This beautifully packaged double CD truly conveys the Boston Common aesthetic, which earned them not only the 1980 Championship, but also a exalted reputation that became the stuff of legend. Though they had no full-time coach, big band arranger Lou Perry frequently wrote arrangements for them (a point of principle, explained further in the liner notes, that apparently resulted in some political fallout), and the big band influence can be easily discerned ('Melancholy Baby'). 'We Three,' co-arranged by Perry and the group themselves, sounds like the early vocal harmony that became doo wop, whereas 'Chatanooga Shoe Shine Boy' is a blues/barbershop amalgam that definitely isn't typical (arranger's credit to the Four Rascals, a quartet to whom the Boston Common pay repeated tribute). In general, the group's reverence for barbershop as not merely entertainment but as art radiates throughout.

Listen to What'll I Do? in RealAudio.