WESTMINSTER : Reviving Artistry of Barbershop Quartet

Retired optician Steve Hobbs says he has found the secret to keeping young--barbershop quartet singing.

“It has gotten into my blood,” said Hobbs, 67, a member of the Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barbershop Quartet Singing of America.

He said songs such as “Wild Irish Rose” and “Sweet Adeline” conjure up memories of more simple times when families spent evenings before a piano and sang together.

“Radio and television have killed all that,” Hobbs said. “Back then, people were performers; now they’re just watchers.”

Barbershop quartet singing is an art form that Hobbs and about 200 other men in the county are hoping to revive. It was popular in the 1920s and ‘30s, Hobbs said, when men would go the barbershop, gossip and sing together.

“They took simple, popular songs, blended their voices by trial and error, and that’s how barbershop quartet singing was born,” said Bill Wiley, 69, a retired aerospace engineer who got “hooked” on singing four years ago.

With 64-year-old Paul Jockinsen and 67-year-old Bob Smith, Hobbs and Wiley formed the “Vintage Four,” a Westminster-based barbershop quartet.

Dressed in distinctive white pants, white shirt with red stripes, a red bow tie and a hat, they perform in hospitals, churches, schools and senior citizen centers.

Hobbs, the lead singer of the group, said that barbershop quartet singing may be slowly making a comeback as more people, including teen-agers, are discovering the art form and learning to like it.

“There is a big drive to expand our membership among college and high school students,” said Hobbs, who also is the incoming president of the Westminster Harmony Showcase, a men’s chorus group.

As part of the effort to revive barbershop quartet singing, Hobbs said that the Westminster chapter will hold a competition in January at the Westminster Cultural Center in which some of the best barbershop quartets in Southern California will participate.

Last month, the City Council approved a request by Hobbs and his group for free use of the cultural center for the one-day competition.

“The biggest thing is performing in front of people,” said Hobbs. Last year, his group performed more than 20 times in hospitals, churches, fairs and schools.

He said the group may be paid from $25 to $50 for each performance but most often “we’re just fed.”

Group members say that doesn’t bother them because the idea is simply to have fun. They said that by singing together, they have developed a friendship that will continue for the rest of their lives.