In the early '30's Mr. Shaw, owner of the Blackburn-Shaw funeral home, made a trip to Dallas and heard a quartet sing for a funeral. He returned to Amarillo and organized his own. He sang lead and paid the others three dollars each for singing at funerals and on the firm's Sunday radio program singing spiritual and gospel songs. Tenor Wendell Heiny joined the quartet in 1935 and was soon working full time in the funeral business. The quartet sang together until the war sent three members into the service. Heiny, along with Paul Ellis, lead, and bass Willard Grantham came home from the service in 1946 and started looking for a new baritone. They found Dwight Elliott in 1947 and soon afterwards won a quartet contest sponsored by the American Legion. The prize was a free trip to New York City. Two years later, Grantham dropped out of the group and was replaced by Jim Bob Nance. A chapter of SPEBSQSA was started in Amarillo in December 1948 and the Blackburn- Shaw quartet became members. They entered a 1950 regional contest

at the last minute to give the chapter an entry and were shocked to win. It was their first real barbershop competition. They entered the International competition in Omaha in 1950, placed 32nd, and began receiving invitations to appear on chapter shows around the country.  Lubbock's veteran barbershopper Pat Cunningham insisted they change their name since Blackburn-Shaw meant nothing outside Amarillo. After much thought and no results, the idea came from singing on Tulsa's 1951 Parade of Quartets Show. Emcee Al Cashman got several laughs by introducing the quartet as: a funeral director, a life insurance salesman, a cemetery lot salesman, and a finance man (which was the truth at the time). Cashman also suggested they walk on stage carrying an imaginary casket". The stunt got so many laughs that the quartet soon added a complete "Digger O'Dell" routine and the new name came easy, The Four Hearsemen. Always a Bridesmaid Paul Ellis withdrew from the quartet in 1951

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