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Essentials in
History
Hall of Fame inducts inaugural honorees
Twenty indisputable icons of barbershop history found the Society's Hall of Fame.
Updated: 11/7/2005 3:06:59 PM
Society Hall of Fame Article, Harmonizer
November 27, 2004
by Dr. Ben Ayling
Kent State University
On July 3, 2004, The Barbershop Harmony Society inducted the first class of honorees into its newly formed Hall of Fame. Hall of Fame Committee Chairman Ben Ayling, and Society President Rob Hopkins presided over the ceremony at the Society’s 66th convention in Louisville, Kentucky.
Since the recipients of the award would be by definition true icons of the Society, the committee did not openly solicit nominations from the membership. Even so, unsolicited names that were brought before the committee were considered along with an obvious list of contributors from which to choose the inaugural class to be inducted into the Hall. In addition to the induction ceremony, the recipients were honored throughout the convention week by way of slides on the big screens.
Commemorative plaques were made for the three living members of the Hall of Fame. Bud Arberg and Freddie King were present in Louisville to receive their honor before the convention. Dick Grapes, who was unable to attend, was presented his plaque by Society President Rob Hopkins at a later date. It is fitting that the Barbershop Harmony Society began its acknowledgment of sagacious icons with these twenty men and will continue to recognize many others that have served the Society throughout its extraordinary history.
O. C. Cash
(d: August 15, 1953)
Co-founder of the Society, , Owen Clifton Cash was born February 13, 1892, near Keytesville, Missouri to a Baptist minister/farmer. In 1938, he was living in Tulsa where he worked as a tax attorney for the Stanolind Oil Company. It was during a business trip to Kansas City that he met fellow Tulsa businessman Rupert Hall while staying in the Muelebach Hotel. He was there by chance as his return flight to Tulsa had been cancelled due to inclement weather. The two men discovered their common love of singing and planned a meeting of fellow songsters to take place back in Tulsa. The two men sent out a letter for a meeting at the Tulsa Club to take place on April 11, 1938. A second meeting brought more than 70 men, and the third yielded 150. It was at this meeting that the organization adopted the name the Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barbershop Quartet Singing in America (SPEBSQSA).
Cash worked to promote his organization through the years but never held an official office. He often referred to himself as the “Third Assistant Temporary Vice-chairman” in his numerous Founder’s Column writings in The Harmonizer. (Read his columns at
Rupert I. Hall
(d: March 14, 1972)
Rupert Hall was a co-founder of the Barbershop Harmony Society and its first President. An investment financier, Hall had moved from the Chicago area to Tulsa in 1936, just two years before he was stranded in Kansas City while on business and met O.C. Cash, the springboard for the founding of the Society. Hall served as the newly formed organization’s first President in 1938-1939. During that time, the organization grew to 10 chapters with 250 men in membership. The Society was a non-structured entity, and Hall himself had no idea what it would soon become. Hall and Cash would make membership cards and certificates for these new members from their own funds. He did, however, remain active in the organization and served as a member of the Society’s International Service Committee.
Fred H. King (b: November 20, 1935)
Freddie King is a Barbershopper’s Barbershopper. This music educator, coach, judge, chorus director, master of ceremonies, composer, arranger, and international champion baritone (Oriole Four, 1970) has left an indelible mark on the world of barbershop singing. He is the composer of over 300 songs and arranger of more than 500. He was the director of the Dundalk Chorus of the Chesapeake for 31 years including an International Championship in 1971. He was the director of the Dundalk Sweet Adelines’ Chorus for 38 years and has served as the director of the Association of International Champions (AIC) chorus. As a singer, he has performed in over 1,880 shows and has appeared as a quartet competitor on the International Contest stage over six decades. For more information, see “The Importance of Being Fred,” The Harmonizer, July 2000.
Val Hicks
(d: June 21, 2004)
Val Hicks was an arranger, composer, coach, teacher, historian, writer and judge. the age of 24 (1957), he judged his first International Contest. Four years later, he became the Society’s Arrangement Category Specialist. Hicks wrote more than 800 arrangements and approximately 90 original songs. As an academician, he wrote about barbershop music for the American Music Encyclopedia and the Encyclopedia of Recorded Sound. As an historian, Hicks served in many ways including editing the Heritage of Harmony, the Society’s 50th anniversary book. He was a consultant to the Smithsonian as an authority on the history of the American male quartet. He also coached and arranged music for the Osmond Brothers while they were on the Andy Williams Show. His most sung barbershop arrangement is undoubtedly “The Star Spangled Banner.” For a more complete biography, see “Eulogy for Val Hicks” at www.barbershop.org/ID_063349
Dean Atlee Snyder
(d: May 7, 1999)
Excepting his lifelong friend Wilbur Sparks, perhaps no other man had as great and long an influence on the leadership of the Society as Dean Snyder, “advisor to the presidents” through his six decades in the Society. A dedicated public servant, Dean was a charter member of the District of Columbia Chapter in 1945, and in 1948, a founder of the Alexandria Chapter. Snyder first became an International Board Member in 1951 and was instrumental in implementing the first long-range planning for the Society when in 1952 he was named chairman of a newly formed committee and given the charge to create 5-10 year goals. In 1962, he was named International Historian. Because of his added passion in the area of preserving the history of the organization, he was a founding father of the Heritage Hall Museum of barbershop harmony and was named Historian Emeritus of the Society.
The Buffalo Bills
1950 Quartet Champion
- Vernon “Vern” W. Reed, tenor (d: January 25, 1992)
- Albert “Al” E. Shea, lead (d: March 9, 1968)
- Richard “Dick” E. Grapes, baritone
-
F. Wayne “Scotty” Ward, baritone (d: January 23, 1989) - William “Bill” J. Spangenberg, bass (d: March 20, 1963)
Without doubt the most famous quartet in the history of barbershop, The Buffalo Bills were the 1950 quartet champion, and stars of stars of both stage and screen. The Bills they included seven singers over their twenty year run, and went through three periods of performance levels beginning with that of the competition/show quartet, then as Broadway stage performers, and finally as professional nightclub entertainers.
In 1957, they originated the role of the school board quartet in a new Broadway show, The Music Man, starring the production until they left to appear in the film version in 1962. For the next five years, the Bills performed on the Arthur Godfrey Show as a nightclub act, as guest performers in productions of Music Man and as headline entertainers on barbershop shows as well as county and state fairs around North America.
Carroll P. Adams
(d: December 19, 1973)
Carroll Adams, the Society’s third President (1941-1942), became the Society’s first paid executive when he became the Executive Secretary/Director (1941-1953.) At that time, the Society had 20 chapters with 750 members; by 1953, it had grown to 590 chapters with 24,680 men. Adams was the second editor of the Barber Shop Re-Rechordings, the Society’s first regular publication. Additionally, during his tenure, he co-founded the Harmonizer, facilitated the printing of Society arrangements, and co-founded the Sage Lake roundup.
Harold W. “Bud” Arberg
Director, composer, arranger, teacher, pianist, and inventor of the term “Barbershop Craft,” Dr. Harold Arberg was a widely experienced musician before coming to barberhop. A college music professor, he later headed the music area for the Department of the Army. When in 1951 he became director of the Alexander Harmonizers, he immediately began training his chorus members with barbershop craft sessions, which in due course becasme the foundation of training materials for the entire Society.
Floyd Connett
(d: September 1963)
Born and raised in Peoria, Illinois, Floyd Connett was a master coach, judge, chorus director, and educator. He was an actual barber who cut hair for 20 years prior to making barbershop singing his fulltime endeavor.
In January 1958, Floyd became the Society’s first fulltime field representative. In that position, he traveled North America and demonstrated the benefits of having a permanent traveling music specialist in the field. His continuing fame may be as editor for the publication “Just Plain Barbershop” which, along with being the most widely used book in the Society’s history, continues to serve the Society membership today.
Phil Embury
Judge, arranger and leader, Phil Embury was the Society’s fifth President and the second to occupy it for two terms. While listening to a radio show in 1939, he heard a barbershop quartet singing “You’re the Flower of My Heart, Sweet Adeline,” and an interview with O.C. Cash telling of the new Society. Embury was captivated. Shortly after, he was in Kansas City for business purposes and called Cash. The two met the next day in Tulsa.
Embury’s two years as president were highly productive. Along with improvements in the judging system and overall organization of the Society, he saw the membership of the organization jump from 4,490 men in 96 chapters to 12, 056 singers in 239 chapters.
C.T. “Deac” Martin
(d: May 27, 1970)
Claude Trimble “Deac” Martin was an author, public relations man, arranger, judge, and historian. Deac’s Barbershop career began before the Society was formed. He published his first book entitled, “Barbershop Ballades” in 1925 and then published “Handbook for Adeline Addicts” in 1932, both before the Society formed in 1938. Along with many articles, he wrote a ten-year history of the new Society in 1948 called “Keep America Singing.” He became the Barbershop Society’s first historian. In 1970, the year of his death, at age 79, Martin published his last, and arguably most famous, book “Deac Martin’s Book of Musical Americana.” A generous man, he donated the majority of his royalties from publications sold through the Society to the organization’s Old Songs Library.
Geoffrey O’Hara
(d: February 1, 1967)
Lecturer, author, raconteur, ethnomusicologist, and composer Geoffrey O’Hara made a significant impact on the world of music and championed barbershop singing until his death in 1967 at the age of 84. A minstrel show performer in his youth, he gained recognition as a songwriter in 1913, when his songs were sung by Enrico Caruso and Al Jolson, and his 1918 composition “K-K-K-Katy” was sung by soldiers of all branches of the armed services around the world. Barebrshoppers are equally familiar with his work, “A Little Close Harmony,” from which the well-known “The Old Songs” is derived.
Maurice “Molly” F. Reagan
Molly Reagan was a prominent arranger, administrator, and judge. While attending the 1940 contest at the behest of an old singing friend, Reagan was quickly recruited as a judge and subsequently was named the chairman of judges from 1942 until 1948. One of Molly Reagan’s most prominent contributions was that of developing his “Clock System” where chord choices for arrangements were more clearly defined. He wrote four articles in a series entitled “The Mechanics of Barbershop Harmony” that, along with other contributions to the Harmonizer, were substantial offerings to the art of quartet singing.
Sigmund Spaeth
(d: November 12, 1965)
Dr. Sigmund Spaeth was an educator, lecturer, author, composer, arranger, stage and screen celebrity, and musicologist. For four decades he was known as “The Tune Detective” on the radio, thanks to an encyclopedic knowledge of melodies. He appeared on the Metropolitan Opera Quiz, Keys to Happiness, Song Sleuth, and Tune Detective broadcasts. He edited many collections of song arrangements for male quartets including Barbershop Harmony and More Barbershop Harmony. He also authored a number of books including Barbershop Ballads and How to Sing Them. He is the composer of the Barbershop Harmony Society’s official song, “SPEBSQSA.”
Wilbur D. Sparks
(d: September 3, 2002)
Eminent arranger, editor, coach, historian, administrator, quartet singer, and judge, Wilber Sparks became the 27th President of the Barbershop Harmony Society in 1970. He belonged to the Alexander Virginia Chapter where he served as a baritone section leader, editor of the newsletter, assistant director, and show producer. Sparks served on the faculty of Chapter Officer Training Schools (COTS) at both the district and international level. He later co-wrote the Society’s manual for bulletin editors, Better Bulletins for Better Chapters,” with Dee Paris. He was the President of the Society’s organization for Public Relations Officers and Bulletin Editors (PROBE) during 1963-1964. On January 29, 1993, Wilber Sparks was awarded the honorary title of Parliamentarian Emeritus by the Society. His latter years were spent as an historian along with friend and fellow chapter member, Dean Snyder.
Frank H. Thorne
(d: October 26, 1956)
Frank Thorne was a championship quartet singer (Elastic Four, 1941), arranger, Society President, and judge. He was the first to insist that every note arrangement that they created was notated for accuracy. He later became a well-known barbershop arranger. Thorne was named to the Society Board the same year he joined, was Vice President from 1942 to 1945, and became the President in 1946. He was the first man to be both the Society President and a quartet gold medal winner. His administration yielded a structure of 20 committees run by the membership, a strengthened administrative staff at the headquarters in Detroit, the direct mailing of the Harmonizer, and the first training school for contest judges. n
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