ABOUT BARBERSHOP SINGING
 
Barbershop harmony is a style of a capella, or unaccompanied vocal music, characterized by four-part choral singing.
 
Each of the four parts has its own role: generally, the lead sings the melody, the tenor harmonizes above the melody, the bass sings the lowest harmonizing notes, and the baritone completes the chord.
 
Singing a capella music in the barbershop style is a hobby enjoyed by men and women worldwide. The hobby is practiced mostly within one of the three main barbershop associations.
 
In the UK the main association is BABS for men and LABBS for women.
 
Both BABS and LABBS organise annual conventions, competitions, and education of singers and chorus directors.
 
They also organise lists of available choruses and quartets who can be booked to perform or who can be engaged for performances.
 
Barbershop History
 
Scholars such as Lynn Abbott and Dr. Jim Henry have promoted the acceptance of barbershop as having its origins in African American communities in the U.S. around the turn of the century, where barbershops were, and remain today, social gathering places. [1] The tight, four-part harmony of the form has its roots in the black church, where close harmony has a long tradition - some say deriving from its European antecedents but with very recognisable African influences.
 
The first uses of the term are by African Americans, and Jim Henry notes that "The Mills Brothers learned to harmonize in their father's barber shop in Piqua, Ohio. Several other well-known African American gospel quartets were founded in neighborhood barber shops, among them the New Orleans Humming Four, the Southern Stars and the Golden Gate Jubilee Quartette." [2].
 
Although the Mills Brothers are primarily known as jazz and pop artists and usually performed with instrumental accompaniment, the affinity of their harmonic style with that of the barbershop quartet is clearly in evidence in their music. Their father founded a barbershop quartet, the Four Kings of Harmony, and the Mills Brothers produced at least three records in which they sang a capella and performed traditional barbershop material.
 
Barbershop-style harmonies remain in evidence in the a capella music of the black church. This style of harmony is also the main feature of barbershop singing which has spread to organisations, choruses and quartets worldwide.
 
References:

1 • Abbott, Lynn. Play That Barber Shop Chord: A Case for the African American Origin of Barbershop Harmony. American Music 10 (1992) 289-325.

2 • Henry, James Earl. The Origins of Barbershop Harmony: A Study of Barbershop's Links to Other African American Musics as Evidenced through Recordings and Arrangements of Early Black and White Quartets. Ph.D diss., Washington University, 2000

3 • Henry, James Earl (Jim) 'The Historical Roots of Barbershop Harmony', The Harmonizer magazine, June/July 2001 - read the original article HERE - based on the PhD of Jim Henry.

Links:

A-Capella Foundation - has a further article on Barbershop History.