In Celebration of the Human Voice - The Essential Musical Instrument
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Charioteers
Male Gospel Quintet from Columbus, OH The origins of this long running team of harmonizers go right to 1930. Then universities both black and white found there was a mass audience for close harmony renditions of slavery-era spirituals. So university-linked choirs and small groups followed in the footsteps of the pioneering Fisk Jubilee Singers, to promote their places of education. Some black universities rebelled against what they saw as the racist undertones of the "old plantation songs" and students at Howard University went on strike in 1909 and again in 1919, refusing to sing the songs while Wilberforce University in Ohio, the oldest college for blacks in the USA, banned the "negro folk songs" outright. But by the late '20s all that was changing. Quartet singing in colleges had become a coast-to-coast craze. Every black college boasted a dozen or more amateur singing groups and local and regional contests between what had become known as 'jubilee' groups. And so it came to pass that a professor of music at Wilberforce University, Howard Daniel, organised the Harmony Four. Vocal Group. |
Charioteers : Best Of Led by the awesomely talented tenor Billy Williams, the Charioteers were the most gospel-sounding of the great black pop vocal groups of the '40s, a sound that did not translate into the record sales that Columbia record execs-eager for an answer to Decca's Ink Spots-were hoping for. But to ears educated by the doo wop and soul groups to come, this group's stuff is mighty fine, definitely vocal pop but hinting of the left turn towards R&B that vocal music was soon to take in the '50s. We are proud to present the *first-ever* compilation on CD of their work, with notes setting the scene for these 24 great sides. Songlist: Way Down Yonder in New Orleans, I'm Getting Sentimental Over You, Why Should I Complain?, Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, So Long, Calliope Jane, We'll Meet Again, I Understand, Wrap Your Troubles In Dreams (And Dream Your Troubles Away) , Yes, Indeed!, Elmer's Tune, I Got It Bad (and That Ain't Good), On the Boardwalk (In Atlantic City), You Can't See the Sun When You're Cryin', Open the Door, Richard!, Ride, Ride, Ride, Chi-Baba, Chi-Baba (My Bambino Go To Sleep), On the Sunny Side of the Street, Sleepy Time Gal, Oooh! Look-a-There, Ain't She Pretty?, What Did He Say? (The Mumble Song), The Last Thing I Want Is Your Pity, A Kiss and A Rose, Until  |
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