The Singing Plainsmen of Lubbock

In August, 2025, the Lubbock Singing Plainsmen will celebrate their 80th year of encouraging and preserving the American tradition of Barber Shop Harmony. This unique, four-part blending of voices was a phenomenon of the last years of the 19th Century and carried over into the 2Oth. As popular as it was, however, interest in barbershop quartet singing gradually declined and the hobby was in danger of extinction when, in 1938, Owen C. Cash of Tulsa, Oklahoma, and his friend Rupert Hall set out to revive this wonderful American style of singing that allowed amateur singers to produce such remarkable sounds.

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The organization formed in 1938 by O. C. Cash and Rupert Hall became known by its initials-- S.P.E.B.S.Q.S.A.-and found wide acceptance across the United States. Thousands of men formed local chapters from coast to coast and very soon began Society-wide competitions to determine the Number One quartet. The development of the Barbershop Society continues even today, to the point that there are now 36,000 members in the United States, 5,000 members in Canada, and barbershop harmony organizations in England, Ireland, Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Australia and New Zealand. Annual International contests are regularly attended by more than 15,000 fans of barbershopping.

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The Lubbock chapter, named the Singing Plainsmen, had its beginning in 1945 when Harry Delaney, a local insurance agent, read about the growing interest in barbershop quarteting in his Kiwanis club magazine. The new Barbershop Harmony Society was reviving old songs and teaching men how to sing four-part harmony, and it was catching on all over the U.S.

"That was right down my alley," Delaney said. "I had learned to sing that way, believe it or not, in a barber shop back in Memphis, Texas, where I grew up."

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Delaney wrote to the national president to find out how to go about starting a chapter in Lubbock. Then he began talking to his friends about it.

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"I didn't know whether I could find enough men to start a chapter, but one of the first who got excited about helping me was the local Buick dealer, J. Ray Dickey. Ray and I started rounding up everyone in town who was interested," Delaney said.

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At 8:30 on the evening of August 2, 1945, 14 men met at Delaney's insurance office and after he explained the purpose of the meeting and the value of establishing a barbershop quartet chapter in Lubbock, all 14 men signed a petition to S.P.E.B.S.Q.S.A asking that Lubbock be granted a charter in the national organization.

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The Secretary and President of the Society, along with the organization's Founder, O. C. Cash, approved the petition on August 6, 1945, and Lubbock received its charter on August 11, 1945, becoming the first chapter in the state of Texas. Today there are 36 chapters in Texas.

For the first few weeks, the chapter met in Harry Delaney's office to sing. By the time of the charter ceremony, regular meetings were taking place in the Lubbock Hotel at Broadway and Avenue K. The singers used whatever space the hotel had available that was large enough to hold the crowds that gathered every time the Singing Plainsmen started to harmonize. One night, the only space available to the barbershoppers was the hotel's downstairs barber shop.

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The chapter grew quickly over those first few years and in the spring of 1946 presented its first public performance in the Lubbock High School auditorium. The Lubbock chapter show became an eagerly awaited, well-attended event. The Singing Plainsmen brought first-class quartets from around the nation to Lubbock for these shows, called "The Annual Parade of Quartets." It was not unusual for all the tickets to these performances to be sold out.

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Sixty-five years later, the Singing Plainsmen are still going strong, performing, expanding their repertoire and improving their sound. The chorus competes at times against chapters from Fort Worth, Arlington, Plano, Oklahoma City, Amarillo, and Abilene. For our current meeting times and location is from 7:00 - 8:30 PM every Thursday night at Covenant Presbyterian Church, 4600 48th St., Lubbock TX 79414.  For more information, please call: 806-445-9119 or email us at singingplainsmen@gmail.com.