Barbershop
A warm, tightly tuned vocal style rooted in African-American harmony-making, later formalized by revival-era organizations and still most recognizably heard in quartets and choruses.
Origins and context
Documented histories from the Barbershop Harmony Society trace the style to African-American improvisational traditions in the late 19th century, especially in the South and notably New Orleans.
History
Barbershop’s roots are now widely traced to African-American improvisational singing in the late 19th century, especially in the South and in places such as New Orleans, rather than to an exclusively white small-town barbershop stereotype. The style grew out of recreational harmony-making around popular songs, spirituals, and folk material, and it later passed into recordings and public memory through white performers, which helped freeze a narrower popular image of the sound. By the early 1900s, the term was in circulation, and the revival era that followed helped formalize the style through clubs, contests, and preservation efforts. That revival kept the repertory alive, but it also made the tradition more visibly associated with organized quartets and choruses than with the broader, earlier world of everyday vernacular singing from which it emerged.
Notable artists
- TBThe Buffalo Bills
- TCThe Chordettes
- TDThe Dapper Dans
Essential listening
- 1
The Buffalo Bills
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- 4
Roots of Barbershop Harmony
Explore connected genres
Sources and further reading
- barbershop.org
Barbershop harmony has documented roots in African-American musical practice in the late 19th century.
- Intro to Barbershop: What is Barbershop?
- Barbershop Quartet Music Style Overview
- musicbrainz.org
MusicBrainz identifies The Buffalo Bills as a barbershop group and lists barbershop-tagged releases.
- musicbrainz.org
MusicBrainz lists The Chordettes' 'Mr. Sandman' recording as a documented recording by that artist.
- NPR's Present at the Creation: Barbershop Harmony