The Courier-News from Bridgewater, New Jersey • Page 15

TheGouner-Neujs C-1 Landers C-3 Movie timetable C-3 Family C-4 Monday, April 18, 1988 Just an old-fashioned love song about four-part harmony CJ Fifty years later, members still sing praises about barbershop quartets cret in the country," said John Becci of Bound Brook, president of the Plainfield-Somerset Hills chapter. Another problem is attracting younger men, many of whom are unfamiliar with any music but rock 'n' roll. "We're trying to recruit as many young men as possible, to maintain membership and ensure that when the older guys step down there will be fellows to step into their place," said chapter member Charles Cover of South Plainfield. The 40 members of the chapter range in age from 26 to 65, but the vast majority are closer to the high end of the range than the low end. The backbone of each chapter is its chorus, in which 30 to 100 men are divided into the four parts of lead, tenor, baritone and bass.

The choruses generally perform every month or so and also take part in a yearly competition. Competitions are held in each of the group's 16 North American districts twice a year for both the quartets and choruses, and an international champion is crowned once each year. The international competition this year will be held July 3-10 at San Antonio, Texas, when about 12,000 people will gather at the group's annual convention. Last year, the Hounds for Harmony, as the Somerset chapter's chorus is known, took first place among the choruses in New Jersey and Eastern Pennsylvania with less than 50 members. But for many barbershoppers, the quartet is king.

"The best part is three other guys, me, and a mug of beer," said Dave Johnston of Warren. A quartet in harmony "makes a sound like 10 guys singing together when you're hitting the right chords," said Gover. This propensity to form foursomes was evident during the Hound's weekly rehearsal recently at the Peoplecare Center in the Finderne section of the township. The members frequently broke into impromptu quartets before and after the chorus rehearsal. But in addition to providing a forum for its members to enjoy harmony, the chapters have another purpose raising money for charity.

Since 1964, they have contributed more than $6 million to the Institute of Logopedics in Wichita, which helps individuals with communication handicaps. The Somerset chapter also has performed benefits for convalescent homes, veterans' hospitals and The old songs, the old songs, the good old songs for I love to hear those minor chords and good close harmony. Barbershop quartet society theme song By MICHAEL BEAUCHAMP Courier-News Staff Writer In April, 1938, a simple notice appeared in a Tulsa, newspaper Wanted: men who love to sing. The men who placed the ad received such an overwhelming response that they formed the Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barbershop Quartet Singing in America. Since then, 50 years have passed and the society has grown to an international membership of more than 37,000.

Yet visit any of the 825 chapters around the country and you'll find that the love of singing is still the only requirement for membership. "You don't have to be an opera star to sing in a barbershop quartet, just be able to carry a tune," said Tom Donlay, the membership chairman of the society's Plainfield-Somer-set Hills chapter. "We have guys who sang in choirs and glee clubs, and guys who just sang in the shower." Barbershopping, as aficionados call it, is simply a style of singing in four-part harmony. Together with jazz and the spiritual, this music comprises our national music heritage. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries before television, radio and record-players it was a national craze.

"At that time, that was the entertainment to gather around the piano with the latest song of the day," said Rusty Williams, music director of the Hunterdon Harmonizers, the society's Hunterdon County chapter. With the advent of radio and recording, the pastime waned a bit in popularity, Williams said, "but people still remembered how much fun it was to sing." That set the stage for the formation of the society and the resurgence of the art form. Today there are more than 20 chapters throughout the state. In addition to the Somerset and Hunterdon chapters, there is a Rahway Valley chapter which meets in Westfield. The growth of the society, however, has tapered off during the past few years.

Members see the problem as one of publicity. "We think it's probably the best-kept se ijy I Courier-News photo by Ron Plummer Of Bill Sharer and Bill Britton both of Flemington, Dave Lockart of Frenchtown, and Bill Britton Jr Flemington, left to right, are members of the barbershop quartet, Three Bills and Change. local charities. Yet aside from this serious purpose, a flavor of fun and nostalgia pervades almost every aspect of babershop singing. Many groups perform in fanciful uniforms such as the Hounds' tangerine tuxedos.

"You'll see everything from the Raggedy Ann and Andy type of thing to comedy quartets to baseball uniforms whatever songs can be about," said Donlay. discuss no business, no politics and no religion." "It's a night out that most wives can't object to," said Gover. "It's all male and you're home early. "I enjoy the fellowship and the sound of four-part harmony," he said. "It's distinctive, refreshing and nostalgic, and it gives you goose bumps when you're doing it right.

And if you happen to like singing the old songs, it's even better." Equally colorful are the names of quartets and choruses, past and present, such as: Three Bills and Change, the Bartlesville Barflies, the Chorddusters, the East-side Kids, the Old Pals, and the Buffalo Bills. Many barbershoppers say in addition to harmony, they enjoy the fellowship that comes from singing together. Gordon Getz of Franklin Township attributed the camaraderie to the fact that "we She's leading the British comedy invasion Comedian Tracey Ullman's road to success has been a rocky one 11 ter taping her show, the star of "The Tracey Ullman Show" arrived at a trendy restaurant in her blue $34,000 Range Rover. Inside, Ullman is at a corner table in a red-and-black outfit by Jean Paul Gaultier, a bird's nest of hair piled atop her head. Her gift of mimicry is astounding.

She's a melting pot of voices, a sponge, observing and absorbing, sifting and refining, running through her Xerox brain the impressions of a lifetime. Confronting Ullman is like confronting Sybil's 17 personalities. She's part invention, and just which part is sometimes undetectable. There's her Cockney, for example. Not genuine.

She acquired it at age 18 "for career reasons," to set her apart from the suburban girls she grew up with. Ullman communicates in her own brand of tongues. "You could put her in a room with almost anyone alive, and she would be able to give you a representation of that person after a while," says Brooks. Given her early fascination for creating characters, Ullman must have seemed a curious child in the middle-class London suburb of Hackbridge where her family lived. Her Polish emigre father died when she was 6, leaving only her mother to co-star in her fantasies.

"My mum and I would put on plays See COMEDY on Page C-3 By HOWARD ROSENBERG Los Angeles Times HOLLYWOOD She blew in like a cyclone, driven by hope and hype. A noisy, electrifying, taut, frantic Cockney she was, a bundle of instincts, nerve endings, hairpin curves and surprises who was going to take American TV viewers on the thrilling ride of their lives. And? It's been a year since "The Tracey Ullman Show" began on Fox Broadcasting Co. as a Sunday night half-hour of innovative sketches and a little music and still, relatively few viewers have bothered to go along for the ride. A brief history: British TV comedy and recording star gets own show on new Fox network.

Always interesting, frequently entertaining, more than occasionally brilliant. Sings nicely, plays amazing range of characters. High acclaim, low ratings. At 28, rising star. Few movies include "Plenty." Several hit records.

A scream on talk shows. Remarkable mimic. Wife of successful British TV producer Allan McKeown, 41. Mother of 2-year-old Mabel. Have voices, will travel.

Some predict epic future. She can be the next decade's major star, her first TV producer, Paul Jackson, says in London. She's "the That's enough to stiffen Fox's upper lip. "Tracey is probably where most of us expected her to be in her first (full) season," says Jamie Kellner, Fox president and chief operating officer. "We believe as strongly as ever in Tracey as a real star.

We're too new to be discouraged by ratings." Chance-taking Fox may be the ideal venue and Brooks, executive producer of her series, the ideal mentor for a performer as unconventional as Ullman. Fox surely was mainly eyeing Brooks' glittering pedigree (his latest movie is the lauded blockbuster "Broadcast when it followed its original 26-episode commitment with an order for another 30 in October. Fox has also granted Ullman creative wide-open spaces compared with what she could expect elsewhere. She's been called a social satirist. "It sounds really intelligent," she says, "so I'm going to say that's what I am, because I can't bear being called a wacky, zany comedienne.

I'm not a comedienne. I'm a character actress. I couldn't get up and tell a joke to save my life." On a recent Saturday afternoon af sound you don't know you're missing until you've heard it," her present TV producer, James L. Brooks, weighs in. The sound is going largely unheard.

Yes, the British dubbed Tracey Ullman "Our Trace." Yes, they went in droves to buy her pop album, "You Broke My Heart in 17 Places," and watched the telly in droves as she broke their funny bones in 17 places. In America, though, the colossus of comedy has collided with the colossus of TV reality. Through February, her show had averaged a tiny 3.1 rating and 5 percent share of the audience, reaching about 2.7 million TV households. Those audience totals rank her near the bottom of a Fox Sunday night lineup that is near the bottom of the national Nielsen rankings. Given the newness of Fox as the nation's so-called fourth network, however, few industry observers expected any Fox prime-time show to immediately have a major impact in the ratings.

What's more, Ullman's Nielsens have improved in 1988, stretching to a 4.6 rating and 7 percent audience share Jan. 24, its best marks since its premiere. Fox Broadcasting Co. Tracey Ullman, who has been called a social satirist, lapses into character or routine at the drop of an inspiration. Experts trace personality disorder to bonding process By JAMIE TALAN Newsday Some psychologists have known for decades that bonding starts in early infancy, a time when humans first learn to rely on and trust another person to meet their needs.

When critical needs are not met feeding, cuddling and close contact the infant learns his first lesson: People cannot be trusted, says Denver psychologist Ken Magid, co-author of "High Risk: Children -without a Conscience" (Bantam, "Kids with severe attachment problems make 'The Exorcist' look like kindergarten," Magid said. For example, one boy set his brother's hair on fire. Another pushed a neighborhood boy into a pool and watched as his body stiffened and sank to the bottom. Still another has killed several family cats. "A lot of so-called accidents follow these children," Magid said.

"It's the Tylenol killer in a child." Magid and others believe that most of the violent See BONDING on Page C-4 months because of child abuse. At 4, she was adopted. Unknown to her new parents, Angie was already a liar and thief. She was also cruel to family pets, flinging them by their tails, and destroyed neighborhood property. She would pick up a knife and say "Cut me.

Cut me. Cut me." "She was self -destructive. She would throw herself in front of a car," said Connell Watkins, a therapist and director of the Youth Behavior Program in Evergreen. Angie, now 8, is one of her patients. Lynn and John Miller had similar problems with their 7-year-old adopted son Michael, who had been bumped from one foster home to another.

Michael was not able to follow directions. He would destroy his toys and objects in the home. He pretended that he couldn't hear. His lying was chronic. "It's like the mother is not there and the child is the boss.

Once, during an evaluation, he went to the bathroom and broke the mirror," Watkins recalled. between attachment and delinquent bahavior. One of them, Dr. Foster Cline, a child psychiatrist at Evergreen (Colo.) Clinic, has been working with emotionally disturbed children, many of whom had been fostered out or adopted in the early months of life. The cases were unusually similar.

The children shared behavior problems like cruelty to animals, severe food problems (gorging or sneaking) and pathological lying, problems that Cline relates directly to attachment. "Abuse and neglect can breed vicious people," Cline said. "Bonding in the first year of life is based on relief. Some people think that the Ted Bundys of the world were born that way. I think it is learned," he added.

(Bundy is the suspected serial killer who is on Death Row in a Florida prison for the murders of two sorority girls and a 12-yearold schoolgirl.) One of the Evergreen patients, for example, Angie, was removed from her birth parents at the age of 8 Some people call it moral insanity. Psychologists call it anti-social personality disorder, or APD. About 4 percent of young adult males and 1 percent of females in the United States suffer from it. The symptoms are lying, stealing, arson, murder. These sociopaths continue to mystify mental health experts.

Psychological testing shows that they are not neurotic, not psychotic. Their bad behavior is extreme, and resistant to talk therapy. New studies have traced such behavior back to infancy and early childhood. The findings suggest that antisocial behavior may be caused by a lack of bonding with a parent that normally takes place within the first year of life. Researchers have only recently made the connection TO CALL THE LIFESTYLE STAFF LifeStyle Editor Connie Ballard can be reached by calling 722-8800, ext.

439. rVifniVirw i in LAND 0F The Dollhouse Factory JIMMY DEAN, JIMMY DEAN: The KsOrniny Up aims to be the L.L. Bean of the miniature mystique of an actor who died on the tOmOrrOW Industry. verge of stardom continues today..