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Barbershop Quartet

On April 11, 1938, Harmony singing took a major step forward in Tulsa,

Oklahoma. A few days earlier O. C. Cash and Rupert Hall met up in the lobby of

the Muehlebach Hotel in Kansas City. They talked about the decline of the

Barbershop Quartet in America and vowed to popularize it again. They invited

two friends to sing with them at the Tulsa Club roof garden.

Cash, Hall and their two friends met at the Tulsa Club and twenty-two other

men joined them. The Barbershop Quartet club was formed and from that day on

April 11 has been remembered as

―

Barbershop Day

‖

.

By their third meeting 150 men attended. Their harmonious voices on the rooftop

echoed to the streets below where traffic jams formed. O. C. Cash was

interviewed by a curious reporter and O. C. made up a story about his

―

club

‖

being national. The reporter took him seriously and spread the story over the

news wire services. It wasn

‘

t long before Barbershop clubs were found

harmonizing from coast to coast.