Ahhh, music! Today is July 13th, Barbershop Music Appreciation Day, a day to relax and enjoy the voices of the Sweet Adelines, or a Barbershop Quartet. A barbershop quartet is a group of 4 singers singing barbershop music. A barbershop quartet has a lead singer who carries the tune, a bass who sings the bass line to the melody, a tenor who sings higher than the lead, and a baritone who sings between the bass and tenor to complete the chord. It started in the late 1800s with African Americans socializing in barbershops. They would harmonize while they waited for their turn, singing spirituals, folk songs and popular songs.
Edna Mae Anderson, from Tulsa, Oklahoma, invited a few women to her home to sing on July 13, 1945. Their husbands were members of the Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barber Shop Quartet Singing in America (SPEBSQSA), and these women wanted to be a part of the fun. So that evening, the “Sweet Adelines” was born, and years later the group later became Sweet Adelines International.
