Ain’t They Got Fun?

Princeton Garden Statesmen give the barbershop touch to ‘Fractured Fiction.’

By: Susan Van Dongen
   Back in 1938, two Midwesterners, Owen Cash and Rupert Hall, were delayed by a storm and stranded in the lobby of a hotel in Kansas City. They realized that they shared a love for harmonizing, and with a little help found a tenor to sing with them while they waited out the storm. They also commiserated about the decline of the barbershop quartet, and made a semi-serious vow to bring back this fabled American institution, which they jokingly called "the last remaining vestige of human liberty."
   The two men even came up with an impressive name — the Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barber Shop Quartet Singing in America, or SPEBSQSA. This was Mr. Cash’s way of poking fun at Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal and the numerous government agencies with their multi-lettered abbreviations.
   Because modern times created the need for brevity, the organization is known now as the Barbershop Harmony Society. From that day in Kansas City, the society has grown into the world’s largest all-male singing organization, with some 30,000 members in more than 800 chapters in the United States and Canada.
   One of those chapters is right here in Central New Jersey — the Princeton Garden Statesmen Chorus — the number one a cappella intermediate chorus of the Atlantic Division as well as the top-rated barbershop chorus in the state for the third straight year.
   Directed by Rick Lavene, the group will celebrate the culmination of its 37th season with a stage show and concert, The Inspectors: A Fractured Fiction of the Foibles of Forensic Fact-finding, at Rider University’s Yvonne Theater in Lawrence June 3. The chorus of 45 men — ranging in age from 18 to 80-something — mixes a little bit of everything into its shows: Beatles, Broadway and of course barbershop.
   "It’s our tradition to do the first half of the show as a stage production, something light that we work the songs into," says spokesman Art Miller. "Then we finish the second half with a concert, including some barbershop quartets. We like to pick songs that, in general, fit into the background of the story and reflect what’s going on in the world. Also, they have to be songs that we do well."
   The plot of The Inspectors is a little twisted. It’s based on a crime that takes place among a chorus of men preparing for a show. (Perhaps the "forensic fact-finding" part pokes fun at the proliferation of crime and detective shows on television.)
   The Princeton Garden Statesmen is made up of men of all ages, from all walks of life — just guys who love to sing. There are high school students, teachers, laborers, salesmen and technicians among the group. Mr. Miller is a librarian for Princeton University. (He says there’s a lively a cappella scene at the university.)
   "A lot of our men sang in college or high school, or they played in a band," he says. "We also have people who never learned to read music, so we provide all kinds of teaching things and tapes to help them learn. Then when you practice with everyone else, it helps the learning process."
   The chorus performs at private functions, festivals and benefits.
   "We especially like to perform at retirement and nursing homes," Mr. Miller says. "We do a lot of outdoor concerts. And then there’s our big Christmas performance at the Trenton Rescue Mission, which is one of our favorites."
   The Princeton Garden Statesmen calls itself an "intermediate-sized" group and the largest choruses can have 80 or more members. Still, even with 45 members it takes a lot of work to keep the harmonies tight, the pronunciations perfect.
   "It would be unwieldy if the men didn’t work at it," Mr. Miller says. "For barbershop to work, you need tight harmonies and that’s what we work at. Just a small difference will throw the sound off. So we work together and then we break up and do sectionals.
   "We literally need to make our vowels turn at the same time," he continues. "We worry about it to this detail. We work hard, but we have fun."
   Mr. Miller says part of what the audience loves about the Princeton Garden Statesmen and other a cappella groups is the emphasis on harmony and pure singing. In so many other kinds of choruses, the voices play second fiddle to the instrumentation.
   "You’re hearing people sing, hearing harmonies and that’s the attraction," Mr. Miller says. "You just don’t hear that much in popular music, which also tends to stress rhythm. This is what a group of voices can create and it catches peoples’ ears. We never lose sight of the harmony."
The Princeton Garden Statesmen Chorus will present The Inspectors: A Fractured Fiction of the Foibles of Forensic Fact-finding, its 37th annual show, at the Yvonne Theater, Rider University, 2083 Lawrenceville Road, Lawrence, June 3, 3 and 8 p.m. Tickets cost $18, $15 seniors, $10 students. For information, call (609) 252-1515. On the Web: www.menwhosing.org