In spring that year, while performing at the Crest Lounge in Detroit, a patron suggested they audition Ken Errair, a friend of his. Errair, a tool and die maker by day, and spent his nights playing "society music" with several bands in the area, had a booming, deep voice and a good ear for harmony. He picked up Kratzsch's trumpet and mellophone parts and quickly learned the bass, becoming a full-time Freshman in May 1953. Their single to chart was "It Happened Once Before", and the year ended with them winning the DownBeat magazine poll as Best Jazz Vocal Group of 1953. In 1954, the Freshmen recorded their first album, Voices in Modern. "Mood Indigo", a single from this album, charted. The following year, they released "How Can I Tell Her" and "Charmaine", followed by "Graduation Day" in 1956. The group's second album Four Freshmen and 5 Trombones "set the standard for modern jazz vocal groups" and reached number 6. After only a short time with the group, Ken Errair, who had just married Jane Withers, left to settle into his married life in California. While informing his bandmates about his decision to leave, he recommended singer-songwriter and member of the Stuarts, Ken Albers. Errair would release an album on Capitol in 1957, Solo Session, before retiring from music to become a successful real estate developer in California. Around this time, the group began to perform at college auditoriums and to pursue a younger audience. In 1960, the Freshmen recorded "Their Hearts Were Full of Spring", a song which, with different lyrics, became The Beach Boys' "A Young Man Is Gone" in 1963. The group eventually lost its mainstream following with the advent of the rock bands of the 1960s, even as one of those bands, the Beach Boys, cited the Four Freshmen as one of its main influences. Don Barbour, unhappy with the direction the group had been taking with its material, which was away from the blues and saloon numbers and more toward mainstream pop, left the group on amicable terms in September 1960. He began working on a solo album in June 1961, but before it was released, he was killed in an automobile accident in Hollywood on October 5, 1961. Meanwhile, the group replaced him with Bill Comstock, who had performed with Albers in the Stuarts. Ken Errair died in a plane crash on June 14,