The Bobs

This article is about the a cappella singing group. For other uses, see The Bobs (disambiguation).
The Bobs
Origin San Francisco, California, United States
Genres New wave, a cappella
Years active 1980–present
Website
Members Richard Greene
Matthew Stull
Dan Schumacher
Angie Doctor
Past members Gunnar Madsen
Janie Scott
Joe Finetti
Lori Rivera
Maureen Smith
Amy Engelhardt

The Bobs are an a cappella vocal group founded in San Francisco, California in the early 1980s. Now based in Seattle, Washington, they have been recording, and touring throughout North America and Europe ever since.

Background

Founding members Gunnar Madsen and Matthew Stull decided to form an a cappella group when they left their jobs as deliverers of singing telegrams in San Francisco.[1] Instead of covering more traditional doo-wop songs, The Bobs started out with original arrangements of their own songs and songs like "Helter Skelter" and "Psycho Killer" . Although two of their albums are dominated by cover versions, the overwhelming majority of their repertoire is original, with songs discussing diverse subjects like lunar cattle farming, sleepy bus drivers, bumper stickers, laundry, hurricane-related flooding, graffiti, Oliver North, shopping-mall security guards, celebrity autographs, synaesthesia, post office violence, heart transplants, Heaven's Gate, spontaneous human combustion, turtles, rebellious footwear, tattoos, nicknames for genitalia, and felines intent on ruling the world.

Their arrangement of "Helter Skelter" was nominated for a Grammy Award in 1984.[2]

The Bobs have broken with a cappella tradition several times by including instruments. The majority of the 1995 album Plugged is backed by toy drums. Plugged also made heavy use of studio equipment to make the voices sound more like guitars and bass guitars. Coaster includes a rock rhythm section on one song. Rhapsody in Bob features their arrangement of Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" with pianist Bob Malone playing most of the original piano concerto as The Bobs become a vocal orchestra. But this original "band without instruments" usually uses just their mouths, hands, feet and "other body parts".

Members of the group are always credited with "Bob" as their middle name. The name is often described as an acronym for "Best of Breed", an award given out at dog shows. Another story that the Bobs give is the name was shortened from "The Oral Bobs" in the first months the group performed together.

The Bobs supplied inter-gender wrestling champion Andy Kaufman with his iconic entrance theme, entitled March & Fanfare. The song was played at the beginning of the Kaufman's biopic, Man on the Moon.

Several anniversary concerts were held in Berkeley, California in January 2006 to celebrate the 25th Anniversary of the Bobs. These concerts featured seven of the eight singers who have ever been in the band.

A documentary about the group, called Sign My Snarling Movie: 25 Years of The Bobs was released in summer 2007.

Other appearances

The Bobs performed Psycho Killer on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour in 1988.

In the Jason Alexander movie For Better or Worse, the Bobs performed most of the soundtrack, including the background music that occasionally interacted with the story. During the 1995 Emmys they performed a medley of television themes with Alexander.

In 1996, the Bobs provided several original songs for the soundtrack to the children's video game Castle Infinity.

Discography

Compilations

Videography

References

  1. ↑ The Bobs at "Primarily A Cappella" singers.com. Accessed 2010 January 14.
  2. ↑ 1984 Grammy award nomination, Best Vocal Arrangement for Two or More Voices, Richard Greene, Gunnar Madsen - Helter Skelter (The Bobs) LA Times, "The Envelope" awards database, accessed 2010 Jan 13.
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