Hairdressing Quartet

The flow of immigrants brought to the United States a large repertoire of hymns , psalms , folk songs and more. These songs were often performed in four parts in low voices. In the mid-1800s, minstrel shows were distributed in the United States that performed songs that romanticized life on plantations. Later, these shows were supplanted by vaudeville, but the tradition of performing songs in four voices remained.

The hairdressing quartet style is associated with the black southern quartets of the 1870s, such as The American Four and The Hamtown Students. Harmonious “breaking” the chord and improvisation were characteristic of African singing groups. Black quartets were commonplace in barbershops, such as the Joe Sarpy's Cut Rate Shaving Parlor in St. Louis or Jacksonville Florida , where African-born historian James Weldon Johnson notes:

Each barber shop seemed to have its own quartet.

Original text

Every barbershop seemed to have its own quartet.

- The Origins of Barbershop Harmony (Neopr.) . www.acappellafoundation.org . Date of appeal May 14, 2018.

The first written use of the adjective hairdresser in relation to the quartet of singers dates from 1910 with the release of the song “Play That Barbershop Chord”. By that time, everyone had already heard this term.

The real spread of this style throughout the country began with the advent of the phonograph . In the early 1900s, the success of selling records on media depended on the preferences of the masses in music, so often songs with simple melodies, medium vocal ranges and words on simple topics from life were chosen for recordings. During the Tin Pan Alley era, many professional quartets tried to occupy a niche, which helped strengthen this style of performance in the recording market.

Music in this style was very popular between 1900 and 1919. Modern quartets dress in costumes characteristic of vaudeville of that time - striped vests and boaters' straw hats.

With the advent of radio, there is a shift in American popular music. The music became more complex and previous songs could no longer adapt to jazz rhythms and melodies that were better suited for dancing. Nevertheless, quartets sounded on the radio and the style was still relatively popular, however, from that moment its actual decline began. In the 1920s, style gradually faded.

Renaissance and current status

Tulsa's tax lawyer Owen C. Cash , while traveling around Kansas City , met his colleague Rupert I. Hall in the lobby of the Muehlebach Hotel. During the conversation, they found a mutual love for the style of hairdressing quartets and noted its decline. Having decided to stop this, on April 11, 1938 , calling themselves “Society for the Preservation and Propagation of Barber Shop Quartet Singing in the United States” (SPEBSQSA, Russian Society for the Conservation and Promotion of Hairdressing Quartets in the USA ), they invited their friends on the roof of the Tulsa Club building. Only 26 people attended the first festival, but by the third festival the number of people had increased to 150, which led to a traffic jam near the building. The occurrence of traffic jam attracted journalists to the event, which Owen Cash took advantage of, saying in an interview that SPEBSQSA is national in scale with offices in St. Louis , Kansas City and other parts of the country, referring to his friends (who did not even know about this event) but the reporters didn’t understand this. As a result, such advertising, as well as an unusual name, led to the emergence of many communities in the northern part of the United States from one coast to the other, speaking on behalf of SPEBSQSA.

Now SPEBSQSA, existing under the modern name Barbershop Harmony Society , is the largest organization in the USA and Canada , with about 23,000 members, and supports artists of various genres of vocal music.

The Barbershop Harmony Society has created a list of 12 songs, considered the standard repertoire for hairdressing quartets ^[1] :

• "Down by the Old Mill Stream"
• "Down Our Way"
• Honey / Little 'Lize-Medley (Traditional, arr. Floyd Connett)
• Let Me Call You Sweetheart
• "My Wild Irish Rose"
• "Shine on Me"
• The Story of the Rose (Heart of My Heart)
• “Sweet Adeline (You're The Flower Of My Heart)”
• "Sweet and Lovely"
• Sweet, Sweet Roses of Morn
• “Wait 'Til the Sun Shines, Nellie”
• “You Tell Me Your Dream (I'll Tell You Mine)”

May 28, 2015 the list was updated:

• "Bright Was The Night"
• "Caroline"
• “(When It's) Darkness On The Delta” (Levinson, Neiburg, Symes)
• "Drivin 'Me Crazy"
• “From The First Hello To The Last Goodbye” (words & music: Johnny Burke)
• "Goodbye, My Coney Island Baby / We All Fall"
• "Hello Mary Lou (Goodbye Heart)
• “I Don't Know Why (I Just Do)”
• "I've Been Working on the Railroad"
• Lida Rose / Will I Ever Tell You
• "Over The Rainbow"

Many modern quartets depart from the canons: you can often hear modern songs performed in this style with unusual and attention-grabbing arrangements.

• Barbershop Quartets on Early 78s
• The Origins of Barbershop Harmony