1- Where does the term barbershop harmony come from?
2- What were barbershop's two major showcases from the 1880's through the 1930's?
3- What caused barbershop's demise as a major form of popular music?
4- Why was barbershop harmony important to George Burns, Bing Crosby and Al Jolson?
5- What was the influence of Black Americans in barbershop's formative days?
1- Barbershops, first in England, then here, were places of extemporaneous, amateur music making since Elizabethan times. A song written in 1910 and entitled [Mister Jefferson Lord] "Play That Barbershop Chord" iced the cake.
2- Minstrel shows in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and, thereafter, vaudeville.
3- Radio, more so than any other factor. For the first time in human history, radio brought affordable and widely available entertainment into almost every home. This led to the rapid demise of vaudeville shows, barbershop's most important venue during the first third of the twentieth century.
4- They began their show biz careers as professional barbershop quartet singers.
5- The influence was immense, but this is a give-a-way to all of you scholars who read the lengthy article on the history of barbershop harmony in the current issue (August 2001) of the Harmonizer.