tidelanders HISTORY
Tidelanders Origin Story
Introduction
The Houston Chapter of the Barbershop Harmony Society and its performing chorus, the Tidelanders, has a rich and proud history which began in 1946. We trace our ancestry back to April 1938. A time when many people were truly nostalgic for the time when four-part harmony was recognized as a natural part of contemporary popular music. The Society was started after Owen Clifton (O.C.) invited 14 of his associates that he knew sang to a get-together on the rooftop of the historic Tulsa Club building in Tulsa, Oklahoma. While 14 were invited, 26 showed up. They exuberantly sang through the entire night together as well as in quartets.
In response to that nostalgia, the Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barber Shop Quartet Singing in America, SPEBSQSA, was founded. The acronym, SPEBSQSA, was selected because the founders chose not to be outdone by the lengthy acronyms of the many governmental programs started in the 1930’s. The Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barber Shop Quartet Singing in America, SPEBSQSA, remains the legal name of the Society. Although we now do business as the Barbershop Harmony Society, BHS. The official legal name of the organization is still SPEBSQSA.
SPEBSQSA
O.C. was particularly interested in preserving the history and nostalgia of barbershop music. O.C. was a tax lawyer that sought to save the art from the existential threat of radio. After getting support from Rupert I. Hall, an investment banker, they founded the Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barber Shop Quartet Singing in America in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The acronym, SPEBSQSA, was selected because the founders chose not to be outdone by the lengthy acronyms of the many governmental programs started in the 1930’s.
BHS
The Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barber Shop Quartet Singing in America, SPEBSQSA, remains the legal name of the Society. In 2004, the Society adopted Barbershop Harmony Society or BHS as its official moniker.
Tidelanders Founding
W. H. Anderson moved from Tulsa to Houston in 1946 after a job transfer. He quickly realized that Houston didn’t have a barbershop chapter or group. So he and O.C. Cash decided to try and start one. Subsequently, over 150 men attended the first SPEBSQSA familiarization meeting in the Sam Houston Room of Houston’s Rice Hotel, in October, 1946. By October 21, 1946, 127 men had joined the Houston Chapter of SPEBSQSA, the Houston Tidelanders. The date of our official founding charter was November 11, 1946. By the end of the year, there were over 200 members. That’s the Tidelanders origin story and that proud group has flourished ever since!
W. H. Anderson’s Account of the First Night
To have some part in the creation of music, as well as to listen to it, is a stimulating experience. The rare pleasure that comes with the completion of a beautiful four-part harmony chord is a sensation comparable to no other experience. One must be a participant to understand this peculiar type of ecstasy. Singing in a good barbershop quartet, or chorus, will produce this spine-tingling thrill.
O. C. Cash, a genial gentleman of Tulsa, Oklahoma, recognized the need for a society ‘where men from all walks of life could meet in peaceable assembly for the enjoyment of the last remaining vestige of human liberty’ and organized the Society in 1938. ‘Having been a member of that organization from the early days of its inception, I became thoroughly interested in the movement.’
In March of 1946, the company for which I work chose to transfer me from Tulsa to Houston. It, naturally, was a big disappointment not to find a chapter of SPEBSQSA here. Anxious to bring to a now group of men the benefits of good fellowship and broader acquaintance, a movement was started to organize a chapter in Houston. During the exchange of correspondence with Carroll P. Adams, the International Secretary of SPEBSQSA, I learned that Walter R. Jenkins, official song leader for Rotary International at their conventions and Director of music for the First Methodist Church of Houston, might be influential in helping to start a chapter. It took three conferences with Mr. Jenkins to sell him on the idea and when he said: "I believe we can do it!"
Things started to happen fast. A preliminary meeting was held in his office the latter part of September, 1946. There were about 25 in attendance, and the idea went over so well that it was decided to call an organizational meeting on October 7, 1946. It was at this preliminary meeting that the RANGERS quartet (Kline, Deaton, Boggs, and yours truly) met for the first time and became the chapter’s first quartet.
Arrangements were made to hold the meeting in the Sam Houston Room of the Rice Hotel. Newspapers and radio stations helped publicize the idea with the result that some 150 to 200 men came to see what it was all about. The place was swarming with reporters and cameramen and, out of those assembled there, 92 men paid the $5.00 membership fee, that night. The enthusiasm was so great that it was decided to hold the charter membership open until October 21st, the time set for the next meeting. When the meeting of October 21st closed, we had 127 paid-up charter members. From there, we went on to more than 220 members by the end of our first year.
Thus it was, that the idea which has brought to so many, much genuine amusement, amazement, and enjoyment – as was fellowship with the grandest gang of guys in the world, reached maturity in an organized chapter for that wonderful, metropolitan city of the South, Houston, Texas.
