Our Story (page 3)
Jack's brother, Bill, came up with the name we used until 2008. During a phone conversation about the naming process, Bill said, "You oughta call yourselves the Viagras!" Well, we adopted it originally as a satirical name for our 40-year reunion group only. But the name stuck --- for six years.
Over the next few weeks, the answers came. An "audition" session was scheduled at Glenn's in January of 02. The result? Although none of us had sung much for decades, but there was promise. Nita, Glenn's wife, a music teacher in a Dallas area school district and a musician herself, shared later, "When you guys first came up with the idea, I had my doubts, since I had never heard you sing together. Then, when I heard you at that first session, I thought to myself, 'I really think they can pull this off.' "
It was agreed the idea had merit and could actually be do-able. Details over the initial song list, style, participants, practices and approach had to be resolved, not the least of which concerned Mike, who then lived in Sedona, Arizona and had not been seen by any of us since the class reunion of 1982 -- 20 years earlier! But not to worry. When Mike was contacted, he shared our enthusiasm and joined us long distance. Bob, another former Embers member, was unable to participate.
This fake album cover was originally produced for display on our 40-year reunion web site (www.wwhsdallas.com) using our 1962 high school annual photos and an image from an old doo-wop album cover
From the outset, our focus was doo-wop vocal harmony in the original doo-wop style and the songs would be transcribed, arranged and performed as closely to the originals as possible. Another unique charasteristic is that all members of the group share lead vocals on the songs. This flexibility adds to the variety, the presentation and our personal interests.
Glenn spent countless hours transcribing all the original 8 tunes for the 2002 reunion by listing to the originals with headphones, and using Sibelius notation software to create scores for all vocal and instrument parts. He recorded practice backgrounds for all members so we could use driving time to work on our parts and timing, a critical component of good Doo-Wop. The patience, time and talent of Glenn and Nita have been the catalytic converters of our rebuilt doo-wop engine and the rest of us are grateful for their invaluable investment in our development.
2002 was a dual reunion year. We had not sung together for over 40 years, and here we were reliving our dream in front of classmates who had not heard since those memorable school talent shows and assembly days at Woodrow. The performance was a surprise to most who thought they would hear some old classmates in a novelty group attempt to sing some songs.Two years and over 20 tunes later, the band continues to doo-wop for a variety of organizations and venues. We all have other lives and enjoy the flexibility of being able to choose performance opportunities, subject to individual personal and business schedules.
And why the name change? We learned that certain venues would not allow our name to be published and emails to our fans began to be marked as junk mail. But perhaps most importantly, the name seemed to suggest to those who had never heard us perform that The Fabulous Viagras was a novelty band without serious musical presentation. We have worked very hard to accurately cover the originals we all knew and loved and to give credit to the original artists, most of whom are "one-hit-wonders". We hope you enjoy listening as much as we enjoy recreating the songs that bring back the memories we cherish.
