Few men, and even fewer entertainers, have impacted world events like the Colwell Brothers and Herb Allen. They played to cheering audiences across the globe, from intimate gatherings in he huts of remote villages to rock-star scale crowds in great metropolises.

But that all came later. From the start it was music they loved. The Detroit-born Colwells were on television in their teens, the youngest artists under contract with Columbia Records. Herb Allen was conducting the Seattle Baby Orchestra at age five, and as an accomplished xylophonist appeared on local radio with a new piece weekly for more than a decade.

Then they all took a decisive turn - to lives of service, humanitarian goals, and a path that would lead them to crisis areas across the world, where their music opened doors, tumbled walls, and built bridges of understanding.

They made it look easy to write songs on the road, rehearse them on the fly, and perform them in languages they had barely heard. It demanded grit, sacrifice, and commitment.

When the phenomenon of Up with People emerged in the 1960s, The Colwells and Allen were at the heart, its musical founders, drawing an avalanche of youth to the idea that their lives could count, and make a difference.