He turned to his wife Sue, sitting next to him. “The Emperor of Japan must be on the plane,” he said.

    But no, it was Pike and the rest of The Lettermen who brought out throngs of excited Japanese fans. Pike was used to warm receptions, mostly on college campuses where the Lettermen were huge favorites, but this was the kind of adulation usually reserved for royalty...or the Beatles.

    “We were big (in the United States) but not like Elvis Presley or the Beatles were,” Pike said, reflecting on his days with the Lettermen, one of the most popular singing groups ever. “In Japan we were (huge), even edging out the Beatles on the charts in Japan and the Philippines. We didn’t know how to handle it.”

    So big, one of their hits, “Love,” a Pike solo originally written by John Lennon, soared to #1 on the Japanese charts. The tune kept right on soaring, going all the way to the moon! NASA included it as one of the songs left on the lunar surface in a time capsule representing “American Popular Music.”

    Now Pike is with Reunion, which is pretty much the Lettermen since it features two original performers, Jim and brother Gary. The siblings are joined by Ric de Azevedo from television’s “First Family of Song” the King Family, and present their “A” show, as Pike put it, at the Performing Arts Center on August 14 at 7 p.m.

    Reunion brings back the memorable music of the Lettermen, and Pike thinks this group does it better than the original ever did. That’s saying something, because the Lettermen had an unprecedented 46 consecutive hit albums on Billboard Magazine charts, with 20 hit singles and nine gold albums.

    “We always had one on the charts, like Elvis and the Beach Boys,” Pike said. Billboard took notice, naming the Lettermen the third ranked male vocalist group of the 60’s, behind the Beatles and Beach Boys. Pretty awesome company to be in!

    Who hasn’t swooned listening to “Put Your Head on My Shoulder”? Or “The Way You Look Tonight”? Songs like “A Summer Place,” “Shangri-La.” “Goin Out of My Head/Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You,” “When I Fall in Love” and many more were stamped into popular culture in the 1960’s, during live shows at thousands of colleges. And on television, on the Ed Sullivan and Tonight shows, Dean Martin, Jack Benny, Red Skelton, Milton Berle, Sammy Davis Jr. and many more.

    The Lettermen made Pike famous, but Reunion has actually been around twice as long as the original group after forming in 1983. Reunion has traveled to Hong Kong, Japan, Canada and England, and everywhere there are fans in love with in-love music.

    Like Sen. Orrin Hatch, a huge Lettermen fan who didn’t know Reunion. “We were his favorite vocal group,” Pike said. “(Reunion) entertained at a convention where he was the keynote speaker, and he recognized (us). He came backstage to meet us like a college kid.”

    He and Hatch became good friends, and one day Pike was asked to sing “Happy Birthday” at the senator’s office. As Hatch walked in Pike burst into song...only to see he was joined by Ted Kennedy! The late senator must have liked what he heard, because he asked Reunion to sing at a fundraiser following the death of his nephew John F. Kennedy Jr.

    The Hatch story kind of summarizes Reunion—getting people to realize these guys are basically the Lettermen. Pike can’t use the name officially because he sold it when his voice took a several-year sabbatical. For 10 years he could barely whisper, let alone sing. “He had to write notes to me for two years,” Sue said.

    The group featured three baritones so someone had to sing the high parts and Jim was elected. “By the end of a tour my vocal chords were swollen, even bleeding,” he said. “The problem was also psychological. I’d been told I could permanently lose my voice, so my subconscious shut down my diaphragm.”

    Slowly, miraculously, his voice came back and when it did, Reunion was born. An appearance on the Merv Griffin show later, Reunion was off and running, and a quarter-century later, these guys still do a show or two a month.

    Big Bear knows all about Reunion, which has performed 14 times—all sellouts—since the Pikes purchased a home here 12 years ago. All were benefits for hospital foundation, the PAC, high school, others. This one’s for Meals on Wheels, plus St. Joseph and Believer’s Chapel Food Pantries, to feed the hungry.

    “Aren’t people going to get sick of us?” Pike wondered. Not likely!

    Have a good one.

    Marcus