Various - 78rpm R&B Vocal Groups Volume 1

Enjoy



Al tracks taken from original 10inch 78rpm vinyl , be prepared for some hiss and pops .



Long before there were musical instruments, the human voice was used to make beautiful music, whether on its own or as part of the countless vocal groups that have formed over history. It’s no surprise that the beauty of singing has been extolled by poets such as Henry Longfellow, who declared: “How wonderful is the human voice. It is indeed the organ of the soul… the flowing of the eternal fountain.”

The desire to come together and sing started in caves. This joyful process changed and developed through Medieval times, through the Renaissance and into Longfellow’s 19th-century era, when the main way to hear transcendental music was in church. Indeed, a cappella music has its origins in Gregorian chanting, and the words “a cappella” in Italian mean “in the style of the chapel”.

African slaves brought their musical traditions with them when they were forcibly transported to work in the North American colonies. Early types of African-American music included spirituals (religious songs using vocal harmony) and field songs. These work songs were sung in time with the movement involved in hard labour. Some slaves sang “call and response” tunes, a technique in which phrases from a lead singer were followed by the other vocalists, a style used so potently in Ray Charles’ groundbreaking ‘What’d I Say’ in 1959.

Another vocal style with a long tradition is barbershop quartet music. Its roots are not just the Middle-America cliché of a Norman Rockwell painting; rather, they were a melting pot of influences, as immigrants to the New World brought a repertoire of hymns, psalms and minstrel-show songs that were developed into harmonies sung by groups on street corners (sometimes called “curbstone harmonies”). The close-harmony quartets and “barbershop” style of “cracking a chord” is first associated with black southern quartets of the 1870s, such as The American Four and The Hamtown Students. By the start of the 20th Century, most barbershops seemed to have their own quartet. The term became widespread after 1910, with the publication of the song ‘Play That Barbershop Chord’.

Though the popularity of Barbershop music has ebbed and flowed, it remains an enduring musical form and even helped inspire influential singing groups. The celebrated Mills Brothers (more of them later) first learned to harmonise in their father’s barbershop in Piqua, Ohio.

As jazz took hold in the 20s, there was a dip in the popularity of vocal groups, but waiting in the wings were The Boswell Sisters, a group who changed the face of modern music in the 30s after they emerged from the vaudeville houses of New Orleans. They were true innovators and can easily claim to be one of the all-time greatest jazz vocal groups.

It wasn’t only female vocal groups that swept America. The Ink Spots, who formed in Indianapolis in the late 20s, were originally called King, Jack and the Jesters – a name they dropped after a legal claim by bandleader Paul Whitehouse.

It has been estimated that there were more than 100,000 different singing acts who were recorded during the 50s, a time when there was even a trend to have vocal groups named after cars, as with The Cadillacs, The Ramblers, The Corvettes, and The Valiants.



Track List

01 Quintones     Fool That I Am

02 Four Tones       Someone's Rocking My Dreamboat

03 Madeline Greene And Three Varieties It Had To Be You

04 Coleman Brothers     Get Away, Mr. Satan, Get Away

05 Four Blues   Bell Bottom Trousers

06 Velvetones    Reverse The Charges

07 Ginger Snaps    I Left My Heart In Mississippi

08 Three Bits Of Rhythm     I Used To Work In Chicago

09 Thelma Carpenter And Deep River Boys     Hurry Home

10 Bill Johnson And His Musical Notes     Let's Be Sweethearts Again

11 Five Bars       I'm All Dressed Up With A Broken Heart

12 Four Of Us   Lift Up The Latch

13 Commanders      I'd Like To Know You Better Than I Do

14 Dixiaires         Until You Say You Are Mine

15 Four Knights      Wrapped Up In A Dream

16 Dixiaires       Joe Louis Is A Fightin' Man

17 Colemans    I Don't Mind Being All Alone

18 Robins           There Ain't No Use Beggin'