Vocal Sampling is a Cuban a capella group - they’re fantastic. Last weekend, I used one of their songs at my youth group, to produce this.
No mention of The Persuasions yet? They’re the best do-wop accapella group ever. It’s hard to believe the only instrument on this album is the human voice.
I’ve always loved the BoCA (Best of College A’capella) albums from 2008 and 2009. A wide variety of the colleges, some fantastic renditions, and some very entrancing music. I never knew about the Beelzebubba’s until these albums.
Well for a fun one, try Rockapella’s Zombie Jamborie
Is this them?
This is one of the greatest threads ever!
While following one of the links, I saw this breathtaking Pater Noster.
There was a wonderful live performance by Zap Mama that sadly seems to have been taken down, so here’s Brrrlak.
Also, if you’ve not seen it, watch Spike Lee’s “Do It A Cappella”. Chock full of great performances, including the my favorite version of The Lion Sleeps Tonight.
They clearly had a piano accompanist. 
Frakking awesome!
Yeah, the whole “Spike Lee & Co. Do it A Capella” is terrific.
I’ll add The Lion Sleeps Tonight. Still looking for the SL&CoDiAC Ladysmith version of “N’kosi Sikeleli Africa”.
Dammit, beat me to it. The Mint Juleps leads have such sweet, sweet voices.
I don’t suppose anyone has links to more great African a capella?
I weep with joy at the responses here. Very nicely done, Dopers. This thread is sooooo bookmarked.
Is there by any chance a Firefox plugin that would allow me to collect all the links in one convenient place?
I’ll add another one that was my first exposure to ancient a capella: Steeleye Span’s Gaudete. This was only 35 or so years ago - is the female’s name Maddy Prior? Regardless, I love her voice.
Not to be picky, but you’ve mispelled The Nutmegs. But I do like this The Persuasions you accidentally typed.
The thread title specifies the Choir sound, but since I’m not the first to stray from that theme, I’d like to make the point that although I am a big fan of A Capella of many genres, I think that too many singers tend to ruin Doo-Wop. With the advent of YouTube, I have subjected myself to many examples. Let me give you just one:
Trickle, Trickle by the Videos
Now, observe that this frat boy quartet does a respectable job with their rendering. The fact is that a lot of the premium doo-wop from back in the day was performed by the ancient equivalent of our backward baseball capped frat boys – the Excellents, The Four Jays, The Mystics, ect. The list goes on and on.
But note how the song gets diluted the more voices you get involved:
Nine
Twenty?
Maybe it’s not the numbers, but the kinds of things a choir director has to do to arrange for a song to be sung by scads of people, but should they really be left to abuse otherwise rocking songs?
One technique they seem to use is to seek opportunities to let individual vocalists dominate:
Java Jive - The Tollerable Version
And that seems to break up the damage the big choir style does to songs written for small-group harmony. As much as groups like Rockapella often do to make songs never meant for A Capella into excellent examples of the genre, there are countless high school and college choirs determined to turn the highlights of group harmony into crap people are glad they never have to hear again once they graduate.
And yet, strangely, I find that high school and college groups are not fucking up Duke of Earl nearly so badly, possibly because it’s almost unavoidable to make the song about the performance of individual singers with a backup:
The Asians are Beating us at Doo-Wop
I also suspect that Duke of Earl gets a young man’s full attention, because it’s a song one can invest one’s ego in.
But even taking into account my R&B/Doo-Wop bias on the subject of vocal harmony, I think America is just losing out. Yes, we have a lot of old guys, some of whom were actually involved in the street corner scene back in the day, buttoning on their white sport coats and exercising their considerably less flexible voices, but generally what have we really got as the future of vocal harmony in America? A bunch of kids pushed into doing crappy versions of songs they don’t see as relevant to them by their choir directors?
What have we really got for fresh blood? Just the Alley Cats, right? Kid Kyle. whose testicles have only recently descended? Europe is whipping the pants off of us.
In Spain they’ve got The Velvet Candles / Street Candles / Earth Angels (whatever they’re calling themselves now), The Sparkles, and Del Prince.
Germany has The Crystalairs.
Hell, Italy is kicking our asses with just one group, the Acapella Swingers:
Book of Love
Come Go with Me
One Summer Night
Who Put the Bomp
You Baby You / The Wanderer
My Juanita
… And these people I’m pretty sure don’t even speak English. Here’s one big clue: Their album is titled “Let’s on Doo-wop.” Huh? Their rendition of Lee Andrews’ Teardrops has the line “Oh, if we could only stars over again.” The album, by the way, is not available in America. I found a Norwegian distributor who only charged me $32 to get it to me. But their rendition of Hushabye My Love is precious, and not available on YouTube.
My chorus did this a number of years ago, except the entire chorus had signs, which each person made in any style they wanted. Some of them lit up. Of course it got a standing O.
That is extremely funny!
I’ve come to the conclusion that while tenors get all the headlines, it’s the basses who are truly essential, and more rare and precious than diamonds, especially in a capella. One Bowzer is worth a dozen Paverottis in my book.
Awesome! How did they get Hugh Laurie to beatbox for them?
I love that video so much.
These are so cool!
Oslo, wanna try something a little harder?
Is it OK to submit a high school choir as an entry?