As to "why" people sing unaccompanied, it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with their ability to play an instrument. I've sung and played guitar or banjo for most of my life, but there are certain songs that I've always felt were best sung unaccompanied. It's not that I couldn't play them with accompaniment. Singing unaccompanied gives you a freedom that for certain songs allows you to savor the lines, subtly play with rhythms and emphasis that you couldn't do, locked in to an accompaniment. I've always done Little Brown Bulls, We Are Anchored By The Roadside, Jim, The Spring of '65 and Jam on Gerry's Rock unaccompanied. That may be due in part to the fact that I learned them from recordings that were unaccompanied. But, I've also written quite a few songs that always sounded best to me, unaccompanied. I'd be hard-pressed to generalize about why certain songs sound better to me, unaccompanied. Some are ballads that tell a story, where the accompniment feels like a distraction to me. There are other songs where I like to be able to play with the rhythm
to emphasize certain lines or words, or just because it's fun.

Singing with a group is a whole different story. I love to hear a capella harmonies, and my gospel quartet does several songs a capella, just because we think it sounds better that way. A guitar accompaniment subtracts more than it adds. And there is a whole tradition of a capella singing in black gospel that it's nice to carry on. I've always preferred songs like Amazing Grace, unaccompanied, where the singer can put all ltheir feeling into the song, holding notes and lines as they feel.

One of the things that I've come to realize, is that acoustic instruments don't have the "sustain" that I want for some songs. I find an electric guitar is better suited to black gospel (and some blues) because you can hold notes longer, which frees the singer to put more feeling into a line.

Even on songs with my quartet where a guitar background adds a lot, we often will take the last chorus unaccompanied, just to hear that blend of voices. It brings the full attention to the voices, the harmony and the message.

Now, as for doing a full evening of unaccompanied singing, that is a rare gift. I ran a concert series for 27 years and I rarely booked that were a capella. To my ears, Roy Harris was the best I ever heard. He did a wonderful concert, and I think very few people found it a limitation, listening to an evening of a capella singing. It was like watching a foreign film with subtitles. After the first few minutes, you adjust to it, and forget that you are reading the subtitles. When someone is doing a whole evening of a capella singing, their personality, humor and delivery become far more important. Particularly if they do a lot of long ballads. An evening of unaccompanied murder ballads should be made illegal. Or songs with a complicated historical background, with political intrigues. Roy is a charmer, and I think I cold listen to him sing the phone directory. But, that is a rare gfit... one I do not have.

These days, the Fairfield Four have gained a lot of attention, singing black gospel. They sang a song in Oh Brother, Where Art Thou (three of them,) and after 70 years as a group, they've suddenly been discovered. Even Elvis Costello recorded with them! I heard them at their peak, and I wouldn't have enjoyed them as much if they had accompaniment.

Done right, singing without instrumental accompaniment isn't a subtraction. It's an addition.

Jerry