:14 pm)
Sorry to hear about this retirement deal. We (The Brazos Boys) worked with them in May, and I will tell you that Butch did a very acceptable job at bass for them. He doesn’t have the fan base that Gene had, but is a very adequate bass singer. I hope that he stays around SG for a while. Good guy.
Comment by steve (June 14, 2007, 8:26 pm)
Hey Max, can you put any more innuendo in your post?
I think the FB were a great quartet with Harold and Gene. I think the management of the group left something to be desired. It appeared to me there was little marketing or publicity work done. Their website is awful. You would think that after their retirement announcement they would stop advertising about their cruise in November or delete their schedule after July 22.
How about an announcement on their site explaining the retirement decision?
They have completely mismanaged their farewell. They are not going out on top, they are going out with a whimper. This is not the way this group should retire. They were a class act and these last 6 months, with a little foresight and planning could have come off a whole lot better.