While some kids were playing sports, riding bikes and reading books, Gene Cokeroft chose to sing dominant sevenths.

He was hooked on barbershop quartets.

After hearing the overwhelming overtones, the tight, clean chords and the melodic culmination of each song -- the ''tag'' in barbershop lingo -- Cokeroft took the bait.

''The sound is so exciting,'' he says. ``It's a feel-good thing.''

Sixty years after joining his first barbershop quartet as an eighth-grader at W.J. Bryan Junior High School in North Miami, Cokeroft is still thrilled by the a cappella vocal style.

Now 73, the Kendall resident has sung with famed quartets, appeared on national TV and, earlier this month, was inducted into the Barbershop Harmony Society's Hall of Fame in Nashville. Closer to home, he's keeping the tradition alive as director of the Singing Miamians men's chorus.

He was born for barbershop. ''I was the kid who was paraded in front of the school to sing,'' says Cokeroft, whose family moved to Miami from Birmingham in 1941, when he was 6.

When he was growing up, the barbershop quartet -- four men singing four-part, a cappella harmonies, usually dressed in coordinated uniforms -- was hitting its stride. With roots in African-American tradition and 19th century minstrel shows, barbershop singing blossomed with the founding of the Barbershop Harmony Society (originally the Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barber Shop Quartet Singing in America) in 1938.

''Barbershop is the ground basis for all other styles of harmony,'' Cokeroft says. ``Most of the major groups that have been together started singing barbershop.''

Cokeroft, who graduated from Miami Edison High School in 1953, went on to study music at Florida State University, but dropped out after two years to start a family.

He continued singing, rising to prominence as a member of The Memory 4, ranked by the Barbershop Harmony Society as one of the top quartets of 1956.

A year later, Cokeroft helped form a new group, The Suntones, which took top honors at the Barbershop Quartet Society's 1961 international competition.

''We were considered some of the best,'' he says. ``Some of the innovators.''

Among the innovations: The group incorporated Broadway show tunes into its repertoire and used hand-held microphones, allowing the men to move more freely on stage.

The Suntones toured and recorded, and more than 120 of their songs are available on iTunes. Their most popular downloads include the classics Let Me Call You Sweetheart, Lida Rose and Meet Me Tonight in Dreamland along with patriotic songs like This Is My Country from the group's album Keep America Singing.

He may not get much in royalties, but Cokeroft says the songs do, in fact, sell because The Suntones have a strong, niche market.

''But it doesn't pay the bills,'' he says.

In the 1960s, The Suntones appeared occasionally on Jackie Gleason's variety show, broadcast from Miami Beach, where they shared the stage with greats like Louis Armstrong, Bing Crosby and Bob Hope. They also performed with Gleason in skits like ''Don't Put Santa in Prison'' with the quartet as a group of crooks asking police -- in song -- to spare Gleason's Santa the slammer.

''It was fun, it was educational and it was profitable,'' Cokeroft says of the show. ``It was a mark for our experience.''

Between 1960 and 1980, The Suntones performed more than 1,000 shows, Cokeroft says. He remembers getting dressed in the maestro's dressing room at Carnegie Hall, a performance he'll never forget -- partly because of the sound system.

''It was a terrible mix,'' he says.

In the 1970s and '80s, the group was performing for audiences as large at 5,000. In The Suntones' prime, the men would fly to New York and New Jersey for a weekend of performances and be back in time for work Monday morning.

''We were very, very busy,'' he says. ``But when you're young, you can do that kind of thing.''

The Suntones retired in 1993, though the group has occasionally reunited for special performances, including its 50th anniversary.

Over the years, Cokeroft held day jobs as an electrician, a motor-freight salesman and, finally, as assistant to the executive director of the Orange Bowl Committee, where he helped organize the annual festival, parade and halftime show for 21 years, retiring in 1999.

At the Singing Miamians' weekly rehearsals, Cokeroft leads a group of about 40 who range in age from 16 to 87. His wife of 37 years, Iris, is a barbershopper, too, as director of Miami's GoldCoast Chorus, an affiliate of Sweet Adelines International.

The couple, who have 12 grandchildren through previous marriages, also coach high school groups and host daylong workshops for students interested in learning about a cappella singing and barbershop harmony.

''They are better students, they are more socially acclimated and they're happier because they're singing,'' Cokeroft says.

That's true of barbershoppers of any age, he says.

``It is like a big musical family. It's not hard to feel the love that's here between the members of the organization.''

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