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Essentials in
Quartet Singing
Triple-gold Joe
Joe Connelly is the first man to win three gold medals - who's next?
Updated: 2/7/2002 4:54:00 PM
Triple-gold Joe
by Jim Bagby, baritone of 1986 champion, Rural Route 4
As a teenager, Mike Connelly would be enthusiastically singing along to Society medalist albums from the ’50s and ’60s, when his father would holler "turn down that barbershop music!"
One generation later, Mike’s son had the volume cranked up on every barbershop album he could lay his hands on. Mike just smiled, and marveled at the hours his son spent absorbing everything about the music. "From the time he was a very young kid," Mike recalls, "he studied who’d done what and when they did it." Mike is a 40-year Society member best known as the baritone and a founding member of the comedic medalist Roaring ’20s, as well as for earning three medals with The Naturals.
But Joe Connelly proved to be much more than just a second-generation fan. At the 2000 Society contest and convention in Kansas City, PLATINUM’s near-record victory made Joe the first three-time gold medalist in the 62-year history of the Society. He already was the first to win a pair of championships as a lead.
To put that in perspective, consider that more than 250 men (including associate members of the Association of International Champions) have been a part of gold medal quartets. In addition to Joe, only a dozen others have repeated.
He gave up cake batter for this?
Through nine years of competition and performances with Interstate Rivals (1987) and eight years with Keepsake, Joe became a Society icon. He also has been a chorus director, and remains one of the most respected Presentation Category judges. "He knows instinctively to look for the ultimate artistry of the performance," says Category Specialist Jim Massey. "We could use more singers, coaches and judges like Joe." Ah, but are there any like him? He’s also a full-time Barbershopper, spending an average of five days of every week—including most weekends—coaching men’s and women’s groups from one end of the barbershopping world to the other. He worked with a dozen quartets who competed in Kansas City, including such top 20 foursomes as BSQ, Riptide, Gotcha, Bank Street, Excalibur, Four Voices and 12th Street Rag. He coached a half-dozen of the competing choruses.
Financially, he describes it as a "decent living," although he made more money at his old job, computer monitoring the ingredients in the batter (yawn) of Duncan Hines products. "But I’m doing what I love," says Connelly. "It’s awesome (he pronounces it 'OW-some') to spend your life involved with Barbershoppers. If I won the lottery or were independently wealthy, I’d do the same thing for free."
And he balances his coaching with family life, spending at least two days a week in his Tampa home with his wife of eight years, Sweet Adeline queen Debbie (Showtime, 1994), and her two children, Josh, 15, and Jenny, 11. Although he’s already booked almost full-time for coaching dates through next year, Joe says he saves holidays to be home, as well as a month or so around the end of the year. And Joe and Debbie take a week off in July to celebrate their anniversary.
"Joe’s not a common occurrence in barbershop," says PLATINUM coach Randy Loos. "He starts with an incredible voice, and adds his passion for excellence. He thrives on competition and has enough ego to provide pride in his product—yet not so much as to be unbearable!"
Don Barnick, who won his second gold as the bass of Keepsake, agrees that Connelly does a remarkable job of balancing humility with his accomplishments: "He’s a marvelous young man, quite wacky at times. But he has a genuine and sincere interest in people."
The Thunderbolt of 1978
Connelly’s JAD roots include early memories of sneaking out of bed and halfway down the stairs to hear Mike practice with the Roaring ’20s. "As long as I can remember, I’ve always loved the sound." Then came the first thunderbolt experience for the 13-year-old: The 1978 Society convention in his hometown of Cincinnati. "I was a cocky little punk," Joe says of his first international exposure. "I was definitely vocal about how proud I was about seeing my dad competing in what I still believe was the greatest quartet contest ever."
"Look at the quartets in the field that year: Bluegrass Student Union, won and Grandma’s Boys, Boston Common, Rural Route 4, Classic Collection all ended up with golds—and the ’20s were right up there in the medals. It was awesome. And look at the chorus contest—the level was monumental! (Scarborough Dukes bowing out, Thoroughbreds win followed by three more perennial champs, Vocal Majority, Cincinnati and Alexandria). I was hooked instantly. I said 'I wanna' be up there doing that.'"
The following Tuesday, having been part of the hard-working host committee, Mike Connelly wanted a night off from chapter meetings. "But I forced him to take me." Joe became an eighth-grade Society member, and that was the start.
Ignoring Dad’s advice and other great decisions
How much did Mike Connelly influence Joe? Depends on which one you ask. In conversation, Mike is as low-key as Joe is intense.
When people ask where Joe got his talent, Mike says he always replies, "D-----d if I know." Mike’s wife of 36 years, Christy, has a background in ballet but is a barbershop supporter for husband and son rather than a singer. And Mike says the last piece of advice he ever gave Joe was not to sing with the Interstate Rivals. "I didn’t think he needed to leave Cincinnati to find a quartet. With my father’s mentality, I didn’t want this teen-ager running up and down the highway."
Then Mike heard Joe sing with Kipp Buckner and Jay Hawkins from Louisville, and Mucha from Middletown, Ohio. "It was evident I didn’t know what I was talking about." Mike also was an immediate fan because he had competed against and sung with Kipp’s dad, Ken Buckner; Geoff’s dad, Bob Mucha, and Jay’s father-in-law, Louisville legend Jim Miller. Miller and Ken Buckner were major influences on Joe Connelly, along with Louisville coach Ed Gentry. Then a fellow named Larry Ajer showed up in the Southern Gateway lead section, standing next to Joe. "I kid that I take credit for getting Larry into coaching," Joe says, "because I asked him what he thought of my new quartet (The Viscounts) and he came up with all these ideas!" Ajer coached the Rivals, Keepsake and worked with PLATINUM before his death in 1998.
Shortly after the Rivals won, Joe met vocal coach extraordinaire Jim Casey at an MENC event in San Antonio. "He listened to me for about 15 minutes, and after that I sent him tapes all the time," Connelly says. "He has an uncanny knack for figuring out voice, personality and psyche." Casey and Ajer were the primary coaches for Keepsake; Casey and Loos coached PLATINUM, with occasional visits from Presentation ace Gary Wulf.
The inner competitor
But Joe says his dad was "huge" in his development, especially when it came to competing. An only child, Joe challenged his dad in basketball, chess, board games—and especially tennis and table tennis. (Be ready to strap it on if you face Joe across the net.) "He was my teacher and my mentor, and he always told me he would not just let me win. My love for competing and winning came from him."
Tony DeRosa, described by Joe as "like the brother I never had," says the competitive nature and work ethic are two key ingredients in the complex, appealing being that is Joe Connelly. "He inspires people around him to be better," says Connelly’s Keepsake and PLATINUM baritone, a.k.a. "The prince of hangers." "Joe has a method of building to a championship level—and from that he establishes an amazing amount of consistency. He can perform at that level even on a bad day. And his perspective of perfectionism means he always wants to be better, rather than resting on his laurels."
"At the bottom line," says Loos, "there ain’t no secret to his unparalled success: just talent and hard work." That talent, DeRosa says, means "50 years from now we’ll be able to listen to voices and know that’s Joe Connelly. It’s one of the most characteristic lead voices God ever created." Well, then why isn’t he still a cocky kid? Surely he’s earned the right at age 35 to be a little conceited? DeRosa, the 27-year-old son of longtime Sunshine District barbershop musician and activist Joe DeRosa, has that answer, too: "Growing up in the hobby so young, our fathers instilled in us that you never forget where you came from, that you owe so much to the people who helped you get there. Joe is just so well-grounded."
And it helps to have friends who offer humbling observations. "Without Tony, Joe is pigeon trash," says fellow two-time gold medalist Brian Beck. Rick LaRosa also is glad to testify about Connelly, who coached FRED from 1991 to their quartet title a year ago—one of a half-dozen championship groups Joe has worked with.
"Joe has been one of the most useless coaches FRED ever used, next to DeRosa. Our biggest memory is of Joe lying on a couch in Clay Hines’ living room, eating ice cream in his one and ONLY outfit (too-small football shorts, an oversize dress shirt and sneakers), talking about his gold medals while we’re trying to sing ... We could have won years earlier if he had been more help! Joe might have won this third medal earlier if he had spent more time off the couch."
OW-some
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