Fred On Cutting Edge Of Barbershop Quartets
Newcastle Herald
Thursday September 11, 1997
BARBERSHOP quartets are hip. So say the members of Fred, the all-singing, all-joking foursome from Atlanta, Georgia, who are currently ranked No 2 in the world.
`People have a stereotype of a barbershopper as an older person with a top hat and very little hair,' said the group's amiable tenor, Jerry Carlson.
`OK, I'm some of that,' he said patting his follically-challenged forehead. `But there are arrangements of a lot of newer tunes; The Beatles and popular show tunes from Phantom of the Opera and Miss Saigon.'
Hardly cutting-edge though, is it?
`Well, there was a Sweet Adeline (the name given to female barbershopper) quartet that did a couple of rap songs,' said Fred's lanky baritone Clay Hine. `It was a kinda comic portrayal though.'
In Sydney yesterday for the start of The Australian Association of Men Barbershop Singers' four-day convention, Fred are big-guns in the world of close-harmony competition.
Earlier this year they took out the silver medal at the international championships organised by the Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barbershop Quartet Singing in America Inc (or SPEBSQSA as it is known to its 35,000 members).
Both Hine and Fred's lead-singer, Rick LaRosa, will be judges at the Australian championships, contested this year by 41 quartets and 18 choruses (singing groups of between 17-120 people).
At 12.30pm today about 550 barbershoppers will perform en masse on the Darling Harbour forecourt and tickets are also available for tomorrow evening's concert at the Darling Harbour Convention Centre auditorium featuring Fred and the 1997 medal-winning quartets.
What makes a killer quartet?
LaRosa explained points are awarded for three criteria: music, singing and presentation.
`Music is about arrangements and progressions . . . and singing is the ringing and expansion of the sound,' he said.
The third category, presentation, is all about the `believeability of the music and the stage performance', La Rosa said.
The style of singing dates back to 18th century America ? men would entertain themselves while waiting for a shave and a haircut ? so tradition is a big part of barbershopping. But Fred are adamant it's a living, developing form. ? Richard Jinman
© 1997 Newcastle Herald