Barbershop Quartet Performs 'Hello My Baby' Throughout The Decades

In this impressive performance, a talented barbershop quartet performs the song ‘Hello My Baby’ in different musical styles throughout the decades.

The song ‘Hello My Baby’ is originally a Tin Pan Alley song written in 1899 by the songwriting team of Joseph E. Howard and Ida Emerson, also known as "Howard and Emerson." In this video, the barbershop quartet, Newfangled Four, performs a playful demonstration of how this song would have sounded throughout the years.

“Thank you very much ladies and gentlemen. You might have recognized that last tune as ‘Hello My Baby,’ says one of the members of the Newfangled Four after they sing the song. “Being a barbershop quartet standard and favorite, we thought it was appropriate to sing this on this night of nights. The night of the International Quartet Finalists. But the Newfangled Four wouldn’t be the Newfangled Four unless we did a little something awkward and weird for you. So, imagine if you will, what would ‘Hello My Baby’ sound like if it were written a little later on in the century. Picture if you will, an era where Prohibition was the law of the land, flappers were all the rage, and the musical styling of the blues had just swept the nation.”

The group then goes into singing the song and puts a 1920s spin on it. They all sound great performing the music with such a nice, soulful sound.

After that rendition, another member of the group steps up to the mic. “We go ahead another couple of decades, and we want to see what ‘Hello My Baby’ might have sounded like when swing was king and big bands were everything.”

Then they start to sing the song in a jazzy, big band style. The Newfangled Four continue to do this as they cover ‘Hello My Baby’ in the style of the 1950s, with a country twang, with a disco twist, and even in the style of a rap.

With their talent and humor, the Newfangled Four put on a great performance of how music has evolved over the years.