Well, I don't know very much about barbershop history and tradition, but I have enjoyed listening to them sing and harmonize together. Most of them do go for the cookie cutter dress, but I guess that's required for competition. One of the best barbershop quartets I ever heard was singing around in the Washington DC/Montgomery County, MD area in the 1960's, and they generally wore matching slacks and white shirt (and occasionally blue jeans and white shirt)

They also sang a duke's mixture of stuff, all harmonized in the barbershop style . . . "Down By The Riverside", "Wedding Bells Breaking Up That Old Gang of Mine", "I Want a Girl . . .", "This Old House", "Billy Boy", "Sidewalks of New York", "While Strolling in the Park", "My Merry Oldsmobile", "Side by Side", "Ivy Will Cling", etc. I guess some of that stuff is Barbershop, some is Tin Pan Alley, and the rest is whatever.

Anyhoo, they harmonized it all as well as anyone, and their slacks/blue jeans didn't throw 'em off key one whit! Golly, maybe a person can ride a horse without a proper habit or Stetson hat . . . well, that might be going a bit too far from the accepted norm, and the horse will likely either balk or buck!

Eu