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Maurice Levy: In the background, we hear the voice of Bob Brandl, who was
a an aficionado and a participant in the barbershop quartets, and he's
participating in our conversation here. And he was telling us why the songs
from the 1890s on lent themselves to barbershop singing.
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Brendl: The chapter itself was formed out of the Westinghouse Chorus, and
the men that introduced the barbershop chapter here in Pittsburgh was a
fellow by the name of Molly Regan, who was an engineer with the
Westinghouse Company. And he was very amazed at the fact that he couldn't
get four people out of his chorus to sing barbershop. They weren't really
too familiar on the the attitude or the experience or the skill to do it.
So he finally arranged with three other people who were barbershop singers.
And that's where the, uh, Westinghouse Quartet was formed, although it was
really put together back around 1933 - 34 as a quartet, they weren't really
associated with barbershop until the chapter was organized.
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Eibeck: And Harry became manager of the quartet and then handled his
bookings. Then at the same time, uh, Molly Regan knew him, of course, and
in the early period of the Pittsburgh chapter, they had a little, a little
trouble keeping formed and doing things. And Molly went to Harry Smith. And
asked him if he wouldn't become president of the chapter. And Harry really,
really saved the chapter. He really saved the Pittsburgh Chapter. And he
was instrumental in putting on their first show in Pittsburgh, their first
barbershop show. And after that, he still was very much in the background,
uh, you know, with, with advice and everything, even after he wasn't
president anymore. But, uh, he deserves a lot of credit.
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Eibeck: Actually, the first year I was in a quartet, believe this or not,
we did 98 jobs. In one year at.
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Eibeck: And in our contest last week we had 73. So but for performances,
if we get 50 to 55, we feel we're doing well because men either have other
commitments and you know, they can't make it. But out of a chorus our size,
we, we, we get between 50 and 55 will come to sing outs.
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Brendl: Now that the Johnny Appleseed District is one of 16 districts that
make up the entire country.
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Eibeck: We've had them up there already too. Levy: So suppose Toronto and
Montreal. Eibeck: Yeah. Forget the last.
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Eibeck: I used to use this for an example. I'd say if I went to a
convention and I'd see a fellow from Texas and he was a tenor, and I'm from
Pittsburgh and I'm a lead, and I'd see a man with a badge on, and it would
be a baritone from California and a bass from, from, uh, another part of
the country. And we had never seen each other. I can blow a pitch pipe and
the four of us can sing, and it'll sound pretty good.
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Eibeck: It's better than that. They have to hear it, you know, they have
to hear. Levy: Somebody that plays the piano by ear. Eibeck: Yeah, that's
comparable to that. That's right, that's right. Yeah. And of course, the
baritone part is a tough part. We call that the bastard part. That's that's
the note that's always left. You know, the lead gets the lead melody and
the bass. He gets a boom, boom, boom, boom. And then the tenor usually
harmonizes. So that baritone part, he's got to get that he's above the lead
and below the lead, you know, and. Levy: Sort of like floats. Eibeck: He
floats around is exactly right. Yeah that's a good word for it.
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Levy: The your other things that are involved with the quartet singing are
you have charities. Could you tell us a little about the charitable work
that the chapter does?
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Eibeck: Our big charity, my gosh, we speak, we sing that they shall speak.
That's, uh, that's that's, uh, Institute of Logopedics and. Gosh, how many,
how much money we donated to them now for the last ten years,
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Levy: Logopedics.
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Eibeck: These are children that are born with or, you know, acquire speech
defects. And they they try to teach them mostly through music. And it's
it's naturally it's it's a terrific thing for our for our society because
that's what basically we are, you know, but they've been very successful in
helping a lot of people and a lot of children, mostly children, but they
have a wonderful setup there. I've never seen it, but I guess that would be
something to see.
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Levy: Where is the facility located?
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Eibeck: Wichita. Wichita? Then we have our own local. Local, uh, charity.
Uh, we don't we don't do a lot with that, but we do give them some money.
That's, uh. What's Pittsburgh hear?
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Levy: You hold a benefit for them, is that it? No proceeds to the.
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Eibeck: No, no. We'll just donate.
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Levy: You're talking about signers for the people that are listening.
Those are the people that are using sign language.
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Brandl: Right, right. And, uh, it's almost like a bike-a-thon or a
walkathon or a book a thon where they have participants that go out and get
so much per minute. Signing. Well while they're signing, while they're
going through this. Sign a thon. We provide entertainment for people to
come in and or doing it or giving contributions for it. It's a part of a
program. For instance, Breakthrough, which is a nationally known
organization for the speech and hearing impaired. They advocate learning
music. Through sounds and people that are deaf can actually hear the music.
This is something that we also provide. They can hear us singing through
vibrations. And when we get down, there's a whole pit full of people that
are doing their signing, honoring a commitment that they make when they go
and sign people up like $0.10 a minute or whatever. So we provide
entertainment for. It's kind of an all day affair. But we also do. Work for
churches and organizations. We often have a fundraiser type of an attitude
where we will provide the entertainment they provide, the people.
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Levy: You participate in things like the children's hospital things,
things like that, or.
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Eibeck: We've done an awful lot of charity work.
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Levy: The veterans hospital? Yeah.
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Brandl: The veterans hospital. Mhm. They started a barbershop program that
it was actually music therapy. And they drew a lot of these people out. And
even the wheelchair patients were able to go on this trip. And through the
efforts of Wayne Van Dyne and a private donor, they uh the barbershop was
started the seed money, you know, to get it started and every chapter
kicked in, I think 100, $150 a piece. Just to get it started. And Wayne
went out and he broadcast on TV and they got a private donor to make up the
difference. The government was originally originally supposed to finance
this thing for three months. Before that they were supposed to leave. They
pulled out of it. So all these people were all set up to go who couldn't?
But through the efforts of Wayne Van Dyne, why they made it. They got the
airplane fare and the three days hotel and everything. And they finished,
and they finished first 24 of them.
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Levy: You mentioned that they won first prize. We've had we have one
international winner here, the Pittsburghers. Right?
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Eibeck: No, we had two. Two. Yeah. Town and Country Four.
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Levy: Town and Country Four.
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Eibeck: Town and Country Four.
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Levy: Mhm. You knew those people of course very well.
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Eibeck: Real well. Yeah. Yeah. Real well. Yeah. They're uh two of them are
deceased now. One of them is still active in our chapter - tenor and.
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Levy: Uh, in the Pittsburgh Chapter.
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Eibeck: Pittsburghers. Yeah, yeah. In the Pittsburgh chapter. And the
Pittsburghers are, uh. Well, yeah. Tommy does come. Tommy there's one
there's one still comes from the Pittsburghers too.
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Levy: Well, that's quite an achievement. Two international winners from
one from one chapter.
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Eibeck: There it is, there it is. And at the same time, when the
Pittsburghers won the international, the Westinghouse Quartet finished
fourth, which is a medalist ranking. That was something. Also, I don't know
if that had ever been done from one chapter. I don't think it was ever done
before. It was really amazing too.
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Levy: Quite an achievement. The other thing that I, I remember reading
about is that there's something called afterglow. What is that? Yeah.
Describe what that is. I have I read it in the. Yeah.
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Eibeck: That's after a show. After a regular show. Like our show down
Heinz Hall. When we had it at the Syrian Mosque, it was a little, a little
easier. We would go downstairs and we would have maybe 6 to 800 people come
downstairs and you set up a buffet. And at that time, we we would set up a,
uh. Beer and set ups also. And you bring your own bottle more or less one
of those things, and then you would go through the entertainment again. You
would have all the quartet sing and especially the headliner quartet. And a
lot of times if there were visiting quartets from around the area, you
know, they'd get up and sing a song or two. So you'd have instead of an
hour show, you'd have a two hour show, maybe again. And then after the
singing would be done, the formal singing and entertaining, while you'd get
four guys over in that corner and four guys in that corner and four guys in
another corner, and it would go on to two, three, 4:00 in the morning.
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Levy: It's like a jam session. Yeah isn't it.
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Eibeck: Yeah exactly. Yeah yeah. That's right. And uh, I don't know
whether whether you read this, but the unwritten rule was there is never a
fifth in a quartet, an unwanted fifth. In other words, the four guys are
singing as a quartet. Nobody else chimes in unless they're asked. We if we
have gang singing. You know, if I start a song, I most everybody join in.
That's different. But if four guys get together and want to sing a song,
nobody else will open their mouth and let the four guys sing. That's sort
of a I don't even know if it's written. It might be written somewhere.
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Levy: It sounds like you didn't want it to drink. They didn't. No one
wanted fifth.
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Brandl: Yeah, yeah. No. The afterglow really. If you have probably seen
many bonfires in your day, and after all the corn's been cooked and all the
all the eating has been done, the fire goes down. Even in today's hamburger
world, the coals only get better after the flame goes. And the afterglow is
really that part of the fire that is still burning. People, no matter how
long you can have a 14 hour show, there has to be an afterglow because it
just got to be a little bit more.
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Levy: Of the.
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Brandl: It's a tradition. Even after our rehearsals, uh, some of the
chapter members will go to a local, local place. Not necessarily a bar. It
could be a restaurant just to get something to eat, a little bit of
refreshment and do some more singing. The afterglow is a very personal type
of a thing. Uh, we might have 3000 people at a show. 600 go to an
afterglow. But this is a very, very personal thing, very intimate type of a
gathering where the headliners rub elbows with the with the customer, you
know, and I have even before I was in the society, I have even sung with
international champions at an after club. So maybe this is what helps our
condition, I don't know.
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Levy: No, I think it makes people feel that they're really a participant
rather than just a one voice out of out of 123, in a chapter that gives.
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Brandl: Us and that gives some of us who have not been blessed with good
voices, like Walter, a chance to do some of our own singing. He has a good
voice. Don't misunderstand.
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Levy: I get up and travel in the next day.
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Eibeck: Yeah. That's right. Yeah.
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Levy: Well, I'd like to thank you for your time and your wonderful
interview.
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Eibeck: And believe me, we talk.
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Levy: To you and we talk. We talk. Mr.. Barbershop quartet and Mr. Radio
music musician and television musician. And so you've made an incalculable
contribution to the oral history of music in Pittsburgh. And I want to
thank you again. I want to thank Bob Brandll, who sat in with us here and
made sure that we had ice water when we needed it. That was his job. Thanks
again. Thank you very much.
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Eibeck: You're welcome. Thank you. You're welcome.
