No bones, I’m a big fan of the music from the late 80’s and early 90’s. It’s when I started making my own music collection, and when I started listening to a cappella music extensively… so for show #64 it seemed the perfect time to do an 80’s focus. Specifically on 1988. Get it? 64=8*8? Of course you get it. All my listeners are smart. (And good looking too, right? And talented.)

So here are a bunch of songs that all topped the charts in 1988, starting with the first (and only, so far, I think) a cappella song to hit Number One on the US music charts. Only fair to feature an original song by the original artist.  In a cool tie to the last show, the original music video for the song stars Robin Williams in addition to Bobby McFerrin.  And it connects with another song in today’s show, as they both were in the movie Cocktail.  I remember “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” being on the radio about the time I first joined my grade school chorus… aaaand right about now I’m going to tell all my listeners still in college (or high school) to stop sniggering. One day you’ll be where I am.  In the meantime, go to Audible.com and get some learning on the Eighties, alright? Those of us who don’t know our vocal history are doomed (or blessed?) to repeat it.  In the meantime, listen to the following on this show:

Track Title	Artist	Album	Original Artist
Don’t Worry, Be Happy	Bobby McFerrin		Bobby McFerrin
Sign Your Name	The House Jacks		Terence Trent D’arby
Sweet Child o’Mine	Deep Treble	All Kinds of Treble	Guns n’ Roses
Kokomo	The King’s Singers		The Beach Boys
Faith	The Coats		George Michael
Wild Wild West	Boyz Nite Out	Harmony Sweepstakes 1995 / Very Best of the Harmony Sweepstakes	Escape Club
Never Gonna Give You Up	On The Rocks		Rick Astley

Wow.  I’ve been utterly unable to find any place to pick up a copy of Deep Treble’s album ‘All Kinds of Treble’.  If you know of a place to get that, let me know.  Likewise, the recording of the 1995 Harmony Sweeps is completely unavailable and out of print.  If you get lucky though, you can still occasionally find a copy of ‘The Very Best of the Harmony Sweepstakes’.  This is not one of those occasions, sorry to say.

The Shipyard Sings – you can find this, as mentioned during the show, at http://www.hinghamlaunch.com .   I’m really sorry to everyone who was hoping to go see NoTA live..  They were there back on June 26th, a few days ago as of this posting.  There are still opportunities to see other great groups, including the Tufts Beelzebubs.

For now, go ahead and listen to the Acapodcast #64, and let me know what you think…

P.S. I can’t find the video showing Bobby singing the different parts (I thought I’d seen that somewhere…) but here’s the original video with Robin Williams in it.