Every generation is inclined to reject the artistic taste of their elders as dull or old fashioned. And the elders reject the latest version of music, visual art, dance, or drama as crude or grotesque. 

This disagreement is probably most true of music. Many movies, plays, and novels endure because their stories are universal. But music seems to be of its time. Couples danced to big band jazz in the 1930s and 40s but were likely to recoil from the rock and roll music and dances of the 50s and 60s regarding the evolution as an abomination. Often rock was thought to be too loud, but anyone who’s stood close to a big band in full cry knows it could produce enough decibels to knock you backwards.

I’m now old enough to have entered the cohort of fuddy-duddies who find many of the big acts of the present inferior to the sounds of my era, often because the artists seem to be chanting , mumbling or droning rather than singing.

It has lately occurred to me that what largely seems to have been lost is close harmony, a sort of singing that prevailed for much of the twentieth century. Of course, choral music written for many voices has a long history from Gregorian chants to Bach oratorios and  from the church to the four part harmonies of barbershop quartets. Something about the overlapping of voices is thrilling.

In the big band era singers like Bing, Frank, Ella, Billie, Peggy, and Tony emerged as stars but several of them began as a part of harmony singing trios or quartets like The Rhythm Boys (Crosby), and the Pied Pipers (Jo Stafford).

In the 50’s jazz bands faded away but groups that sang in harmony remained. Some were girl groups, others male, and many sang together but backed up a lead singer adding depth to the sound. Occasionally a duo was enough if the voices synchronized perfectly, as in the case of the Everly Brothers and later Simon and Garfunkel. 

Motown made a fortune with harmony singing by the Supremes, Martha and the Vandellas, the Ronettes, the Shirells, the Four Tops, The Temptations, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles and many more. Folk groups were popular harmonizers for a time — the Weavers, the Kingston Trio, the Chad Mitchell Trio, the Brothers Four —until superseded by more contemporary voices.

By the time the 60’s arrived, harmony singing was an inescapable part of pop music success because along came the Four Seasons, The Beatles, Beach Boys, Bee Gees, The Byrds, Crosby, Stills, and Nash, The Band, but also increasingly the pleasant combination of both male and female voices as in The Mamas and the Papas, Peter, Paul, and Mary, Fleetwood Mac, and ABBA.

Alas, all this memorable harmonizing began to vanish with the arrival of rap and hiphop, not to mention powerhouse solo acts accompanied by musicians but devoid of backup singers. It’s a loss, but may not be permanent. Since humans have been harmonizing for eons it is hard to believe that there won’t be rebirth one fine day. Which, by the way, is a pretty good example of harmonizing from 1963 by the Chiffons.