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 Entertainment | March 2008 
A Capella Fellas
 Dan Taylor - The Press Democrat
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| | The Edlos are part of a Bay Area tradition of vocal groups who don't need a band behind them to sound good. | | |
When the Edlos go on a concert tour, they don't need five vans full of gear. They'll roll in to Rohnert Park for their Saturday show packing just a few wigs and hats, and once their sound man plugs in the microphones, they'll be ready to go.
That's one advantage of working in an a cappella quartet. No instruments to schlep around.
A cappella - a two-word Italian phrase for "in the style of the chapel" - has come to mean "without accompaniment." Fans of the genre contend the unaccompanied human voice can accomplish almost anything.
"We sing the lyrics straight, but if there is a guitar solo or a trumpet solo or an instrumental part, we actually do the sounds with our voices," said Edlos tenor Craig Knudsen of Berkeley. "Some groups rely heavily on electronic effects, but we shy away from using a lot of bells and whistles."
A cappella has evolved from church music to pop subcult. The all-vocal sound is particularly strong in the greater Bay Area, where homegrown groups play to packed clubs and concert houses.
"Any time you have close harmonies like these groups - the Edlos, the House Jacks and the Kinsey Sicks - that has very deep roots," said Sonoma State University voice teacher Christopher Fritzsche, who sang with San Francisco's popular 12-voice Chanticleer ensemble from 1992 to 2003.
"Barbershop quartet harmony was the parlor music of the 20th century. Groups like the Bobs are taking that close vocal harmony to the next level," Fritzsche added.
Even with ever-present sound technology, from iPods to cell phones, offering practically everyone a nonstop soundtrack for daily life, the human voice still draws an audience.
"One reason that the voice appeals so much to so many people is that it's an instrument that everybody has," Fritzsche said. "There's a commonality there that runs deep. Whatever style of music your ear enjoys, if voices are involved, it has a special appeal."
The Northern California audience for a cappella has grown along with the local vocal groups, attracting the top talents in the genre.
Manhattan Transfer, probably the most influential modern pop group singing a cappella, will perform in Marin County next month. Coming out of the New York club scene, the group has lent its innovative vocal arrangements to gospel, jazz, doo-wop and many other styles since the early '70s.
"One of the things that I loved about singing with an a cappella group was all the different styles that are available," Fritzsche said of his stint with Chanticleer. "It's hard to think of a style that isn't somehow adaptable to voice."
Each of the Bay Area groups has its own image. The House Jacks quintet, playing the Friday at the Freight & Salvage coffee house in Berkeley, bills itself as "the original rock band without instruments."
The Bobs - a quartet in which every member, man or woman, has the middle name of Bob - are touring Washington state this month, and return to California next month for shows in Santa Cruz and Sacramento.
"In the Bay Area, for the style and sensibility that a lot of the groups have, the Bobs were really the first," the Edlos' Knudsen said.
The Kinsey Sicks, self-dubbed a "dragapella beauty shop quartet," just finished a two-week gig in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. Their next Bay Area show is July 11 at San Francisco's Herbst Theatre.
While less outrageous than the Kinsey Sicks, the Edlos still have crafted their own legend. In its early days, the quartet contended that it came from the planet A, which circles the star Cappella. The name reportedly was an acronym for "Excessive Decibel Levels from Outer Space."
But Knudsen tells a different story: The original foursome showed up without a group name at a vocal competition in 1988 in Santa Cruz. At the last moment, they took the name Edlos from their founding bass singer, Ed Cohn, dubbed "Ed Low" in high school because of his voice.
The Edlos also have a nickname - "The Bad Boys of A Cappella." Knudsen attributes that to original tenor Bill Davis appearing in concert in black-leather biker garb. The past two decades have mellowed the quartet only slightly. The four vocalists still clown and banter between songs, but they take their singing seriously.
"We're all classically trained in opera," Knudsen said. "That's really what our background is."
Several of the Edlos, including Knudsen, worked with Donald Pippins' Pocket Opera, and Knudsen has sung with most Bay Area opera companies.
Knudsen joined the quartet in 1993. The current lineup also includes bass Avi Jacobson, also living in Berkeley; tenor Eric Morris, Castro Valley, and baritone Larry Venza, who settled in Windsor a few months ago.
The group began its career by singing satirical versions of the '60s pop hits "Hurdy Gurdy Man" and "The Lion Sleeps Tonight." The Edlos later toured with a country show, which led to an appearance at Nashville's Grand Ole Opry in the late 1990s.
In Rohnert Park, the Edlos will perform their "A Cappella Broadway" show, which they premiered last April. It opens with "Willkommen" from "Cabaret," and covers nearly 20 hit show tunes, including "The Age of Aquarius" from "Hair" and "Bring Him Home" from "Les Miserables."
The Edlos play about 40 dates a year, but Saturday's show marks their first appearance at Spreckels Performing Arts Center in Rohnert Park. If you miss this show, you won't have to travel far for another chance. The group comes north again Aug. 12 to perform at the Cinnabar Theater in Petaluma.
Even though Knudsen runs his own production company, representing not only singers but Celtic bands and a mandolin ensemble as well, his love of singing keeps him working with the Edlos.
"For me the appeal is the simplicity and purity of working with just voices. In a way, it's a throwback to a time when electronics didn't exist," Knudsen said. "Voice was really the very first instrument."
News researcher Teresa Meikle contributed to this story. You can reach Staff Writer Dan Taylor at dan.taylor(at)pressdemocrat.com. |
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