April 22-28, 2004

music

Underground Sensation

Love Train: (l-r) Bernie Buckles, Marsha Cordell, Agnes Dutill and John Sutton strike a chord with local commuters as The Sound of Harmony.

Suburban Station's resident a capella quartet will make you late for work.

by Doron Taussig

There is a grown man jumping up and down in Suburban Station. He has been watching a rendition of Jackie Wilson’s "Lonely Teardrops," performed a cappella by a group of street musicians called The Sound of Harmony.

The man singing lead has a booming, operatic voice, and when the song reaches its climax you don't think he's going to be able to hit the high-money note. But he slips comfortably into a falsetto and hits it with no trouble: "Say you willllllll!."

A small crowd applauds. Then the singer refrains and does the climax again, except this time he riffs the money note, climbing up and then up higher: "You wi-hi-hi-hi-hi-hi-hillllll!" Previously indifferent passersby stop and turn, several people smack their foreheads. The dancing man can't control himself, and jumps up and down like a boy whose favorite slugger has just hit a home run.

The Sound of Harmony delays more commuters than your typical band of street performers. There are two reasons: First, this ensemble is quite good. The group picks fun songs -- a lot of oldies, some country, some gospel -- and no matter what genre, they are adept at conjuring up its original spirit. So, for instance, when they sing an oldie, it feels like an oldie, not an a cappella arrangement of an oldie.

The second reason is that all four members of The Sound of Harmony are blind. Standing against a wall between the Flower Express and the Penn Center Restaurant, eyes closed, with guide dogs at their feet, they're much harder to miss than a trumpeter or a guitarist. Ask a Suburban Station regular if she knows "the blind singers." She will.

The three founders of The Sound of Harmony -- Bernie Buckles, Agnes Dutill and John Sutton, who sings lead on "Lonely Teardrops" -- have been friends since childhood, when they attended the Overbrook School for the Blind together. They formed their group in 1992, and have been singing in Suburban Station every weekday morning since (though not in the same place; they found that their present spot had better acoustics). A fourth member of the group, Marsha Cordell, joined the group a month ago. All four have been blind since birth.

Music is a common diversion in the blind community. It was a central part of the curriculum at the Overbrook School (when Buckles tried to drop out of the choir, the school wouldn't allow it), and Cordell has been singing on her own since she was four. When it comes to music, "We're blessed," Cordell says. It's not that every blind person has a beautiful voice. But they do have a more intimate relationship with sound than the sighted. There is some disagreement in the group over whether this is a biological gift, a result of years of conditioning or some combination of the two. In any case, if you watch (and listen) closely enough to a Sound of Harmony performance, you will notice the ways the blind use sound beneath the sighted radar. Many a cappella groups keep time by making eye contact with each other; The Sound of Harmony goes by the tinny sounds of Dutill tapping her foot and Buckles patting his side. The noises aren't loud enough to be a part of the song; they are a private communication amongst the group.

The other goings-on within the group are equally fascinating. Buckles -- Cordell's fiance -- was once married to Dutill. Cordell lived in Ohio, and was married to a man named Phil. After breaking up with Dutill, Buckles met Cordell through a national "talk line" for the blind. Before long, they were breaking the news to Phil that they wanted to be together. Phil was understandably upset. Buckles told Dutill about his situation, and she said, "Let me talk to Phil." Dutill and Phil spoke for 15 minutes. The next day, they spoke for seven hours, and within a few weeks Cordell and Phil were riding a bus to Philadelphia together -- she to marry Buckles, and he to marry Dutill. "It's like Jerry Springer!" Cordell says, "But it's real!"

"Something like this could only happen in the disabled community," Buckles says, because one, the dating pool is so small, and two, he believes that disabled people have a great degree of understanding and compassion for one another. Dutill has a different explanation. "You see?" she says, "Blind people do everything."

Does this unusual group dynamic cause any strife? That's where Sutton comes in. "We call him Papa John," says Cordell, "because he keeps us in line and focused on the music. We're people, we get into fights," but, "John is here to play the father role."

Sutton also serves as the group's protector. Asked if anyone has ever tried to rob them of the money they collect singing, he says: "Oh, I don't think we have to worry about that. I don't know if you haven't noticed, but I'm not a small fella. We could have a good time if somebody tried that."

"John likes to fight," Buckles agrees.

"He keeps the wolves away," says Cordell.

In a typical Sound of Harmony set, Buckles, Sutton and Dutill will each sing three leads (Cordell doesn't do leads yet), though they allow the pattern to be interrupted by requests. Passersby frequently ask them to sing Stevie Wonder songs, but they don't do Stevie Wonder -- they think his songs are not conducive to a cappella arrangement. "Lonely Teardrops" is also a popular request, but the group tries to save it for a Thursday or a Friday. "You have to be in good voice to do Jackie," Sutton explains.

A typical morning will also feature some regular fans. Tuesday is "Jane Day" in honor of a woman who comes by and brings biscuits for the guide dogs. Fridays, informally, are "Fridays with Frank." Almost every day features a man named "Smiley," and the group is friendly with a number of the homeless people who frequent Suburban Station. Some regular fans have retired -- over the years, the group has had several people come up to them and say, "Today's my last day!"

One of the current regulars is Officer Walker of the Philadelphia Police Department. Walker oversees the commuter traffic in Suburban Station in the mornings and often parks his police cart in front of The Sound of Harmony to enjoy the show. He seems distressed about being asked to describe the group; he can't think of an adjective that satisfies him.

"They're excellent, they're fantastic," he tries. He turns to the officer accompanying him that morning, named Ferino. "What would you say?" Ferino thinks for a moment. "They're in synch," he said.

After the morning show, all four members go back to their respective apartments (they all live in West Philadelphia, with the exception of Sutton, who lives out by City Line) and tune into the soaps. Sutton also listens to sports talk radio; Buckles claims to teach a class at "The Bernie Buckles School of Rest and Relaxation." Occasionally, they do other gigs. The Sound of Harmony has performed for the Miss Philadelphia Pageant, the Philadelphia prison system, and various schools, as well as Channels 3, 6, 10, 17 and 29. Once a year they sing the national anthem at a Saint Joseph's Hawks game. The one gig they haven't done, which Buckles calls his "ultimate dream," is to appear in the background in a movie. "We could give a realistic kind of quality to a street scene," Buckles says.

The group improved on a street scene just the other day, when someone friendly with a woman named Barbara ran ahead and told The Sound of Harmony that it was Barbara's birthday. The singers kicked up a spontaneous rendition of "Happy Birthday," temporarily transforming all the nearby commuters from a group of strangers in a rush to a crowd of people at a celebration. As for Barbara, she stopped and listened with a big smile on her face. When the song was done she took off, yelling "Thank you!" over her shoulder. She was late, but delighted.