Don`t ask Glenn Yarbrough about the allure of stardom. He`d much rather sail the seven seas in his new boat than pursue fame and fortune.
Yarbrough is scheduled to drop anchor at Orchestra Hall at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday evening to join his former singing partners, the Limeliters, and the Kingston Trio for a concert co-sponsored by the Old Town School of Folk Music. Although now on his own, Yarbrough may share the stage with the two founding Limeliters for a few rousing choruses of their longtime favorite,
”There`s a Meetin` Here Tonight.”
”Usually I do one or two songs with them, and then introduce the third member,” he said by phone from Seattle, his current port-of-call.
Yarbrough has always accepted stardom reluctantly. ”I`ve never really chased fame,” he said. ”It`s just kind of come to me, what fame I`ve had.
”I`ve always thought that singing was something you did until you grew up, that it was a good way to make a couple of bucks. Lately I`ve come to realize that whatever it is I do seems to be important to quite a few people.”
Chicago has been good to Yarbrough. He got his first big break here in the mid-1950s, when he followed local troubadour Bob Gibson into the Gate of Horn for a six-month stretch at the fabled folk club.
After leaving Chicago, Yarbrough took up residence at a nightspot called the Limelite in Aspen, Colo., and invited Lou Gottlieb and Alex Hassilev to co-star with him there.
”We would do our individual shows in Aspen, and then at the end of the evening, we`d sing a few songs together,” Yarbrough said. ”And that seemed to be more successful than anything we did separately, so we formed a group.” Logically billed as the Limeliters, the trio signed with RCA and became one of the leading lights of the early 1960s folk boom, issuing a dozen acclaimed albums and recording a catchy Coca-Cola TV ad (”Things Go Better With Coke”) that aired for years.
But in 1963, the trio broke up. ”I counted my money one day, and I thought if I was very careful, I could live for about 20 years on what I made,” Yarbrough said.
”I was just going to sail away. But RCA asked me to make a final album alone before I left. That turned out to be a success, and then the next one was even more successful.”
When Yarbrough cut his rendition of the theme to a Steve McQueen movie called ”Baby the Rain Must Fall” in 1965, he was an instant pop sensation-even if he wasn`t too crazy about the song at first.
”I listened to it, and I didn`t like it,” he said. ”Then they came back to me, they said, `Look, maybe you should see the movie, and maybe that`ll make you feel differently about it.` And I loved the movie.
”I thought, `Well, the movie`s going to be a hit, and I might as well do the song.` Shows how much I know-the song was a hit and the movie was a bomb!”
The soaring ”Baby the Rain Must Fall” proved Yarbrough`s lone pop smash.
”It was a fluke for me. I mean, that`s the only hit I ever got,” he said. ”My ex-wife told me that I went further in the entertainment business with one hit than anybody that was ever in the business.”
”She,” tucked away on the flip side, was written by an obscure poet named Rod McKuen.
”He came walking down my driveway one time in the Hollywood Hills with a guitar and a bunch of music paper,” Yarbrough said.
”He came to sing me songs, which I don`t like to do. I like to get them on tapes. But he had gone to all the trouble to come, so I thought I ought to listen.
”And I was amazed-I mean, everything he sang I liked.
”So I hired him almost on the spot. I offered him a three-year contract to write exclusively for me.”
Although Yarbrough is glad to sing for his fans, he`d probably be just as happy navigating his vessel through the choppy waters of some distant sea.
”It`s kind of equal,” he said. ”When I`m singing, I want to be sailing, and when I`m sailing I want to be singing. If I could find a way to do them both at the same time, I`d be a happy man.”
