“Sh-Boom” was The Chords’s only hit song. “Sh-Boom” shook up the status quo with its unstoppable crossover appeal, but The Chords would wind up becoming one-hit wonders and historical footnotes. It was common for the big labels to repackage black music in ways which were perceived to be more palatable to white audiences. Black groups found it hard to get airplay on mainstream media properties in a time when radio was the primary means of achieving national exposure, and disc jockeys were the gatekeepers and tastemakers of popular music. Most African-American recording artists were relegated to smaller and independent record labels with less marketing muscle and more modest production facilities than the big-name recording companies. The music industry was not immune from prejudicial attitudes or discriminatory practices. ![]() Far from being universally and triumphantly heralded as a watershed moment for equal rights, racial fault lines were being exposed and racial tensions were rising. Board of Education, struck down school segregation as unconstitutional. The Supreme Court, in their unanimous decision in Brown v. The year 1954 was pivotal in the nascent civil rights movement gaining momentum in the United States. Just thank me for not belaboring the point with high schools, summer camps, and family reunions. So, I have taken the easy way out and selected–envelope please–the Men’s Choir of Poor Knights (loosely translated) at the University of Bergen. To choose a champion among all these worthy candidates would be harder than picking the perfect bracket for the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament. The Harvard Din & Tonics consider “Sh-Boom” to be their signature song. Lewis College Men’s Choir, and McMaster University’s (Canada) Absolute Pitch. This bodes well for the song’s future, notwithstanding the fact that far too many sophomoric (ahem) arrangements make “Sh-Boom” into a vehicle for barbershop quartets or, worse yet, a hymn.Ī peek online yielded these contestants for what an exemplary representative example might be: (in no particular order) the Pittsburgh Panther Rhythms, the University of Rochester Midnight Ramblers, Tufts’s S Factor, Western Washington University’s Major Treble, Western Connecticut State University’s The Parallel Fifths, the Stanford Mendicants, the Washington University Stereotypes, the Texas A&M Men of Moores, UC-Berkeley’s Men’s Octet, the Ft. If the Internet is any guide, “Sh-Boom” is required harmonizing on many college campuses. The vocals in this instance seem Frenchified with a lot of “la la la” phonemes, making it sound cheesy to anyone except Francophiles and hardcore Christmas carolers, but overall I think the artist nailed the song in spirit if not to the letter. ![]() Of course, the essence of Doo-Wop–like scat–is that its strings of syllables are stripped of traditional meaning. It augers well for “Sh-Boom” that its words are being translated into foreign languages. (Rage is set in a post-apocalyptic near future, following the impact the asteroid 99942 Apophis on Earth, and thus the artist’s rendition of “Sh-Boom” may be an ironic evocation of the meteoric impact itself–Sh-Boom!–as well as a paean–“Life could be a dream”–to a conditionally brighter future.) It has been speculated that the original “Sh-Boom” was an oblique reference to the atomic bomb. The song is dedicated “pour les rageux” which may be translated roughly as “for the haters” but may be gamer lingo for devotees of Rage, a first-person shooter video game. This is a French-language rendering by a solo artist from Orléans identified only as Tatay (a Tagalog word meaning “father”). These cats made a smooth cover which I thoroughly enjoyed. When last heard from, SCR was playing to big crowds in Dubai. Their debut album, appropriately enough titled Life Could Be a Dream, came out in 2011. My survey begins on the Left Coast in Los Angeles with Street Corner Renaissance, a five-man a cappella group, all of whom quit their day jobs to pursue their musical muses. Lately, I have been wondering how well “Sh-Boom” has been holding up to the test of time. I simply think of “Sh-Boom” as one of my favorite songs. ![]() Some people consider “Sh-Boom” to be one of the first “Rock and Roll” songs (although references to “rocking” can be found as early as 1947). That same year, “Sh-Boom,” in a paler pop arrangement, was a #1 hit for The Crew-Cuts, a Canadian quartet, backed by Dave Carroll’s Orchestra. “Sh-Boom” appeared on Billboard’s R&B and Pop charts (reaching the #2 and #5 spots, respectively), a rare crossover phenomenon in that era. (“Buddy”) McRae, and James Edwards shared credit for writing the early Doo-Wop classic “Sh-Boom.” Collectively, they were members of the Bronx-based R&B vocal group The Chords, who had their only hit with the song in 1954. James Keyes, Claude Feaster, Carl Feaster, Floyd F.
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