Barbershop

1986 Four Tones Barbershop (12)
4 Tones in the BBC Beijing flat at San Li Tun

Just for fun, I’m posting on this page pictures and recordings of one of the greatest Barbershop quartets ever to perform in China in the 1980s – probably because we were about the only one.

1986 Four Tones Barbershop (7)

The Four Tones (of course, being the high, rising, falling-rising and falling tones of Mandarin Chinese) were made up of:

  1. Lead baritone Jasper Becker of the British Council (2nd from left above);
  2. Rich Bass Darryl Johnson, in his spare time charge d’affaires at the American embassy (2nd from right);
  3. American businessman Bill Zaritt (left) as the wonderful top tenor;
  4. And myself on the right as somewhere between baritone and bass.

Click below the pictures for links to a selection of our best recordings, from our 1986 Christmas show at the Great Wall Hotel.

1986 Four Tones Barbershop (34)
French-bashing cliches in the British Embassy pantomime 1986.
1986 Four Tones Barbershop (14)
Great Wall Hotel, Beijing, summer 1986

My Evaline

My Blue Heaven

Margie

Love Letters in the Sand

K-K-K-Katy

Good Night My Love – from the Music Man

Aura Lee

I Can’t Give You Anything But Love

Good Night My Love – from the Music Man

Yessir That’s my Baby

Tootsie

The End of a Long Day

The Animals are Coming

That’s Why We Love the French

I Want to Synchronise

Saloon

Ramona

Plenty of Nothing

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