Barbershop groups keep alive Granddad’s songs

Friday, June 29, 2001 | 9:11 a.m.

Sam Locicero is 80 years old, but he isn't singing the blues -- he's singing harmony.

The retired salesman is one of more than 30 members of the Las Vegas Gamble-Aires Barbershop Harmony Chorus, which performs tonight at the Summerlin Library and Performing Arts Center.

The show, which had its first of two performances Thursday night, includes several barbershop quartets as well as songs sung by the entire chorus. Sweet Adelines, the female counterparts to the all-male barbershop groups, will also perform.

Locicero, a native of Connecticut, said he has been harmonizing since he was a child. His family would sit on its front porch and sing.

"Everybody sang," Locicero said. "We didn't have a piano, just a guitar. I always sang harmony."

When he settled in Southern California after a stint in the Navy, he continued harmonizing with different barbershop choruses. When he moved to Las Vegas in 1964 he joined the Gamble-Aires.

"(The Gamble-Aires) sang on the Jerry Lewis (Muscular Dystrophy) telethon. We've been at most of the casinos for different things. We have a lot of chances to sing.

"But it's a different ball game today. It's getting to be more than just singing now. It requires stage presence."

But it is still harmony -- sometimes with a full chorus, sometimes with a quartet that consists of a tenor, baritone, bass and lead singer.

"It is four-part harmony sung a Capella," said Jerry Alvarez, secretary and vice president in charge of membership for the Gamble-Aires.

Alvarez joined the national society about 30 years ago when he lived in Wisconsin. He joined the Gamble-Aires when he moved to Las Vegas 11 years ago.

The Gamble-Aires, which meets for business, practice and socializing on Thursday nights at Christ Lutheran Church on Torrey Pines Drive, is a chapter of the national Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barbershop Quartet Singing in America.

The society was created on a whim in Tulsa, Okla., in April, 1938, according to the organization's records.

Tulsa tax attorney O.C. Cash happened to meet Tulsa businessman Rupert Hall, and they discovered they shared a mutual love of vocal harmony and were concerned about its decline.

Signing their names as "Rupert Hall, Royal Keeper of the Minor Keys, and O.C. Cash, Third Temporary Assistant Vice Chairman," of the "Society for the Preservation and Propagation of Barber Shop Quartet Singing in the United States," the two invited their friends to a songfest on the roof garden of the Tulsa Club, an exclusive private club, on April 11, 1938.

Twenty-six men attended that first meeting. Today the society has about 40,000 members.

However the average age is about 60 and membership is declining.

John Mackey, 47, the local chapter's past president, says it is difficult to recruit young men.

"It kind of goes back to 1938 when (the society) was formed," Mackey, a residential designer, said. "The organizers said, 'You know, we just don't sing the songs our dad and grandads sang.' "

Those old songs were from the period of about 1895-1920, he said. Young men of today don't have the same feeling of nostalgia for the music from the turn of the century.

Among songs popular at the time were hits such as "Sweet Adeline" and "My Wild Irish Rose."

"It was the Tin Pan Alley era," Mackey said. "What killed Tin Pan Alley and what hurt street-corner harmony was the invention of the radio.

"Radio brought professional singers into the house. The professionals didn't want to sing songs that were easy to sing. The reason for Tin Pan Alley in the first place was the publishing of songs easy to sell door-to-door."

Most families didn't have musical instruments, so in the days of Tin Pan Alley, sheet music was the most popular form of entertainment for the masses.

"The lyrics were easy to learn. They were all about Mom and your girlfriend and Ireland," Mackey said. "Then in the '20s radio came out and you didn't have to sing songs to your girl yourself. Bing Crosby could sing the songs for you.

"Those (easier) songs faded out and the more difficult songs came along. Difficult arrangements combined with jazz is what became popular. It was very difficult to sing some of the arrangements."

And so the barbershop preservation society was formed. It's members wanted to keep the less complex songs of their fathers alive.

"The chord structures (of more modern music) are difficult to sing a capella," Mackey said. "We do force some songs into (barbershop) arrangements. Some Beatle songs are written into barbershop. Paul McCartney, every once in a while, wrote some simple tunes. Some Broadway songs are out there. But (simple songs) are getting harder and harder to find."

Mackey joined the local chorus after moving to Las Vegas in 1990.

"I had sung in a chorus in Florida when I was in the Navy," he said. "When I moved to Las Vegas I didn't know anybody and I wanted to meet people.

The organization's 30-plus members come from all walks of life -- truck drivers, engineers, card dealers, postal carriers, insurance salesmen and students.

Mackey is vice president of special events for Gamble-Aires.

"Barbershop singing is a great hobby," Mackey said. "You can take a bunch of amateur singers, put them in a chorus and they sound pretty good. I may not sound good as a soloist, but put me with four other guys and a chorus and I sound great."