best a capella groups

Subject: RE: best a capella groups
From: GUEST,Peter Red Bull Folk Club
Date: 01 Sep 07 - 08:07 AM

As already mentioned Grace Notes are one of the best!!
And they're on at The Red Bull Stockport..Monday 8th October   
Tickets £6.00 either mail or phone me for more!
details here
www.stockportfolk.co.uk
It will be full so if you want to come make sure you book a ticket!
Peter

Subject: RE: best a capella groups
From: GUEST
Date: 01 Sep 07 - 06:56 AM

From the English folk scene The Watersons were in a class of thier own.There are a lot of sweet harmony groups but the Watersons had a more earthy sound which still gets to me after years of listening to them.

I did see the Flying Pickets at the Islington Folk club they were very good.

Sweet Honey In the Rock excellent music and political commitment.



My personal favourites (apart from the Watersons) are from the jazz swing era The Mills Brothers who were famous not only for their wonderful harmony singing but for imitating brass instruments. As well as their own records they recorded a lot with Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald wonderful stuff.

Ken Hall

Subject: RE: best a capella groups
From: Leadfingers
Date: 31 Aug 07 - 07:01 PM

C M R !! and 100 !!

Subject: RE: best a capella groups
From: GUEST,Vin2
Date: 31 Aug 07 - 06:05 PM

No desrespect to all t'others but reckon it has to be the Wilsons for me at the mo. Can't stop listening to 'Stocking Tops' - fabulouss stuff!!

Subject: RE: best a capella groups
From: Doktor Doktor
Date: 31 Aug 07 - 11:31 AM

Tha Wilsaaans for sheer power ... Cockersdale for sheer harmony .. The current Copper's generation .. Artisan for the record ...
Oddly enough I've not seen / heard too many non-British harmony groups on tour here, even though we get a steaty stream of vocalists & instrumentalists. Am I missing somethin? or do voice-only acts not translate so well?

Subject: RE: best a capella groups
From: GUEST,Mad Jock
Date: 31 Aug 07 - 11:12 AM

I must say Taggart and Wright are superb but then as I am related I might seem to be a bit biased but all you need to do is listen to some of what they can do on their website and you will agree.

Others Coope Boyes and Simpson (but there are three of them)

Muldoon Picnic , a very talented and technically superb young group who deserve much more attention, (five of them very complicated stuff)

Tanglefoot.Yeah but when Taggart and Wright did support for them it was a close thing.

The Mac calmans. Nick Keir rated Taggart and Wright after they did support for them at the Lomond fest a few years back.So I cant be totally biased.

Tarneybackle a Perthshire based trio.

Subject: RE: best a capella groups
From: GUEST,Liz
Date: 31 Aug 07 - 10:01 AM

I agree with most of the above, but I have to say that the performances the Wilsons have given, at the festivals I have visited this year, must put them to the top of my list.

Subject: RE: best a capella groups
From: gecko
Date: 29 Aug 07 - 08:17 PM

Sadly now defunct, the Flying Pickets from the UK were hard to beat. I wasn't lucky enough to hear them live so I've had to make do with a couple of recordings.

YIU

gecko

Subject: RE: best a capella groups
From: Nick E
Date: 29 Aug 07 - 08:01 PM

Now these two are not purely acaplea. First, I have to say Great Big Sea does some great numbers.
And I have a soft spot for Stan Rogers.

Subject: RE: best a capella groups
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 29 Aug 07 - 07:37 PM

Haven't heard Cartouche yet, but would like to. Suspect the Young 'uns will be due for a nomination. Invidious to suggest any are best, really.... love CMR, Wholehearted, Witches of Elswick, Devil's Interval.

Kitty

Subject: RE: best a capella groups
From: GUEST,Texas Guest
Date: 29 Aug 07 - 06:09 PM

A lot of fine folks mentioned here, especially the Mills Brothers, Seamus; however - the best group I have ever heard sing live is none other than, Anuna. They are simply the best - no contest, no argument,...end of discussion. By the way, you all can hear them live this fall as they are touring all over America; in fact, they will be at the Bass Hall in Fort Worth, Texas on November 20th.
See ya' there?

Subject: RE: best a capella groups
From: the button
Date: 29 Aug 07 - 05:24 PM

Another vote for Sweet Honey in the Rock from me.
Plus The Watersons (obviously), and the Dead Sea Surfers -- never owned one of the records, but they were always such a good laugh at festivals.

Subject: RE: best a capella groups
From: vectis
Date: 29 Aug 07 - 05:20 PM

Cappella are definately my numero uno acappella singing in the south east.
Cartouche is a new formation of Leslie & Tony plus Mike Nicholson. Makes the short hairs on the back of your neck stand up and quiver. Brilliant, should go far.

Subject: RE: best a capella groups
From: Janice in NJ
Date: 29 Aug 07 - 08:01 AM

Let me add two important groups that came out of the African-American tradition, the SNCC Freedom Singers and Sweet Honey in the Rock. Dr. Bernice Johnson Reagon was a founding member of both.

Subject: RE: best a capella groups
From: treewind
Date: 29 Aug 07 - 07:08 AM

New one on me, heard last Sunday at Shrewsbury Festival : Muldoon's Picnic - Scottish, very accomplished, very loud and very international in their repertoire.

Anahata

Subject: RE: best a capella groups
From: JennyO
Date: 29 Aug 07 - 06:51 AM

"It means that the choir will sing without musical accomplishment."

Artful Codger, this belongs in the Malapropisms thread!

Subject: RE: best a capella groups
From: Banjiman
Date: 29 Aug 07 - 06:44 AM

Stallion,

You beat me to it, I was just about to mention TWO BLACK SHEEP & A STALLION. One of my favorites!

Paul

Subject: RE: best a capella groups
From: mattkeen
Date: 29 Aug 07 - 06:21 AM

Oh yes and the Spooky Men!!!

What an ommission


Dont you lot talk a load of bxxlocks about definitions, when we all actually understand what the thread was asking anyway?

Are any of you retired geography teachers?

Subject: RE: best a capella groups
From: mattkeen
Date: 29 Aug 07 - 06:16 AM

Favourites

Coope, Boyes &Simpson

Devils Interval


Watersons


No particular order

Subject: RE: best a capella groups
From: stallion
Date: 29 Aug 07 - 05:05 AM

WOT No 2BS&S!






where did I put me Berghaus!

Subject: RE: best a capella groups
From: rinso
Date: 29 Aug 07 - 04:45 AM

I fell in love with singing 'bout instruments after hearing The Macalmans sing Paper Doll and To People Who Have Gardens
Watersons where great but struggled with pitch
Last time I heard Quartz they where superb(a cafellows in the true sense) And the demise of Artisan is a great loss to the folk scene

Rinsos

Subject: RE: best a capella groups
From: Artful Codger
Date: 28 Aug 07 - 08:44 PM

Just encountered this:

When a boy asked what "a cappella" meant, his father replied, "It means that the choir will sing without musical accomplishment."

Subject: RE: best a capella groups
From: GUEST,guest
Date: 26 Jul 07 - 09:32 AM

Wilsons at saddleworth, all three concerts, just brilliant!!!

Subject: RE: best a capella groups
From: GUEST,guest
Date: 26 Jul 07 - 09:26 AM

refresh

Subject: RE: best a capella groups
From: Mike Miller
Date: 19 Jul 07 - 12:29 AM

The Artful Codger's got that right. They met at a small religious college in the South so they are rooted in black gospel music but, it seems to me, their influences are The Swingle Singers, The Four Freshmen and The Hi-Lo's (Listen to the Clark Burroughs-like falsetto
rides). I, too, was disappointed when they started using some instrumental accompaniment and branching into a more secular repitore. If there was, ever, a group that didn't need backup, it was Take6.
Their audience was, primarily, black. It took the rest of us a while to catch up.

Subject: RE: best a capella groups
From: Artful Codger
Date: 18 Jul 07 - 08:43 PM

Don: Take 6 was a gospel/jazz sextet, which may explain that little mystery. Their eponymous first album (1988) won a Grammy, and deservedly so, and immediately put them into the same league as Singers Unlimited, Manhattan Transfer, New York Voices and Voicestra. For guys so young not only to sing so well but to write such amazing arrangements must've made even Gene Puerling and Bobby McFerrin jade-green with envy!

That said, I can only recommend their first two albums, Take 6 and So Much 2 Say--after that, they took a more mainstream, instrument-supported direction that detracts greatly from their vocal strengths. But I recommend those first albums with hoots and waving arms and even a little rabid dribble.

Subject: RE: best a capella groups
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 18 Jul 07 - 06:24 PM

You can fight all day over what to call it, but whoever wins the argument will find few acts to top the aforementioned "Capella".

Not only are their harmonies superb, and their choice of material inspired, but the completely unexpected sound achieved by Tony's counter tenor and Leslie's deep contralto, is stunning on first hearing, and insistently begs revisiting.

They are simply different, and it is a mystery to me that they are not at least as well known as CMR.

Don T.

Subject: RE: best a capella groups
From: Tootler
Date: 18 Jul 07 - 06:08 PM

PoppaGator wrote

To me, "unaccompanied" singing would denote solo vocal-only performances, and might even be understood to include self-accompanied performances (e.g., guitar and vocal, as practiced by many of us).

Most of the music under discussion here involves group singing without instrumental accompaniment, where the singers are, essentially, accompanying each other. Hence, as far as I'm concerned, "a cap(p)ella" is a more accurate term than "unacompanied," even when the music is not "church style," regardless of the term's ancient etymology and its literal translation from the Latin (or Italian).

I think this is more a difference in terminology on the two sides of the Atlantic. In the UK the term normally used is "unaccompanied" both for solo and group singing. "A capella" tends to be restricted to classical singing groups. In fact I have even heard the term "unaccompanied" used for classical groups.

To add to the list on the thread, no one has mentioned the Keelers from Tyneside. Excellent unaccompanied harmony singing.

Subject: RE: best a capella groups
From: Donuel
Date: 18 Jul 07 - 04:54 PM

I will check out take 6 who are new to me.

or is it Take Sex?

Subject: RE: best a capella groups
From: Mike Miller
Date: 18 Jul 07 - 04:45 PM

You bet The Swingles were terrific. Dave Swingle was a brilliant arranger and is responsible for the resurgence of a cappela. But, I contend that Take6 has extended his vision and has set the bar so high that no other group will be able to equal them. Their first album, the all gospel "Spread Love", was a revelation. I, no longer, perform "Oh, Mary, Don't You Weep". After hearing Take6's version, I wouldn't dare.

                   Mike

Subject: RE: best a capella groups
From: Donuel
Date: 18 Jul 07 - 04:27 PM

The Swingle Singers did the 1812 overature complete with making their voices sound like church bells.

Their Claire d'Lune is also outstanding.

Subject: RE: best a capella groups
From: GUEST,dizzyLisa
Date: 18 Jul 07 - 08:38 AM

For me it has to be Pete Luscombe and John Bartlett who some of you may know from Victory Morris (& honourary Hartley men )and as part of Ramskyte. Since the death of Brian Ingham they have re-invented themselves as WholeHearted and you can hear them on their mySpace at:
www.myspace.com/wholeheartedduo Between Hartley stands they will hopefully be singing in the Neps and other Broadstairs pubs during folk week..... ahhhhhh !!

Subject: RE: best a capella groups
From: Gray D
Date: 17 Jul 07 - 06:55 PM

Peeps you are (thread) drifting. Fi wants names of groups to check out.

Fi - I forgot Northampton Harmony - their version of "Idumea" esp. live, jaw dropping.

Gray D

Subject: RE: best a capella groups
From: Artful Codger
Date: 17 Jul 07 - 05:09 PM

Seems to be a nasty echo in here...

Subject: RE: best a capella groups
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 17 Jul 07 - 04:52 AM

Folk song in general is not sung ' in the style of the chappel ' just imagine the old hunting songs and sea shanties ? a capella ? I think not.

eric

Subject: RE: best a capella groups
From: Rowan
Date: 16 Jul 07 - 06:53 PM

When I started performing (in Oz), groups (pairs, trios etc up to about octets) that sang harmonies with no instrumental involvement were always (in the folk scene) described as singing unaccompanied harmonies; soloists that did so sang "unaccompanied" but not with harmonies unless the audience got into the act, which happened. The fashion changed in (as far as I can tell) in the 90s, when commentators with more classical training than knowledge of the folk scene started using "a capella" (and a cappella) to describe such items. Of course, it may have been that such commentators were using the term for the obligatory non-instrumental item in any Steeleye Span concert a couple of decades earlier but there weren't many such commentators on radio/tv in Oz at that time so I wouldn't have known.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: best a capella groups
From: Mike Miller
Date: 16 Jul 07 - 05:48 PM

I am a great fan of a capella singing. I was a member of The Mainliners (The Bryn Mawr chapter of The Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barbershop Quartet singing in America) and I, once, sang with The Persuasions at a swimming pool.
I have composed for choirs and taught music for forty years and I can say, without qualification, that TAKE 6 is the most astonishing vocal group I have ever heard. They have redefined Gospel and a capella and they have raised the bar forever. I took their first CD, "Spread Love" to a Mainliners rehearsal and blew everyone away.
Other dynamic a capella groups are Lambert, Hendricks and Ross and The Buffalo Bills (That's The Bills you hear in the movie, "The Music Man"). I kind of like the old Golden Ring, too.

Subject: RE: best a capella groups
From: PoppaGator
Date: 16 Jul 07 - 02:07 PM

To me, "unaccompanied" singing would denote solo vocal-only performances, and might even be understood to include self-accompanied performances (e.g., guitar and vocal, as practiced by many of us).

Most of the music under discussion here involves group singing without instrumental accompaniment, where the singers are, essentially, accompanying each other. Hence, as far as I'm concerned, "a cap(p)ella" is a more accurate term than "unacompanied," even when the music is not "church style," regardless of the term's ancient etymology and its literal translation from the Latin (or Italian).

As noted throughout the thread, there are great examples of group vocals without instrumental accompaniment in many subgenres in and out of folk music, including sea-shanties, barbershop, jazz, etc.

Let me throw in a mention of the great neo-doo-wop group The Persuasions. "Doo-wop" was originally a grassroots urban "folk" form generally performed without instrumentation, right out on the proverbial streetcorner, with nonsense-syllable singing providing the harmonies, counterpoint, rhythms, etc., ordinarily supplied by bass, guitar, piano, horns, drums, etc. The popular records inspired by this musical movement generally put at least some instrumentation back into the mix ~ recording of purely vocal doo-wop didn't occur until a later self-consious "revival."

The Persuasions are the greatest example of this revival. Part of the doo-wop tradition is creation of new arrangements of already-well-known songs, and these guys have done a particularly outstanding job of that, recording full albums of their reinterpretations of reggae sings, Grateful Dead songs, Bob Dylan songs, etc.

Subject: RE: best a capella groups
From: Artful Codger
Date: 16 Jul 07 - 01:03 PM

Ahem, that bit of pedantry has already been addressed in this thread.

Subject: RE: best a capella groups
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 16 Jul 07 - 07:02 AM

Why do people insist on calling unaccompanied folk singing ' a capella '

which means in the style of the church [ or chapel ] there are even shanty groups listed, which by no stretch of the imagination can be said to be singing in the style of the church.

It's UNACCOMPANIED.

eric

Subject: RE: best a capella groups
From: Artful Codger
Date: 16 Jul 07 - 01:42 AM

I tend to use "a cappella" instead of "unaccompanied" because the latter might simply mean "alone", "with no one else". It's not strictly vocal, as witness the Bach suites for unaccompanied violin. Nor does it necessarily preclude a performer from accompanying himself. I also don't like defining things in terms of what they are not. Why should there be an automatic presumption of accompaniment, particularly with trad folk songs??

Subject: RE: best a capella groups
From: Rowan
Date: 16 Jul 07 - 01:17 AM

From Oz, in chronological order,
Canterbury Fair,
Pageant,
Rumbylowe,
a couple from TI whose name escapes me in this senior moment,
Roaring Forties,
Spooky Men's Chorale

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: best a capella groups
From: Gray D
Date: 15 Jul 07 - 07:32 PM

Saw Porterhouse several times at Barry Folk Club (now on about its 4th or 5th incarnation). They were, as stated above, wonderful. Only got one album by them - "Bide Lady Bide" Cambrian Recordings MCT216 -which I still drag out and sing along to from time to time.

I have championed one or two of these before I know but if you can find their stuff check out A Filetta from Corsica (well known in France), Rustavi Choir, Journalist, Mtiebi (sang with one of them a couple of weeks ago)and Mzetamze from Georgia, Trio Bulgarka and Les Mysteres de les Voix Bulgares from Bulgaria (not all unaccompanied but worth a visit harmonywise) and, of course, the output from Northern Harmony in Vermont USA who collect stuff from all over the world and put considerable effort into performing it properly.

And if you get a chance to sing with any of them . . . take it.

Gray D

Subject: RE: best a capella groups
From: GUEST,Karen
Date: 15 Jul 07 - 07:05 PM

Porterhouse were probably the best a capella group that I,ve ever had the privilege of seeing. They were also really nice people. Robin unfortunately is no is no longer with us. He was the main force behind the group. He was the musical arranger and also very good looking.

Subject: RE: best a capella groups
From: fi_in_nz
Date: 03 May 06 - 12:56 PM

I used "a capella" (sp????? ;-) because I started singing in classical and chapel (hence possibly my spelling of it too (narh, that's just an excuse)) choirs and madrigals etc. Now I'm singing trad I must be singing unaccompanied...... will try to remember for next time. F

Subject: RE: best a capella groups
From: Hopfolk
Date: 03 May 06 - 12:48 PM

The Copper family is worth a mention as they both harmonise and also sing "Straight".
If you're interested, there's a wealth of material on topic record's "Voice of the people" series - though some of the songs come across a little impaired by the age of the singers. Still, it's the songs isn't it? :-)

There's a compilation called "Voices in Harmony" which you MUST GET as it has tracks by many of the people mentioned on this thread.

Cheers - Keep on singin'.

CamoJohn

Subject: RE: best a capella groups
From: Northerner
Date: 03 May 06 - 12:37 PM

I still describe myself as singing songs unaccomapanied.   Of course, when I went to some singing lessons in the autumn my singing would have been described as a capella.

Surely, the traditional singers would not have used the expression a capella?

Subject: RE: best a capella groups
From: Peterr
Date: 03 May 06 - 11:54 AM

When did peolpe start using 'a capella' (never mind how many ps)? We used to call it unaccompanied.

Subject: RE: best a capella groups
From: GUEST,Arthur Itic
Date: 02 May 06 - 12:33 PM

Moxy Fruvous should be mentioned here and there's a cracking Aussie band called Akasa that are quite special too. I'm sure they are both websited up if you care to investigate.

Subject: RE: best a capella groups
From: GUEST,Sooz (at work)
Date: 02 May 06 - 08:20 AM

The Swingle Singers got me interested in the 1960's, long before I heard my current favourites (Artisan, Cockersdale and Coope Boyes and Simpson.)Mind you, we get some pretty amazing harmonies at Gainsborough Folk Club, particularly when Bod Cleveland sings a Keith Marsden song!