Tuesday, March 8, 2011
CAN YOU NAME THIS CHOIR FROM THE 60s?
SOME SLEEVES SPEAK:
To keep the mystery intact, an edited version of the sleeve-liner from the back-cover of 'ami' Records (without serial number) tells you about this group. Each blank ( _ ) represents a word. Try it:
"The first thing that strikes most people about _ _ is our name. It merely means that instead of walking up the middle _ of the _ _ _ , we stick to the side _!
We have grown tired of sitting down and arguing with people about faith and _ . So instead of yelling pointlessly for hours on end, getting bad tempers, sore throats and headaches, we sing. We have found that music is a language everyone understands, and so we use music as our medium of _ .
Started in 1965 by the _ _ _, the group originally consisted of girls from St. Margaret's Secondary School. We later expanded to include men and girls from the various denominational _ and are now based at _ _ _ .
The _ _ have appeared over TV Singapura and Malaysia and made broadcasts over Radio Singapura and Rediffusion, besides singing in _ and concerts halls.
This album is a live recording of one of our performances. Two of the numbers, 'Dem Bones' and 'Go Tell It On The Mountain', are spirituals which have been rearranged by the group, and the Christmas calypso 'On A Day' is an original tune based on words by Dr. D. T. Niles. 'Morning Town Ride' is one of the many folk-songs sung by us, while The Great Spirit, composed by the Colwell Brothers, is one of severa MRA songs often sung by the group (anonymous)."
To keep the mystery intact, an edited version of the sleeve-liner from the back-cover of 'ami' Records (without serial number) tells you about this group. Each blank ( _ ) represents a word. Try it:
"The first thing that strikes most people about _ _ is our name. It merely means that instead of walking up the middle _ of the _ _ _ , we stick to the side _!
We have often been confronted with an embarassing, 'Well, what are The _? I mean, well... what are you?' The answer comes in two words: We sing. We sing of what _ means to us, we sing of Singapore, we sing of love, hope, faith an of running and catching the wind.
We have grown tired of sitting down and arguing with people about faith and _ . So instead of yelling pointlessly for hours on end, getting bad tempers, sore throats and headaches, we sing. We have found that music is a language everyone understands, and so we use music as our medium of _ .
Started in 1965 by the _ _ _, the group originally consisted of girls from St. Margaret's Secondary School. We later expanded to include men and girls from the various denominational _ and are now based at _ _ _ .
The _ _ have appeared over TV Singapura and Malaysia and made broadcasts over Radio Singapura and Rediffusion, besides singing in _ and concerts halls.
This album is a live recording of one of our performances. Two of the numbers, 'Dem Bones' and 'Go Tell It On The Mountain', are spirituals which have been rearranged by the group, and the Christmas calypso 'On A Day' is an original tune based on words by Dr. D. T. Niles. 'Morning Town Ride' is one of the many folk-songs sung by us, while The Great Spirit, composed by the Colwell Brothers, is one of severa MRA songs often sung by the group (anonymous)."
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The clues are all there. So one last clue. Five of the girls would have formed a pop girl group and cut records with Philips (Universal Music Singapore) in 1967. Can you name the above group and their place of practice?
Image/article: ami Records/back sleeve cover.
Image/article: ami Records/back sleeve cover.
Image of St. Andrew's Cathedral from: http://www.victorianweb.org/
The image on the right, taken from a souvenir magazine, shows The Vampires. From the vinyls recorded and publicity given, the girls were very popular and had appeared in a number of variety shows and private functions. 
