EVENTS

Crossroads Captures Championship in California

Laughter, Love and a Barbershop Song

By Grady Kerr – AIC Reporter

Borrowing the title of the popular book by Fred Gielow seems very appropriate when telling the story of our new champions. Their purpose and impact is just that simple.

Crossroads won the gold in Anaheim and it was a huge event for not only the singers in the quartet but everyone involved.

The Medallion was privileged to interview Fred Farrell (tenor), Mike Slamka (lead), Brandon Guyton (baritone) and Dr. Jim Henry (bass) and discuss several topics regarding the win and the quartet. We were able to get a peek at their personality, their driving force and especially their sense of humor in this exclusive interview.

Well first off, congratulations on the win and thanks for talking with us today.

Jim: Thank you ... our pleasure.

This win makes each of you a double gold medalist. Is the second gold sweeter?

Mike: I wouldn’t say it’s sweeter, but it sure was different for me.

Fred: Nothing like that first one, and the absolute thrill of doing something you only dreamed of. This one was less of a thrill, I’d say, given the overall objective of this quartet.

Brandon: I think our priorities were a little different this time. We are much more interested in singing great music to the best of our abilities than we were on winning. Frankly, that’s the best thing about having won once before. We didn't feel that pressure that can come along with trying to win. Actually, the Ambassadors of Harmony winning the day before might have been the sweetest for me personally!

Jim: Actually, I've tried them both and they taste about the same.  I'm hoping my third one (which I hope to win in 2011) will be milk chocolate wrapped in gold foil.  That would be a LOT sweeter (after removing the foil, of course).

I’m sure you all heard some great comments during the week ...

Fred: There was a lot of amazing feedback. The most cherished feedback tends to come from those who have “walked the walk” as they say.  We saw Gene and Iris Cokeroft immediately after coming off stage in the semis, and they had so many great things to say about Lucky Old Sun. We have since gotten very meaningful emails from the likes of Jim Massey, who was unable to attend the convention but watched the webcast.

Jim: People were so incredibly kind and supportive. No jokes here. We were truly humbled by the response we received on and off the stage throughout the week.

What’s your most vivid memory as you were on stage?

Fred: Easily the performance of That Lucky Old Sun; the incredible response from the audience afterwards. It was a once in a lifetime experience!

Mike: Simply amazing.

Brandon: It was truly overwhelming. Just when the applause started to die down, you could hear a second wave of applause, that was louder than the initial explosion, roll over the entire auditorium.

Jim: Yes, the ovation after Lucky Old Sun was surreal.  We had no idea when to start - or, for that matter, how in the world we were going to be ABLE to start - the second song.  Did we even sing a second song?  I don't even remember a second song.  Well, if we did sing a second song I'm sure it was a lot crappier than the first song.  Anyway, that's a memory that I will take to my grave.

Whose idea was this and how did this quartet get started?

Fred: Well, Brandon and Mike were together at a HEP school in January of ‘07 and at the time both of their quartets were coming to an end. They both had filled in with the Gas House Gang and so Jim was on their radar and the obvious choice for bass. 

Jim: Yeah, they called me that evening ... actually, it was about three in the morning! ... and they asked if I would consider trying it out with them.  I, of course, told them “no,” reminding Brandon of the restraining order I had against him and demanding that he stop calling me. But they were persistent, so we decided to get together to give it a whirl. 

Jim: We had no tenor the first time we got together so we asked Tim Waurick (the hack) to stand in with us. It sounded terrible. But we didn't care. We made a list of possible tenors, and Fred rose to the top of that list (after we had been turned down by the first 8 or 9). 

Mike: Fred had more money than anyone else on the list. 

Brandon: Jim and Geda and Kim and Fred had been good friends for years. Geda campaigned for Fred to be the tenor. Geda now has to live with this guilt every day of her life.

Jim: We got together with Fred, and we still sounded terrible. But we still didn't care.  We were having a great time.  Our wives loved each other, our kids loved each other, the four of us in the quartet loved the same kind of food.  It was a match made in heaven.

Mike: I think we actually sang a song at the 2004 convention in Louisville. It was so special for Jim he has no memory of it.

When did you first sing together and say ... “this could become something special”

Jim: We’re STILL waiting for that day.

Brandon: No, the very first time we got together was Memorial Day in rented cabins in the Great Smokey Mountains. We had our families with us for the weekend and we all laughed, played, shared stories, and just had an immediate and genuine connection as people. The singing was actually pretty bad, but we connected where it mattered the most.

Mike: It was Jim who came up with the name, Crossroads.

How do the wives feel about the win?

Jim: We haven't told them yet.

Fred: Stop it ... they are all thrilled to be on the arm of a champion once again. It has been a long time for a couple of them and they have been getting a little restless, let me tell you! 

Mike: And this was the first time that Jim’s, Brandon’s and Fred’s kids got to see them win.

Brandon: Fact is, Fred's kids thought he was tone deaf until we started singing (I'm not convinced he isn't).

OK, I get it. It’s a family affair ... kinda like Power Play. The kids seem to be an important part of this quartet. Is that true?

Jim: We are definitely a family-oriented quartet, but not like Power Play in the sense that we actually LOVE the people in OUR families. 

Brandon: Actually, we can't stand our kids. We use the quartet as a means to get away from them on weekends. We only talk about them this much because it really helps us move product.

Fred: Seriously ... family is an extremely important part of this quartet. We are truly blessed to have 4 of the greatest wives you could ask for.  When they ask, “How many in your quartet?” we can honestly answer “EIGHT” because we have so much fun when the four couples get together. We all married up in a big way. Also Jack and Kitty Slamka were in Anaheim with us as well as Jim’s mother Rose, Fred’s mother Katie, sister Peggy, brother Mike, and niece Eileen.

I understand y’all celebrated at Disneyland Sunday after convention. How’d hat go?

Mike: It was a blast. There were 24 of us.

Fred: We all hated to say goodbye on Sunday after Nashville and we vowed that we would stay in Anaheim until Monday so the Disney trip was planned for quite a while.

Brandon: We finally got to bed around 6 a.m. only to get up at 10.

Jim: Yeah, sleep-deprived and energy-depleted, we all went to the “Happiest Place on Earth,” and then decided to break up.

I’m guessing one of the challenges of being a long distance quartet is finding time to rehearse and get coaching.

Brandon: We actually didn't get to simply rehearse going into Anaheim. All of our rehearsing was scheduled around shows. We would have loved to have just a weekend where we rehearsed, but we couldn't work out the schedule.

Mike: We did travel to Finland for 10 days in May, and got to sing a lot!

Fred: That was supposed to be a rehearsal “boot camp” of sorts for us, but we had so many performances while we were there that we didn’t get in the contest rehearsal that we were hoping for. Even though Jim and Brandon now both live in St. Louis and Mike and Fred now live in Ft. Myers, finding rehearsal time is challenging.

Brandon: When we do get to see each other we are always working on new music or tweaking our current repertoire. We've developed a pretty good internal coaching system that involves a great deal of duetting and trioing while we take turns coaching each other.

OK, time to drop some names, whom do you want to credit here for the help you DID get.

Jim: Let’s let Brandon answer this one as he got most of the coaches' attention.

Brandon: Thanks ... we have worked with Jean Barford, Randy Loos, Aaron Dale, and David Wright. David has been our main coach and mentor. Of course, our wives might be our best coaches. They don't seem to like anything we do so our next goal is to try to do something, anything, that makes them happy. We were also blessed that many of our rehearsals were in and around St. Louis so the Vocal Spectrum guys are also good sounding boards.

I’m sure you know a lot of people were pulling for Old School and Masterpiece.

Mike: Who????

Brandon:  I'm sorry. I'm not familiar with their work.

Jim: Wonderful guys ... Terrific quartets ... Dear friends ... (Who’s he talking about?)

Do you agree that your previous gold played a large part in this win through that experience and work ethic? 

Fred: Absolutely. We all learned so much from our previous quartets and the great singers we all sang with prior, and we are all very proud of the accomplishments of our previous quartets. We had hoped to poke some fun at those guys in Anaheim with a funny parody we devised but we were unable to get the song cleared. Thank you Bourne Music!

Jim: Work ethic????  Hahahahahahaha

Fred: Let me try to be serious here for a minute. We can’t say enough about Jim as a person and as a musical talent.  It’s a privilege to get to sing with him and what he has accomplished with the Ambassadors of Harmony is just incredible.  You’ve never seen a nicer bunch of men in your life, and they all know what Jim means to their organization.  We feel like we are a part of a wonderful family with the Ambassadors of Harmony, and we are so incredibly proud to say that we get to sing with Jim Henry. He is a special person.

Brandon: As a quartet, we made the chorus our first priority for the week. We knew how hard so many people had worked to make the Ambassadors’ set possible and we wanted to make sure that the chorus came first. If you would have told us that we had to pick between quartet and chorus gold, we would have picked the chorus, hands down.

That week had to be a mental and physical challenge for you, Jim, would you recommend it to anyone else?

Jim: I absolutely WOULD recommend it.  It's the greatest feeling in the world to share that experience with 160 of your best friends and quartet members.  But, yes, it IS exhausting so, like me, you have to keep your mind and body in tip-top shape.

Fred, how does it feel to now hold the record and be the answer to the Barbershop Trivial Pursuit question: “Who has longest span between gold medals (20 years)?” What’s it feel like to no longer be a “has-been?” 

Fred: A very nice little distinction I have to say. I thought I was washed up. Also a very sad reminder of how fast the last 20 years has gone by.

I hope I’m not revealing a secret here BUT, traditionally the outgoing champs hide something in that secret hiding space inside the trophy. What did OC Times leave you?

Brandon: Oh yea, OC Times left us an autographed 8X10 glossy of them, shirtless. Fred has it hanging over his desk at work.

Mike: No, they gave us each a GREAT gift. It was a FlipShare personal video recorder. Very cool.

Fred:  Yeah, It was perfect!  So far we have loaded it with footage from Disneyland, our recent trip to Anacortes, Washington, and the Ambassadors’ victory party.  We would like to thank them publicly for their thoughtful gift.

I would also like to take this opportunity to apologize to Acoustix for leaving you guys ABSOLUTELY NOTHING in the trophy in 1990.

Perhaps you could now make it right by sending them one of your old combs? Anyway ... you released your first CD before International, quite a challenge for a long distance quartet. How are sales going?

Mike: CD sales have been great!  Actually, they’ve been pretty steady since around April.

Brandon: One major goal we have is to record often. We would like to have a new CD every 18 months.

Fred: Our first shipment was in April, and we’re just about ready to order our 3rd run.  And we still have plenty available at www.crossroadsquartet.com .

Every good quartet has members who fill specific needs ... administrator, music leader, distribution, jokester, etc - Who fills what role in this quartet?

Brandon: I think we do a good job at spreading it around. We have all contributed great ideas for music. When we rehearse, we all are coaching and contributing. Fred has been the contact man, but we now have a good friend of the quartet, Hal Maples, who is taking that role over for us.

Fred: Yeah, it’s a nice mix. We all share the same sense of humor and we laugh more than we sing. No shortage of comedic material within this quartet. I handle a lot of the admin work since I can’t sing very well.  Everybody understands his role pretty well but everybody is really open-minded and easy to work with, so no real strong personalities that dominate things within the quartet which is really nice. Jim is a very talented artist who did all of the graphic design work for our CD, and Brandon shared the mixing of the CD with David Wright and did all the mastering. 

As new champs I’m guessing your schedule is getting pretty full? Any highlights?

Jim: Well, I’ve got a dentist appointment on the 12th and a hair stylist appointment to get highlights done on Monday, and then I’m going to ... 

Fred: Can’t somebody stop him?

Jim: Oh ... sorry ... SHOW schedule??  I have no idea where we're going.

Fred: The Central States District has decided to alter the normal schedule and put on a show Saturday night of the convention in October featuring the Ambassadors of Harmony, Crossroads and Vocal Spectrum. So we get to do a whole show for our great home district along with the Ambassadors. Should be a wonderful weekend all around!

Crossroads Schedule

August 15^th - Harmony Camp - Columbus, Ohio

September 12^th - Grand Rapids, MI (2 shows)

October 3^rd – Escanaba, Michigan (1 show)

October 9-11 - CSD Fall Contest - Lincoln NE

November 13-14 – Performance - Stone Mountain, Georgia (3 shows)

November 21 - Performance-GNU – Minneapolis, MN.

December 11-13 - AOH St. Louis Christmas show (5 shows)

January 30^th - Midwinter Convention –Tampa, Florida

March 27^th – Defiance, OH (2 shows)

May 1^st - Santa Fe Springs, CA - Masters of Harmony-(2 shows)

May 15 - Harmony Celebration Chorus (1 show) in northern New Jersey

OK, before we’re done here – would you like to take this time to say thanks to the AIC?

Jim: Are you kidding?!?  What did they ever do for us?

Fred: Yes, we WOULD like to thank the AIC for everything, especially the champs reception in Anaheim. They had no such thing in 1989 and when Second Edition was done with pictures the only people left in Kemper Arena were the union guys tearing down the stage.  We are really looking forward to Philadelphia and we can’t wait to be on the AIC show. 

Mike: We appreciate the support we’ve gotten from everyone, including members of the AIC.  It was humbling to hear the anticipation of the crowd prior to all of our performances in Anaheim.  Truly remarkable!

With 20 past champs in this contest I’m sure you’ve heard the comments from those who feel gold medalist should NOT be allowed to compete again.

Mike: Gold medalists have been competing again for over 40 years. There’s no reason to stop now.

Brandon: I think that everyone should be able to enjoy the hobby the way they want to enjoy it. I’ve been barbershopping 16 years and have been in 2 official quartets. Jim, Fred and Mike, have been singing longer, but have also sung in only a few quartets. I know that we are in this for the right reasons. I think we are doing what every barbershopper in history has done, try to find a fit. Everyone looks for a vocal fit, personality fit, musical fit, work ethic fit, family fit, and any other fit you can imagine. We have found that in each other. The gold medal isn't even a factor, and let's be honest. I'm not sure Power Play's gold really counts.

Fred: If you look at it statistically, it’s just not a problem. People tend to forget that we are also just dues-paying members who all seek out the most rewarding personal quartet experience possible just like everybody else, and if by doing so the bar is raised, and great music is being made, who suffers from this?  Diluting our product in the name of fairness or whatever would be short-changing everybody involved, most especially our audience and potential new members. Competitors who may be affected by us competing don’t have a problem. If they win, they want it to be against the best. Nobody wants a gold medal handed to them. The people who raise this complaint for the most part are not even active competitors from all we’ve seen and heard. This is a debate we’ll gladly engage in with anybody, at anytime.

With that in mind ... Will this quartet last? Any talk about how long you want to keep this one together?

Brandon: Definitely not. We are already looking for other combinations to go and win more golds.

Fred: We are all in complete agreement that this is our last quartet, and we are all done competing. We certainly hope that we’re singing and still going strong 15-20 years from now. I don’t think we’re in any danger of getting complacent and not wanting to work to get better and learn new music.  We are always on a quest for new music and new challenges. We still feel like there is so much more improvement ahead of us and there are so many great song ideas we are excited about.  David Wright is excited as well and ready to do some serious arranging for us which we are thrilled about. We hope to be around for a very long time.

Mike: Yep, this quartet was built for longevity ... at least until Jim and Fred decide to form a seniors quartet.

Crossroads Contest Songs (and arrangers)

Daddy’s Little Girl - David Wright

We decided to do this in honor of our daughters. We had 11 at the time, now 12 (that we know of) and introduced it at last year's International. Our favorite performance of it, however, was the first time we sang it for all the girls. We gathered them together in the main living room of a cabin we had rented for Memorial Day weekend and sang it right to them. Afterwards they rushed up and gave us hugs. Not a dry eye among the four of us.  Then the girls asked for money.

Georgia May - Aaron Dale

An obscure, fun, Fats Waller tune we introduced in Nashville. We LOVE singing this one. In fact, we love singing it more than the audiences (and judges) love hearing it apparently.

That Lucky Old Sun - David Wright

Inspired by the awesome Buffalo Bills version (with Vern Reed on solo). Mike suggested this one and we fell in love with it immediately. We only had this one a few weeks before International but sang it all over Finland. It is truly one of the special songs that don't come along very often in one's life. David Wright hit this one out of the park for us. It is ideally voiced for us. We feel blessed to have introduced it, and we owe David a lot for this one. I mean that literally - we owe David a LOT for this one.  (Check's in the mail, David.)

Mobile Medley - David Wright

This was David Wright’s first arrangement for us, although we made some changes and shortened it so David might not want to claim it as his anymore. Singing this was also Mike's idea, one of his few good ones. Jim has vivid memories of Earl Moon singing this tune at Harmony College, and we always think of him when we sing this song. David inserted "Down Mobile" in the middle which was the FIRST song sung at the FIRST Society meeting in Tulsa in 1938, April 11.

Mean To Me - David Wright

Jim: I've wanted to sing this tune for about 20 years, since the first time I saw Nell Carter perform it in the Broadway musical “Ain't Misbehavin'.” Honestly, I have never seen anyone put so much honest emotion into a song as Nell Carter does in her performance. Check out her rendition on YouTube and you’ll see what “presentation” is all about. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjnEhZReAj0 Though now that I've witnessed Mike Slamka's treatment of it, I have to say that I have never seen anyone put so much honest emotion into a song as Nell Carter does in her performance.  David, for his part, was masterful in capturing the bluesy style of Nell's performance while staying within the rules of contest.  He's a really smart guy.

A Little Patch of Heaven - Aaron Dale

Fred played us a recording of SAI champs, Swinglish Mix, singing a non-contestable version of this song and we absolutely loved it. Mike knew it from the animated movie Home on the Range. It had all the hallmarks of a great barbershop tune, so we asked Aaron to arrange it for us as a contest number. Our first Aaron Dale arrangement. He did his usual fantastic job.

• Medallion Issue featuring Crossroads
• Crossroad's Official Website