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Students to take music back [UPDATED]
Published 10:56am Wednesday, March 14, 2012 Updated 10:56am Wednesday, March 14, 2012“Spanning the Decades” is the theme for Underwood High School students who will take music lovers back to the 1960s, 70s and 80s on Saturday, March 31, at the Bigwood Event Center. Tickets are on sale at the Underwood School Office for the event that, in addition to the musical performance, also will include dining and a silent auction.
“We’re really having a lot of fun singing songs like ‘Calendar Girl’ from the 1960s and words from the ‘Grease Medley’ in the late 1970s,” said sophomore Nicole Teberg who, along with fellow sophomore Spencer Johnson, will be part of a duet.
On Monday the band played music from the Mamas and the Papas of the 1960s, namely “California Dreamin.”
Band director Chuck Speer said the students are working hard while they prepare for the big event later this month. Those sentiments are echoed by choir director Dana Flint.
The Mamas and the Papas were a Canadian/American vocal group of the 1960s. The group recorded and performed from 1965 to 1968 with a short reunion in 1971, releasing five albums and 11 Top 40 hit singles.
The group sold nearly 40 million records worldwide. Their signature sound, duplicated by the Underwood students, was based on four-part male/female vocal harmonies arranged by John Phillips, the band’s songwriter.
“Calendar Girl” is a song written by Neil Sedaka and Howard Greenfield and was a hit single for Sedaka. It was released in 1960 and reached number four on the US Billboard chart in 1961. It became one of the better-known Sedaka songs alongside “Happy Birthday, Sweet Sixteen,” “Oh! Carol” and “Breaking Up Is Hard to Do.”
Sedaka played piano and danced with women on a mock stage made to resemble calendar themes. The Underwood students enjoy the Sedaka music, and other singers from that era.
Grease became the biggest box-office hit of 1978. The soundtrack album spent 12 weeks at number one and yielded three top five singles.
The Underwood musicians are thrilled, on March 31, to take people back to the musical 1960s, 1970s and 1980s.
