Discuss the cover version phenomenon as it relates to the major record companies in the 1950s.
The contemporary image of a barbershop quartet is a group of white men dressed in turn‐of‐the‐century
clothes. The roots of the style, however, lay in African American barbershops of the late nineteenth
century. Barbering was a low‐status occupation performed by European immigrants and African
Americans. In the black community, barbershops often served as hubs of social and musical activities,
and the close harmonies and performance styles of the barbershop quartet style developed in this milieu.
The early recording industry contributed to the racial shift from black to white barbershop quartets by
recording primarily white barbershop groups. Once barbershop became popular in the 1930s, it was
promoted by an organization called the SPEBSQSA (Society for the Preservation of Barbershop Quartet
Singing in America). The group, like many other male fraternal organizations before the Civil Rights era,
admitted only white members; over time, the shift of barbershop from a black to a white art form became
complete., This regrettable pattern of appropriation was and continues to be found in almost every arena
of music‐making in the United States.
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