Keep your ears open for humming harmonies emanating from the corners of downtown Denver this week. They’re impromptu gifts from all-male quartets that have descended in droves for a bonanza of barbershop singing.
The International Barbershop Harmony Society Convention is holding its 69th annual meeting in Denver, drawing an estimated 9,000 people for a five-day jamboree of contests and international camaraderie that runs through Saturday.
A group of British tourists visiting the state Capitol on Monday was stunned to hear the barbershop classic “Jezebel” reverberating off the top of the rotunda, drawing a crowd of people peeking down from the balconies.
“It’s cool,” said Michael Potts, recently arrived from England. “It’s also kind of weird to see something that’s not scheduled.”
Turns out he’s a barbershopper, too, a member of the Cambridge Chord Company, the leading men’s chorus of its kind in Europe.
Potts was taking a quick break from the convention – where impromptu is expected – to do some sightseeing around Denver, where the spontaneous combustion of four-part harmonies in the heart of the political scene is entirely unexpected.
Whether from Russia or California or Japan, the barbershop singers all know the same standards and are eager to break into perfectly harmonized though impromptu song with guys they’ve never met.
“It’s the most trusting group of people, a real brotherhood,” says Syd Libsack, who works as a commercial lender in Denver and sings with the local quartet Storm Front.
“Like a family reunion”
“When you travel around the world, someone will always put you up,” he says. “It’s like a big extended family, so this conference is a lot like a family reunion.”
Men of all ages, hailing from Connecticut to New Zealand – including a Maori group whose members sing barbershop melodies in their native tongue – belt out tunes deeply rooted in American history.
They are keepers of a fading culture, says Dan Clark, a Nebraska barbershopper who joined a quartet 32 years ago.
“Many men under 60 have never sung a singable song,” he says. “In the ’60s, music became something you watched. But when I was in high school in Colorado on the football team, we’d sing on the bus, and the battalions during World War II sang as they marched.”
The men credited with the roots of unaccompanied barbershop singing were African-American, back when barbershops were the local gathering place.
“At the turn of the century, there were black quartets,” says Darin Drown, 38, director of Sound of the Rockies, a Colorado chorus of 119 men.
“Barbershop started more as gospel style,” says Drown, whose voice carried echoes of the African-American spirituals when he sang for Gov. Bill Ritter in the state Capitol on Monday after a ceremony in which this week was proclaimed “Colorado Harmony Week.”
Barbershop singing jumped the color barrier early in the 20th century, with quartets of white men singing their hearts out. It finally hit the mainstream around 1962, when “The Music Man,” which featured barbershop singing, won an Academy Award for best score.
“When I was 10, I loved ‘The Music Man.’ It was one of my favorite movies,” says Rick Spencer, director of music and education for the Barbershop Harmony Society. “My father was an oil-truck driver, and one day we went to a place where they were playing this music in the background.”
After asking a few questions, they learned that a local barbershop chorus was having an open house the next night. They went and joined on the spot.
“What’s neat about it is that on the risers, you’re all equals,” he says. “I was buddies with my dad when we were at the chorus. We sang together for six years, and it was really good times.”
As Spencer roamed the basement of the Adam’s Mark Hotel on Monday afternoon, setting up for the bevy of upcoming contests, a quartet of men – some in shorts, gym socks and sneakers – suddenly broke into four-part harmony, eyes aglow.
One of the men was Gary Bolles of San Ramon, Calif. A barbershopper for 45 years, he wears a medal that proclaims him a silver medalist in the 2007 international competition for seniors.
“My folks were fans of this music,” he says.
“When I was 10, I begged them to take me to a show. My mother says I came home with stars in my eyes.”
The younger generation is no less star-struck. Over at the convention, everyone is predicting that the Westminster Chorus – 63 Orange County, Calif., barbershoppers all under age 30 – will win the chorus championship this week.
“A more hip image”
About a decade ago, the Barbershop Harmony Society decided to hook the next generation on barbershop singing by capitalizing on the pop-culture appeal of heavily harmonized boy bands such as the Backstreet Boys and N’Sync.
“They have a more hip image visually,” Drown says of the new generation.
“Their music is more from the ’50s, like Elvis Presley and the Beach Boys.”
Such evolution of a traditional American music has triggered conflict in this society of harmony.
“The old guys are loving the old sound and the old songs, but the new guys are loving the sound less than the songs,” says Spencer.
Bret Morris, 32, is a member of the Vocal Majority of Dallas, which has won 11 gold medals.
“We have a whole slew of young guys, fresh from college and high school,” he says, mentioning that the 12-year-old member of the Vocal Majority is a third-generation barbershopper. The boy won a gold medal in competition last year.
“The more young guys we get in, the more we’ll reach, because their friends are coming,” he says. “It’s the domino effect.”
Staff writer Colleen O’Connor can be reached at 303-954-1083 or coconnor@denverpost.com.
Hear, hear!
The 69th annual International Barbershop Harmony Society Convention gives you plenty of chances to catch an earful.
TODAY
Harmony Foundation Show, 7:30 p.m., Pepsi Center. Tickets $25-$75, at.
WEDNESDAY
Quartet Quarterfinals session 1, 11 a.m.-3:30 p.m., Pepsi Center. Tickets $10-$20.
Quartet Quarterfinals session 2, 7-11 p.m., Pepsi Center. Tickets $12.50-$25.
THURSDAY
Good News! Gospel Sing, old-fashioned gospel in four-part harmony, 9-11 a.m., Central Presbyterian Church, 17th Avenue and Sherman Street. Free.
MegaSing, thousands of singers raise their voices in song in the largest annual gathering of barbershoppers. Know the words? Sing along! 10:45-11:30 a.m., Civic Center. Free.
Quartet Semifinals, noon-4 p.m., Pepsi Center. Tickets $12.50-$25.
AIC Show: “Music Man” Tribute, 7:30-10:30 p.m., Pepsi Center. Tickets $20-$80.
FRIDAY
Chorus Finals session 1, 11 a.m.-4 p.m., Pepsi Center. Tickets $20-$40.
Chorus Finals session 2, 6:30-11 p.m., Pepsi Center. Tickets $20-$40.
SATURDAY
Collegiate Quartet Contest, 11 a.m.-2 p.m., Pepsi Center. Tickets $15.
World Harmony Jamboree, 2:30-5 p.m., Buell Theatre, Denver Performing Arts Complex. Tickets $25-$35.
Quartet Finals, 7-10 p.m., Pepsi Center. Tickets $15-$30.
