He joined a local singing group, which, as the Hoboken Four, won a talent competition in 1935 on the popular radio program Major Bowes’ Amateur Hour. The group toured the country that year, but Sinatra was the only member with serious musical ambitions, and they soon disbanded. For the next few years, Sinatra sang with local dance bands and for remote radio broadcasts. In 1939, while singing and waiting tables at the Rustic Cabin in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, he was discovered and hired by trumpeter Harry James, who had recently quit the Benny Goodman Orchestra to start his own band.
