I've Got a Crush On Palin?

How did I miss this? Washington University's co-ed a cappella group After Dark was on the CBS Early Show last week singing an original tune about their crush on Sarah Palin. Unreal.

Mosaic Earn MTV’s Top Pop Group Title!

Anyone watching MTV's Top Pop Group? Mosaic, a pro a cappella group I wrote about in Pitch Perfect, won the whole thing!

Mosaic, if you remember, once counted Scott Porter from NBC's Friday Night Lights among its members. But Scott quit to go Hollywood...and later regretted it. Here's that excerpt from Pitch Perfect:

Friday Night Lights may be coming back to NBC this fall, but one actor might not be thrilled. Scott Porter, who plays Jason Street, quit his gig singing with Mosaic, a professional a cappella group, a few years back to go Hollywood—only to see Mosaic snag a slot opening up for Prince (Prince!) on New Year's Eve. "That's a rock star moment," Porter reveals in Pitch Perfect. "I am on this massive, amazing TV show that everyone loves, but I devoted eight years of my life to taking the next step with a cappella music. There is a huge part of me that regrets leaving Mosaic." Uh, you're on Friday Night Lights! "I would regret it more if I was on the WB and wasn't doing groundbreaking television. There's no rehearsal on our set, no marks to hit. It's gorilla-style for primetime network television. Other shows want to look like us. At the same time, I wanted to make people go, Holy crap—a cappella. That's something new. I want to imitate that.

Well, that's what Mosaic just did. Winning $100,000 in the process! There's a strange thing here: This is not the first contest Mosaic won. Last year they scored in the CBS Early Show's search for "The Next Great A Cappella Group," judged by Boyz II Men. Kinda funny, no? They must REALLY be the best!

Anyway, check out a clip of their MTV win by clicking here. Congratulations, gentlemen.

Mosaic Earn MTV’s Top Pop Group Title!

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Straight No Chaser Announces First Reunion Gig

Straight No Chaser, which I wrote about extensively in this weekend's New York Times (that story here), will reunite where it all began.

From the Atlantic Records press release that went out today: "Straight No Chaser will celebrate the release of HOLIDAY SPIRITS with a special Homecoming Show at their alma mater, Indiana University. Tickets to the concert—set for October 25th at the Indiana University Auditorium—are priced at $16.50, or $22.50 with a copy of HOLIDAY SPIRITS. For more information, please visit www.iuauditorium.com)

Someone local: Check it out and report back.

Anne Sings!

Anne Hathaway—an alum of the Vassar's Measure 4 Measure—hosted SNL on Saturday. And she did her old a cappella group proud singing in this Mary Poppin's spoof. Check it out:

Who is Dick Gregory?

I’ve got a piece in Sunday’s New York Times about an a cappella group, Straight No Chaser from Indiana University, with a unique story. See, ten years after graduation, this group suddenly scored a major label record deal when one of their old video's became a surprise hit on—where else?—YouTube. (Read that story here.)

The song was a comedic take on “The 12 Days of Christmas" (incorporating Toto's "Africa!") and it was viewed nearly eight million times. In case you missed it, I'll embed that video here:



Atlantic Records is talking about sending these boys (or rather, these men) out on the road with the likes of Josh Groban. But what about this arrangement of “The 12 Days of Christmas?” Where did it come from? As I reported in the Times piece, though the arrangement has evolved over the years, it began as the handiwork of one Richard Gregory, now 76, an alum of the Yale Whiffenpoofs and a retired music educator from the Williston Northampton School. I tracked down Mr. Gregory to get the story behind the music. He speaks:

What inspired you to write this arrangement of “The 12 Days of Christmas?”
I was in the Navy in the 1950s, stationed on the Island of Guam. I had a singing group of Naval officers, and we needed something fun for Christmas. I was diddling around one night writing music. These Christmas songs—a lot of these songs have the same chord structure. They’re easy to play together in counterpoint, and I’m fascinated by counterpoint. I wrote a primitive version of the arrangement. It wasn’t as long and it wasn’t as good. I came to the Williston Northampton School in the ‘60s and began an a cappella group of students, the Caterwaulers. I polished up the arrangement and taught it to the boys. We sang it and people liked it.

Why the Caterwaulers?
Caterwaul is what cats do on the back of the fence when there is a female cat in heat. That’s the name we adopted.

Nice.
One of the Caterwaulers—the person who was the so-called music leader, the one who blew the pitch pipe—went to Princeton and joined the Nassoons. And he took that song with him. And the Nassoons have been calling it their arrangement ever since. They put it on a phonograph as their arrangement. It was strange for them to learn that I had written it.

How did they come to find out that you’d written the arrangement?
One of the graduates of the Nassoons was auditioning at Williston Northampton for a teaching job. Someone at the school knew I’d written that song and made a point of us meeting. I said to him, Do you know who wrote the arrangement? I did. That’s how they got the news. By that time, the song had been given from hand-to-hand to groups around the country.

I heard from one of the Nassoons. He tells me they credited you on their 1976 recording of "12 Days..." He points out that your name wasn't taken off, really. Rather, the song was subsequently taught by ear. That's where the disassociation happened. Anyway, now the song's going to be on a major label.
So it’s not dead yet...

When did you get a sense that “The 12 Days of Christmas” was such a phenomenon?
It was after Chrsitmas last year. I hadn’t heard of YouTube. I don’t have a computer. In fact, today I’m writing a letter on a manual typewriter. But my friends began to talk about it. And some people would call me—including a father whose son sings in the Indiana University a cappella group. He tracked me down.

Where did you see the video?
I went to a friend’s house. And it was good fun listening to it. Then that other song came on.

Yes, that’s Toto’s “Africa.”
It’s a good song, but one I’ve never heard of. The Indiana group cut off the last—and best!—third of my arrangement and stuck on this other thing. They lost “I’ll Be Home For Christmas” and “Chestnuts Roasting.”

Is there money to be made here?
I’ve been glad to have anyone sing it who wants to. The University of Michigan glee club put it on a CD. It’s beautifully sung. The choir director called and asked me and I said it was fine. But really, no one cares very much about rights and so on. A publisher called me after the YouTube success and showed some interest in selling the arrangement, but I think they realized that they won’t make much money off of it. Everyone who wants the arrangement already has it.

As an undergrad at Yale, you sang with the Whiffenpooffs. What do you remember about those days?
I graduated from Yale in 1954. But I was pitch pipe of the ’56 Whiffenpoofs as a graduate student. We went around the country. I sang solo on the stage of the San Francisco Opera House. It was a song called, “Slow Motion.” It’s in the Yale Songbook, I think. It was something I wouldn’t have the nerve to do now, but being young and fearless I did it and I got through it. As part of the glee club, we sang with the Boston Symphony at Tanglewood. Back then, the Whiffs traveled with the glee club. The Whiffs of ‘56 still sing together—all twelve of us.

Really? Where?
Different parts of the country—California, Wisconsin. Only four of us are on the East Coast. And yet we all get together, along with our wives. We still sing pretty well for guys in our 70s. But by now the fun is more important than the singing.

Did the Whiffs perform at Williston while you were teaching?
Yes. It was an ego trip. They’d call upon me to join them for the “Whiffenpoof Song.” It was good for two or three days. Then everyone would forget about it.

How has a cappella changed?
During the ‘70s, it was not cool that kind of music. And now there has been a big revival of it. Things have changed.

Did you ever think you’d be talking about “The 12 Days of Christmas” fifty years after leaving Guam?
I’m grateful for some notoriety. But I would have preferred other works of mine to become notorious. I’ve written three operas and a lot of choral music and chamber music—which is not fashionable.

'Pitch Perfect'...The Greatest Hits

Folks, we're closing in on 150 blog entries. Thank you loyal readers!


But for those of you who are new to the site, I thought we'd take a look back at the best of the blog. Herein, the top five Pitch Perfect posts of all time:

1. The Baudboys of Pro A Cappella
Inside Microsoft's bitter a cappella rivalries!
Click here.

2. I Was on NPR.
Talkin' the rise of collegiate a cappella on Weekend Edition.
Click here.

3. Pitch Perfect: The Trailer!
The Bubs...were on Letterman?
Click here.

4. Ben Folds: High Five!
Ben Folds (yes, that Ben Folds) speaks out in defense of collegiate a cappella
Click here.

5. ICCAS: Live on TV!
The heartbreaking story of Divisi's rise and fall—fresh from CurrentTV
Click here.

'Pitch Perfect' Makes the Very Short List!

Folks, good day: Pitch Perfect was featured on Kurt Andersen's Very Short List, a website devoted to "must-see gems."

Of Pitch Perfect, VSL writes: "College, they say, is a time of self-discovery. And so, some of us discover that happiness is found onstage, involves the wearing of matching outfits, and includes the singing of Journey songs (even the instrumental parts) in perfect harmony. Ah, cappella! What would our 21st-century campuses be without you? In Pitch Perfect: The Quest for Collegiate A Cappella Glory, a GQ editor named Mickey Rapkin shines a bright light on this highly competitive, rapidly expanding subculture."

Click here to read the full entry. And please sign up for VSL's daily e-mails!