Surftones in the Daytona Beach News-Journal Online

DAYTONA BEACH -- Christopher Baker and his three singing buddies were strolling through the grounds of a Birthplace of Speed event in Ormond Beach, when they noticed they had become pied pipers -- two youngsters were following them.

"At one point, we stopped and sang songs directly to them," Baker says. "Their grandparents told us, "They are just fascinated by this. They've never heard anything like this before.' Well, a lot of people haven't. It's the best-kept secret in the musical world."

That best-kept secret is what Baker says is "one of the only two native American musical forms, the other being jazz." The secret: barbershop singing.

Surftones, a local group composed of tenor Adrian Bourgeois, lead singer Bill Hibbert, baritone Jack Newcomer and Baker on bass, are working to get the secret out. Surftones (who are adamant about not having "the" before their name) have performed the national anthem for Gov. Jeb Bush and before races at Daytona International Speedway. They've performed at birthday parties and political party rallies, at ballgames and malls, the state capitol and numerous other area events.

And Surftones, who are members of the Surfside Chorus, a larger area barbershop singing group, will perform when the chorus presents its annual spring concert. Themed "Remember Radio," the concert will be Sunday at Seabreeze High School Auditorium in Daytona Beach.

"Singing with a band or a cappella cannot compare to singing barbershop." says Newcomer, a retired Maryland state trooper. "When you match your notes, there is a fifth note that comes in there, an overtone. When I heard that overtone for the first time, I looked at (wife) Dottie and said. 'I have to do that."

Baker, a veteran of the Navy, the radio industry and the communications department of Metro-Dade Fire and Rescue in Miami, says that overtone is what we call the 'barbershop seventh chord.' It's a peculiar form of the seventh chord unique to barbershop music. When it's hit right, that's what makes the hair stand up on the back of your neck. It'll give you goosebumps."

Barbershoppers began seeking that mystical overtone when the singing style started in the early 1900s, says Baker. Barbershop singing became part of minstrel shows, then disappeared.

However, barbershop harmony was revived in 1938 in Oklahoma when two guys "found out they both liked to sing, got together on the rooftop of this hotel with 12 people they knew, and started making up harmonies," Baker says.

From then to now, barbershop singers have searched for, and found, that magical fifth note while singing the national anthem, patriotic songs, religious music such as "Precious Lord" and "Amazing Grace," ditties from the 1920s through today, and traditional barbershop works known as "barberpole cats." Those "cats" include such songs as "Let Me Call You Sweetheart," "Sweet Adeline" and "My Wild Irish Rose."

Adrian Bourgeois, a certified financial planner, notes another appeal of barbershopping: "It's Americana. Not that things were necessarily better in the past, but this is America: family, mom, apple pie."

The members of Surftones insist barbershop harmony is for "the average singer." "If you can carry a tune, we can teach you to sing barbershop," Baker says.

And it's not for divas or showboaters.

"I really hate listening to someone butchering the national anthem, thinking they have to add all this stuff to it," Baker says. "Christina Aguilera -- I just run the other way with my hands over my ears and screaming."

As the discussion veers toward the sometimes jarring sounds of contemporary pop music, Hibbert, who's retired from a career in railroading, makes what at first seems to be a redundant comment: "We just want to sing singable songs."

Singable songs?

"One of the nice things is that we sing and you can understand the words," says Hibbert. "If you look at some of the older rockers, now they're going back and singing ballads. Rod Stewart has reinvented his career."

Barbershop singers "don't have to set the world on fire," he says. "But we want people to leave with a smile on their face."

The "Remember Radio" concert on Sunday will feature "four-part harmony and story set in the golden age of radio." Performers will include the Surfside Chorus, My Three Sons (the Sunshine District 2003 quartet champion), Surftones, the Ditchfield Family Singers and other chapter quartets. The show will also include "another thrilling adventure of Bart Holiday, Private Eye, in the 'Rotten Spice Caper."

Many of the groups, including Surftones and the Surfside Chorus, are members of the Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barber Shop Quartet Singing in America. The organization includes 33,000 members in the United States and Canada, with other chapters across the world. The group recently shortened its name to the Barbershop Harmony Society.

rick.deyampert@news-jrnl.com