Group singalongs a fun outlet for music lovers

In living rooms and community meeting spaces all over Atlanta, a sheer love of singing is bringing people together. Ordinary people without formal musical training are getting together and singing for fun on a regular basis. That’s how the phenomenon is described by Bob Goodman, who’s been a fixture in Atlanta singalong groups since the early 1990s.

On the second Friday of each month, a group gathers in a Poncey-Highland living room. When we visited in November, Nick the cat was burrowed into the lap of one of the homeowners. “He’s deaf,” said Mickey Gillmor, “but he still enjoys the singing.” The half dozen people gathered around the room were belting out “Me and Bobbie McGee”.

Some sang harmony, some carried the melody and others were just signing with gusto. It’s clear that it doesn’t matter how well you sing; it’s the singing that counts.

This group, the “Second Friday Singers”, got their start in the early 1990s when a group of friends gathered to sing in the home of a terminally ill friend, Leah Washburn. “It seemed to lift her spirits, and we just kept doing it on a regular basis,” Goodman said. “When she passed away, we realized we had all enjoyed the singing so much that we wanted to keep doing it. We moved the group to the home of two of the members where we’ve been singing ever since.”

As one song ends, another title is called out, and the group launches into the next tune. Goodman brings copies of “Rise Up Singing”, a group singing songbook first published in 1988. The book has lyrics and guitar chords for almost 1,200 songs, and this group knows the book so well that they don’t seem to need the index. They just turn to the right page and away they go.

The diversity of the songs in “Rise Up Singing” reflects the diversity of the people who love to sing: hymns and spirituals, Broadway show tunes and Motown hits, ballads and cowboy songs, all gathered into one spiral-bound book. Many singalong groups have their own informal additional songbooks as well.

Off Briarcliff Road, third Fridays are “Jam Night” where up to 20 people pack the living room of Sharon and Bill Stepler, ready to harmonize and socialize. “This is an informal monthly song circle of our friends that’s been going on for about 18 years,” said Sharon Stepler. “The music starts around 8:00 p.m. and continues until we're too tired to sing and play.”

Keeping time with tapping feet and clapping hands, there’s no doubt these people are having a good time. It’s the kind of group where singing just might lead to dancing. There are at least six guitars scattered around the room, a banjo, violin, keyboard, tambourine, drums and a mandolin. At the feet of Randy Hazan is a case with the six harmonicas, but you might also find him playing the kazoo.

Choice of songs rotates clockwise around the room. Current events or personal milestones will trigger the song choices. Some of those gathered at the Steplers are song writers, and their choice will actually be a solo performance of something they’ve written, with the others joining in the chorus as the song progresses.

Sitting in one corner of the room were Sherri Mitchell-Snider and Tom Snider, a couple who met at the Steplers in August 2006 and married in November a year later. Long a person who sang in the shower, Snider had never sung in public until a friend invited him to visit the group. As it turned out, his first visit to the Steplers was also the first visit of the woman who would become his wife.

“Doing things you enjoy is a great way to get to know people with mutual interests,” Mitchell-Snider said. “We probably never would have met if we hadn’t had this outlet.”

There’s a singalong group meeting somewhere in Atlanta every weekend, and some that meet during the week. Each singing group operates a little differently. Some are more social while in others you may attend for months and never know names of all the people there. Some are open to all, while others are really only for friends, and friends of friends.