The Revelers (1927) 

I’m a big fan of his work

Barbara, The Revelers have been with me through some of the most formative and traumatic years of my life. I was 17 when I experienced my first real heartbreak. I made a revelers cd to help me cope and I listened to that cd on loop for years as I tried to figure out how to proceed in life, traveling the country to find the purpose of life. That exact cd sits in my car to this day. I am forever indebted to his contribution to music and forever thankful for how he helped change my life.

@@incorporal6381 How kind of you to tell me your story and how heartening it is to have music give us solace and joy and inspiration. Barbara Glenn

@@barbaraglenn4352 did you get to meet your grandfather? What was he like?

Yes I did.He was a charming, intelligent, fun person to be around who worked hard his entire life to succeed. Just to hear his singing voice makes me melt and how I wish he had lived to see his music revived today.

Franklyn Baur, Elliot Shaw, Wilfred Glenn and Lewis James were highly regarded singers in their own right. Frank Black was hired as the first Music Director of the National Broadcasting Company. He conducted the NBC Symphony for the opening of Studio 8H at Radio City. The life and death of Franklyn Baur is chronicled in several places on the internet; it's worth reading. I believe that in 1927 the microphone was hanging from the ceiling. Vitaphone produced a movie showing how "talkies" were made. I think the movie was called "When Movies Talk". It showed the placement of the microphone. Legend is that a director took the microphone off the ceiling, wrapped the cord around a broomstick, left the microphone hanging off the end and gave the whole thing to a studio hand to hold over the actors. Don't know if it's true or not.

Thanks for all that info, guys! It fills-in gaps where they were before. Also, let us not forget one bunch to thank MOST: the "Warner Bros." themselves! If not for those rascally bad-boys, none of this that we are now enjoying here would have happened. First-and-foremost all hail them I say, and then all the wonderful rest! No question that Frank Black was swell and did well but, it is a shame the Paul Whiteman's Harry "Romeo" Perrella did not get his place first. Tragically, as grapevile legend has it, it was to be that 'the bottle' got the guy! Essentially, he was the "Bix" of the virtuoso popular piano, both dying on account of it, and all that lead to it. Perrella's silences between notes were shatteringly perfect, to say nothing of his rhythmic power.

Everything boils down to a matter of personal taste and I prefer, The Revelers.

It's called closed harmony. The sung notes (of the chord) are arranged within a narrow range. If you like this kind of a capella singing you should also listen to the Comedian Harmonists from Germany. They were heavily inspired by the Revelers.

@@egoedo thank u so much for this info!!!

@@duncanpinderhughes You're welcome!

I think Franklyn was just feeling the music! Looks like the most confident and comfortable out of the 5 on camera.

In your opinion, not mine.

They set the pattern and the German group were fans who followed their lead and acknowledged this.

Predecessors actually.

No, it’s the other way around my friend! Just check the history!