I’d heard of it before, through TV and movies. For example, an old episode of the Simpsons we watched the other day had Grandpa commenting about the only people around him at that moment were half dead or the glee club trying to pretend they didn’t hate being there.
So I knew it was something to do with singing, but thought that they also did other things, like putting up bunting and stuff. Maybe I’d seen glee club members do that in movies because they were decorating a room for their own performance.
I went to high school in the early 90s on the southwest side of Chicago, and I could swear we had a glee club. I’ll have to dig up the yearbooks and see. At any rate, I was well aware of the term.
ETA: Until this thread, though, I haven’t heard of “show choirs.”
We had a Glee Club at my high school (suburban Green Bay, WI, early 1980s). It was an official school choir, and “show choir” is probably a good description of it. It was probably the best 8-10 singers in my (all-boy) school, plus the same number of very good female singers from our sister school. You definitely had to try out, and it was pretty exclusive. They performed at school functions, as well as at a lot of functions away from campus.
We also had a “regular” choir, which was, IIRC, something that anyone who was interested was allowed to join.
I’ve always been a reader and I thought of glee clubs as something so fifties. I was in band and orchestra(in the eighties) and had never heard of something called show choir.
The Glee Club at my high school gave about two shows per year at which they sang about two numbers each, and the numbers were usually lame- some pop-sounding song you never heard of or The Sound of Music. They also sang in unison- I don’t recall any solos- and most of the members were drafted. It was certainly no big deal.
New Directions (the club from Glee) would have been a big deal because their music is often hip and the voices and dance moves are good. I don’t remember the glee club at my schools having any choreography that was beyond hand clapping.
It was Deacon Jones, Joe Namath was in an episode in the last season where Bobby was bragging (lying) to his friends who were talkinga about famous people they knew.
Interestingly enough, in this episode from the second season it is established that Bobby can’t sing. He didn’t make the glee club. But later on Bobby seems to have no trouble singing, as heard with his solo in “It’s A Sunshine Day.” Ironically in real life it was Peter - Christopher Knight - who couldn’t sing.
My junior high school had a Glee Club … but it had nothing to do with show choirs or anything like what’s shown on the TV show Glee. Essentially … it was the Pep Squad (if that means anything to anyone).
I was, in particular, stunned to find out that a local car dealership donated a substantial sum (north of $1k) to buy costumes for the school’s show choir. For costumes. For one year. For a single grade.
Frankly it seems a waste of money to me. I definitely appreciate an arts education but it just seems… much. But I guess that’s pretty hypocritical coming from a former theatre geek.
All of the Middle and High Schools in my hometown had Show Choirs and most of my friends from Theatre who sang were in one.
The Wiki sitehas some good information on them. It does seem to be a recent (post-60’s), Midwestern thing.
i have only heard of “Glee Clubs” in referance to nostolgia. I think the major differance is that Clubs were extracuricular while Show Choirs are school supported and generally an extention of the regular Choir.
After reading this thread, I see that our school had glee clubs of sorts, but they were given different names, like Barbershop quartet, and Women’s Select.
Our high school in the suburbs of Columbus, Ohio had a show choir, a concert choir (anyone could be in it) and a symphonic choir (audition only). Both show and symphonic choir went to regional and state competitions. I’m pretty sure concert choir just did school concerts. The show choir had elaborate costumes and did dancing along with the songs. The other two choirs just stood there on risers.
I belonged to something like a show choir, but with more emphasis on dance than singing since it was through my dance studio. We didn’t compete at all, just performed at events and such. Membership was by invitation.
