John “Bernie” Toorish, co-founder of the pop group The Four Lads that dominated the pre-rock radio era, has died.
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The veteran musician “passed away peacefully on December 7” in hospice in North Olmsted, Ohio, per his online obituary. Toorish was 94.
The Four Lads achieved 22 Top 40 hits, according to Ideastream Public Media, including five million-sellers: “Moments to Remember,” “No, Not Much,” “Standing on the Corner,” “Who Needs You?” and “Istanbul (Not Constantinople),” which was later covered by They Might Be Giants in 1990. The group originally formed under the name Otnorots, a reverse spelling of their hometown, Toronto.
The group gained recognition performing at Le Ruban Bleu supper club in the late 1940s and later backed Johnnie Ray on his landmark 1951 hits, “Cry” and “The Little White Cloud That Cried.” Toorish arranged their vocals and wrote several of their songs.
John ‘Bernie’ Toorish and His Wife Celebrated Their 69th Wedding Anniversary Just Days Before His Passing
The Lads went on to perform with Ray on The Ed Sullivan Show and toured the Midwest independently, including a stop in Cleveland in 1952.
Toorish’s future wife, Angela, was in the audience for that performance.
“When they bounced out onto the stage, and I’m telling you from my heart, it was love at first sight,” Angela Toorish recalled to Ideastream. “Then eight months later, they came back in town… that was February of 1953. I got up the nerve to go up to him for an autograph… Well, long story short, a few years down the road, we did get married, in 1956.”
The couple celebrated their 69th wedding anniversary on December 1, just days before Bernie’s passing.
Bernie and Angela Toorish moved to her native Northeast Ohio in 1964. To be closer to his family of four children, Bernie retired from the Four Lads in 1972. He then entered the business world. He later started a new group, which sometimes included original Lad Connie Codarini and local jazzman Peter Selvaggio, performing around Ohio until 2018.
“Sometimes I’d be talking to him, and I could see by his eyes. His mind was on either creating a new song or something to do with music,” she told the outlet. “It certainly was his love.”
Toorish was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame in 1984 and the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 2003.