Heritage of Harmony
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Heritage of Harmony ,Edited by Val Hicks ' oaie', for 'qe Preaervaiion and . Inaouragemeni of l ar~er ' qOp t uarie' ' inging in l meriaa Heritage of Harmony Edited by Val Hicks ~ooie'J ,for ibe ~relervaUon and Inoouragemeni Qf ~arber ~bo, tuariei ~inging in imerioa Harmony Hall, Kenosha, Wisconsin Heritage of Harmony Copyright 1988, S.P.E.B.S.Q.S.A" Inc. International Ollice 6315 Third Avenue Kenosha, Wisconsin 53140 First Edition June 1988 All Rights Reserved Publishing Services, New Past Press, Inc., Friendship, Wisconsin 53934. Cover Design, Sandhill Studio, Green Lake, Wisconsin 54941. Printing, Action Printing, Fond du Lac, Wisconsin 54935. PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA Library oj Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Heritage oj Harmony. Discography, p. Bibliography, p. Includes Index. 1. Society jor the Preservation and Encouragement oj Barber Shop Quartet Singing in America-History. 1. Hicks, Val, 1933· II. Society jor the Preservation and Encouragement oj Barber Shop Quartet Singing in America. M127.U5S664 1988 784.5 88·17928 ISBN 0·938627·04·X (pbk.) ii Contents Introduction: Heritage of Harmony v Preface: Only in America vi Chapter 1 The Golden Age of Quartets (1890 - 1920) 1 Chapter 2 Jazzin' It Up (1920s - 1930s) 8 Chapter 3 The Dream of 0. C. Cash (1940s) 14 Chapter 4 Here Come the Judges 28 Chapter 5 The Teen Years (1950s) 38 Chapter 6 Coming of Age (1960s) 57 Chapter 7 Growing Sophistication (1970s - 1980s) 69 Chapter 8 The Second Half-Century 80 Editor's Epilogue 87 Historical Material and References 89 District Boundaries Through the Years 90 Logopedics Contributions 91 Membership Growth: Statistics and Graphs 92 Conventions Through the Years 94 International Presidents 102 International Secretaries and Executive Directors 103 Brief Histories of B.A.B.S. and SN.O.B.S. 107 International Contest and Judging Chairmen Through the Years 113 The Harmonizer and Its Editors 113 Society Programs and Musical Growth 114 The International Staff: Past and Present 118 Recommended Listening: Recordings 132 Bibliography 134 Index 136 iii Contributors Don Amos Jack Baird Bob Bisio Don Donahue Don Flom Val Hicks Hugh Ingraham Grady Kerr Joe Liles Lou Perry Dean Snyder Wilbur Sparks Acknowledgments Thanks are due to our loyal typists: Sunny West Carol Nielsen and Shirley Werner; our advisors, Robb Ollett and Dee Paris; Ruth Perry for proofreading; and most especially to historian and editor Dr. Val Hicks, whose contribution far exceeds any ordinary call to duty. Twelve historians contributed to this book. Some rewriting and editing occurred to minimize differences in style, language, format content and tense. It is hoped that the stylistic variety still found in the various chapters will add interest to your reading. iv Introduction: Heritage of Harmony America does, indeed, have a Heritage of Harmony. Starting with the Hutchinson Family Singers (ca.1B40) and stretching up to the second generation of Osmond Brothers, it is a legacy of which we can be proud. This book details the American musical movement called "Barbershop Harmony" and the organization which initially (yes, I'm punning) saved it from extinction the SP.E.B.S.Q.5A We hope we're not just tooting our organizational pitch pipe, however. We desire to give an historical perspective along with the evolutionary meanderings of the style through the years. For Barbershop has not remained static. Art forms change with each generation. The best way to sample these changes is to listen to various recordings through the decades. The written word can't do it. You've got to hear the evolving sounds and interpretations to complete the puzzle. (Please note the Recommended Listening section under Dr_ Val Hicks Historical Material and References.) This 50th-anniversary book of the founding of the S.P.E.B.S.Q.S.A. is dedicated to those early quartet men who loved four-part singing and left us their Heritage of Harmony. v Preface: Only in America "Only in America." You've heard the stagecoach. They had to create their expression many times. "Only in own entertainment. America could it happen." Is that true Remember the Broadway and film about Barbershop harmony? Possibly. hit The Music Man? Maybe quartetting Certainly it has been established as a began like that. One man started to native American art form. Why then. hum or sing the melody of a song only in America? learned from sheet music or from a There are many theories. I'm no travelling minstrel show and three musicologist, but let me add mine. Not others joined in Singing by ear and that I'm adding anything particularly improvising the harmony as they went new. along. Geography. That's why I think But that was yesterday. What of Barbershop harmony started in today? Why does it maintain its hold on America, or should I say, the United so many people? Why a Society for the States. (There's lots of Barbershop Preservation and Encouragement of harmony in Canada, but I tend to think Barber Shop Quartet Singing in this was yet another United States import America? Why do forty thousand men as far as Canadians are concemed. This in the United States and Canada meet is not to say that quartetting wasn't each week to sing this particular type around in Canada's early days, but you of harmony? Not only that, but these don't find the musical benchmarks that harmonic seeds are being exported to you do in the United States.) the British Isles, Europe, Scandinavia, Back to my theory. Geography. Our Australia and New Zealand, where they pioneers, especially in the sparsely are finding fertile ground. populated heartland of the country, Again. I have my theories. First and were isolated. No TV. No radio. No foremost, I think it answers a basic telephones. Not in those days. There was human need, the need to create. little long-line transportation except by Between radio, TV videotapes and river and maybe an occasional what not, we have become a nation of vi observers rather than participants. barbershopper can perform anywhere Singing in a quartet or chorus gives us with a minimum of expense on his part. a chance to participate, to perform He doesn't have to purchase anything before a live audience, to put but a pitch pipe. something of ourselves into the One of the most widely read and presentation and interpretation of a influential books of the past decade is song. John Naisbitt's Megatrends. He coined Second, you don't have to be a the term "high tech/high touch." Naisbitt trained singer to participate. Or a soloist. is saying that in this era of high Indeed, one of the joys of quartetting is technology it's vital to meet our spiritual that the sum (the unit sound of the four needs as well. The barbershopper finds voices) is so much greater than the four this fulfillment in his music, his Singing individual voices. Meredith Willson, who companions, and in service through created The Music Man, put it this way: song. "Barbershop quartet singing is four guys Philosophy and theory aside, the tasting the holy essence of four fact is that Barbershop harmony is alive individual mechanisms coming into and well in 1988. For that we can thank complete agreement." the men who had the vision to push for Third, in this era of specialists, there's the perpetuation of this art form through room for the amateur. The ear singer the formation of SPE.B.S.Q.5.A. Thank sings in the same quartet with the sight you, 0. C. Cash. Thank you, Rupert 1 Hall. reader. The man who doesn't read a Would that you were here to join in note of music can learn even singing "Happy Birthday" to your baby complicated arrangements either by on its 50th. rote or. more likely, by listening to his part on a tape recording. Fourth and I sometimes think we Hugh Ingraham, CAE tend to overlook the importance of this, Executive Director, you carry your own instrument. The S.P.E.B.S.Q.SA vii One The Golden Age of Quartets (1890·1920) The male quartet is still the surest source of entertainment on the vaudeville stage or in the theatres and motion picture houses of America. But it is inevitably the amateur who gets the most fun out of close harmony. Sigmund Spaeth BarbershoP singing was one of the way to "sol to sol" construction such as ways young, 19th-century America "After the Ball" and "My Wild Irish Rose." asserted its independence. After relying Songs whose melodies range from "mi upon European music for decades, we to mi" or "sol to sol" are easier to Sing broke away from the rigid continental harmony to. They gave the tenor a traditions and created improvisatory flowing, natural vocal line, and allowed styles such as ragtime, jazz and the bass more tonal space in which to Barbershop harmony. The Jeffersonian operate. Thus, as America approached ideals of freedom stimulated our the new, exciting 20th century, her burgeoning nation. New inventions songs became more conducive to spawned industrial growth. Two extemporaneous harmonizing, which is features of this exploding industrialism now called "woodshedding." that accelerated music as a popular pastime were the availability of inexpensive sheet music and the The "Talking Machine" affordability of the parlor piano which became a household item in America. Spurred along by parlor pianos and America became a singing nation. new songs, a third influence entered the In those days before TV and radio, scene: Thomas Alva Edison's "Talking families gathered in the parlor for Machine." First conceived as a business impromptu sing-alongs and harmony or office invention, Edison soon saw the sessions, for the songs of the 1890s were potential of his recording device as a easy to harmonize by ear.