Useful info and links at the bottom of the page
Important News:
- Our Guest Quartet and Judges will be Rooftop Records! Get to know them on Facebook, their website, or their most recent performance at the SUN District this spring.
- We are working on a geomap of attendees which will be shared soon. The Board has decided to prepare one that has minimal personal information - we expect that if you want to contact one another via the geomap, you will ask for contact information. (Any Board Member can share that with you.)
- If you are a new or returning attendee and want a sponsor assigned to you, someone who can help you prepare better or answer your questions, please ask.
- Many attendees ask to purchase additional part learning tracks. The Board has slightly modified its previous policies. Attendees can purchase additional parts only for rallies where they have paid for the music. Cost will be $20 per part - available until we run out of licenses. We will be requiring a statement that you understand the tracks are for your personal use, not for other groups or quartets and that they cannot be shared. If you have previously asked for part recordings, please check in with us again.
- Please join the preparedness team! I'm looking for a lead, baritone and tenor who can help write up some notes which aid in learning that part on all 12 songs.
- Reminders:
- We are still seeking and accepting singers, especially leads. Please: promote us to your quartet, chorus or other talented sing friends. Scholarships are available, if needed. Have them apply.
- We are beginning to plan run-throughs - please attend or host. May is songs 1-4. To schedule a run-through, email Rob Sheridan. You can access the calendar on the web, add it to your own online calendar or find it on the NEHB web site.
- Current members - a reminder that to retain your membership you must have a current BHS membership and you must also attend at least every other year. Memberships expire after the second consecutive failure to attend.
Moonlight Becomes You
Music by James Van Heusen, Words by Johnny Burke
Arrangement by Ed Waesche
Let’s not spend a lot of time on the actual movie this wonderful song came from. It was one of the many Bing Crosby/Bob Hope “Road to ....” films. They were screwball musical comedies with essentially racist premises, and fantastic singing. This one was Road to Morocco. (The full list in order: Singapore, Zanzibar, Morocco, Utopia, Rio, Bali, Hong Kong.)
Moonlight Becomes You, is a simply gorgeous love song, made utterly barbershop singable. The original song was written for Paramount Pictures by James Van Heusen (music) and Johnny Burke (lyrics). They wrote almost all the music for almost all the Road To pictures. Paramount Pictures was, like most of the other studios, in a factory model - sign stars to long term contracts, write formula films that made money, and put them before audiences as fast as possible. Ed Waesche wrote our arrangement, lush with beautiful chords.
Bing Crosby made the song famous - it’s been covered again and again and again.
The plot is wonderfully confused and confusing, with a Moroccan Princess intent on marrying one of two shipwrecked best friends, while the other best friend tries to insert himself into the situation - not knowing that the first man to marry the Princess is predicted to die within the week. As with most screwball comedies, both men find lovely women in the end, and leave to return to America.
Anyway, Bing wins the girl with this song, and it’s used as a theme throughout. If you don’t know Bing Crosby’s career - I lack the space to tell you. He was that good, and that successful - with more movies, awards, songs, comedies, television shows, etcetera than perhaps any other American entertainer.
I had a wonderful conversation at Mixed Harmony Brigade of New England about this song. We were wondering why women leads sang this song slowly, while men tended to lead the song more quickly. My theory was - to a woman this is a song about how beautiful you look, and it can’t last long enough, to a man this was a declaration of love. We worry if it’ll go badly, so we sort of get to the point. Women: beauty. Men: worry about rejection. It’s my crazy theory, and I’m sticking to it for now. :-)
VIDEO LINK
The song, from the movie, sung by Bing Crosby
Ella Fitzgerald - She is always a great example of style
Frank Sinatra - His rhythm is always unique, but his emotion is sublime
Useful Info And Links
- The Preparedness Blog
- The New England Harmony Brigade Home Page
- The NEHB Application Page
- A Video Retrospective of the 2018 Rally (credit Jim Schumacher)
- Run-throughs
- Volunteer by sending email to Rob Sheridan
- See the calendar on the NEHB web site
- Add the calendar to your own.
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