Table of Contents

Preface: "I Don't Know Why (I Love You Like I Do)"

Introduction: Past Perfect

Chapter 1: "A Little Close Harmony": A medley of nineteenth-century harmony

Chapter 2: The "golden era": Quartets, show business, & the music industry

Chapter 3: The lost chords: The early barbershop revival

Chapter 4: On Main Street, U. S. A.

Chapter 5 Romancing the Tone: Song, sound & significance in barbershop harmony

Conclusion Afterglow

Appendix: Glossary

Bibliography

About the Author

Gage Averill is Professor of Ethnomusicology at the University of Toronto and Vice-Principal Academic and Dean of the University of Toronto Mississauga. He serves as President of the Society of Ethnomusicology (2009-11).

Reviews

"Averill generally manages to strike the necessary balance among the needs of disparate audiences: scholars, college students, and barbershop singers themselves. In Four Parts, No Waiting Gage Averill has given us an elegantly written volume that should be read by anyone interested in the history of American popular music." --Ethnomusicology
"Averill generally manages to strike the necessary balance among the needs of disparate audiences: scholars, college students, and barbershop singers themselves. In Four Parts, No Waiting Gage Averill has given us an elegantly written volume that should be read by anyone interested in the history of American popular music." --Ethnomusicology
"Succeeds both as a historical account and as a survey of barbershop as an institution in the United States today. In his discussion of race, of values, of relations between generations, Averill finds ways to put historical issues in useful contexts and relate them to modern concerns."--John Spitzer, Professor of Music, Peabody Conservatory at Johns Hopkins University
"The story Averill has to tell is an important one for every scholar and student of American music, and it has never been told so well and in such detail before....It should be on the reading list of every course in American music."--Charles Hamm, Professor Emeritus of Music, Dartmouth University
"A superbly written piece of scholarship that promises to be an important contribution to our understanding of American vernacular music."--Ray Allen, Institute for Studies in American Music, Brooklyn College