The Power of Persuasions Is in Purity of Their Sound

Joseph Russell, one-fourth of America’s premier a cappella group the Persuasions, can’t remember which year it was--he’s still trying “to blot it out of my mind.” It wasn’t even a whole album, just one side, but it was enough stir things up pretty fierce.

The Persuasions sang with a band.

“I tell you, I rebelled like hell at it, but at that particular time I was outvoted,” says Russell, who will be joined by partners Jerry Lawson, Jimmy Hayes and Jayotis Washington in a concert Saturday at Orange Coast College’s Fine Arts Recital Hall.

“The record company wanted to try it, but I did not think we should,” Russell, 52, continued during a phone interview this week from a tour stop in Albuquerque. “We had resisted all those years before, then all of a sudden there comes this pressure to do so, and so we did it.

“I noticed that we lost a lot of fans. I have been called traitor many times--’Hey man, why did you guys give in? We really didn’t expect the Persuasions to yield to pressure.’ ”

That kind of reaction is an indicator of the passions in the world of a cappella, where purity is an essential element. And except for that one slip, the Persuasions have been as pure as they come. For nearly 30 years the Brooklyn-based ensemble has channeled a variety of American musical styles through its vocal blend, maintaining a substantial following without any radio play or hit records. It has helped keep alive a tradition that in recent years has undergone some thing of growth spurt, with the emergence of such groups as Take 6, the Bobs and South Africa’s Ladysmith Black Mambazo.

“I know as far as America is concerned we’ve definitely been responsible,” Russell noted. “But when we worked with Ladysmith Black Mambazo, I knew exactly where we got it from.”

The Persuasions are currently without a record deal, but they have an album in the can and plan either to strike a deal or to start their own label. Meantime, a variety of their earlier albums has been recently released on labels such as Rounder, Flying Fish and Rhino. They appeared with some of their colleagues, including Ladysmith, Take 6 and England’s Mint Juleps, in a 1990 PBS “Great Performances” installment hosted by Spike Lee, and they’re the subject of an in-progress documentary film entitled “No Frills.” Producer-director Fred Parnes is just finishing up a year’s shooting on the 90-minute project and is hoping for theatrical release, but he also thinks it may end up as a cable special.

For the Persuasions, the challenge is to keep a traditional style fresh. The obstacle isn’t lack of inspiration, says Russell, but audiences’ nostalgic inclinations.

‘We try to be innovative, we try to create stuff, we try to do all this stuff, but a lot of people say, ‘I want to hear the old records.’ They want to hear songs from ‘We Came to Play,’ they want to hear ‘Buffalo Soldier,’ songs from our earlier albums. And we catch hell if we don’t do them.”

Still, they give it a spin.

“We try to do some country-Western stuff, some barbershop quartet style, and of course we do some spiritual stuff. We try to be on top of it. Maybe a little rap every now and then.”

Rap?

“I know it all connects somewhere,” Russell said. “A lot of these kids don’t have any formal training as far as music is concerned, and it’s sort of a way out of the ghetto for them. So you go with it. . . . They definitely are expressing themselves. . . . My kids rebel at me sometimes--’Hey man, you still singing that old stuff?’ ”

Indeed he is, and he’s not worried that the technology that’s invaded pop will make it obsolete.

“I’ve never had that fear. There are some people that say, ‘Hey man, you’re gonna get snuffed out’ or whatever. But they told us that when we first started, and that was 30-some years ago . . . . I don’t think it’s gonna harm us at all. In fact I think it’s enhancing the natural resources. And that’s what the Persuasions are, we’re projecting our natural resources.

“A lot of people don’t want to hear this modern technology. A lot of the guys that work with IBM and all that, creating all this modern technology and stuff, hey, these guys, they come to the show just to sing with the Persuasions.”

The Persuasions sing Saturday at 7 and 9:30 p.m. in the Fine Arts Recital Hall at Orange Coast College, 2701 Fairview Road, Costa Mesa. $10.50 to $13. (714) 432-5880.