OUR ARRANGER

The Fairfax Jubil-Aires are proud to have as a “lifetime” member none other than Larry Wright, who has quickly become the “go to” arranger for the Jubil-Aires.A few years ago, when the show theme of “Lights, Camera, Barbershop!” was announced and it was decided to sing mostly songs from movies, another of the Jubil-Aires life members immediately thought of taking his children to the movie Annie and watching that wonderful scene in Radio City Music Hall where Daddy Warbucks takes Annie to the movies. When Larry was asked to come up with a medley of songs from Annie, featuring “Let’s Go To The Movies”, “It’s a Hard Knocks Life,” and “The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow”, the arrangement he came up with was magical and immediately became the opening (and closing) number for the show. As the show opened, the Jubil-Aires came on stage, disappointed that the “show” had been sold out, knowing their wives were all dressed up, and trying to think of what else to do. When they decide to go to the movies instead, the announcement of this fact to their wives and sweethearts starts with Larry’s well written MGM fanfare and goes on to suggest, “Let’s Go To The Movies.” During this part of the song, Men in Black came on stage, dressed as janitors and pushing brooms, only to break into their lament, “It’s A Hard Knocks Life.” They are rescued by AKA (the Sweet Adelines guest quartet), who try to cheer them up with “The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow.” Soon they had everyone convinced and singing along, and then everyone concluded with “Let’s Go To The Movies” ending the song with a wonderful tag. Larry did a masterful job with the medley, and the Jubil-Aires would recommend this medley to any chapter considering a movie theme in the future.

Since then, Larry has arranged some wonderful numbers for the weddings of a daughter and son of one of the Jubil-Aires, including a great father-bride dance arrangement of “Just The Way You Look Tonight” and a first dance arrangement of "Grow Old With You." He also provided a wonderful intro to Irish Blessing that can be used to make that song fit any occasion – funerals, weddings, convention endings, etc. For another show, Larry's arrangement of Sentimental Journey became one of the choruses favorite songs. Since then, Larry has provided a lot of wonderful arrangements for the Jubil-Aires and their chapter quartets. The Jubil-Aires look forward to lots of wonderful collaboration with Larry in the future, and we welcome him, his wife, Robin, and their children, Ashley and Chris, into the Jubil-Aires family. The children are clearly following closely in Larry’s musical footsteps, since both Chris and Ashley create wonderful learning tracks for the songs their father arranges. Chris is an outstanding sound engineer, and Ashley is the lead singer in the Sweet Adelines gold medalist quartet, Speed of Sound.

For those who are not familiar with Larry’s background in barbershop, you might remember him singing lead in the 139^th Street Quartet in their cameo appearance on Cheers (watch video on YouTube).  He is the one without the hat at the beginning. They also had a wonderful appearance on Night Court. (watch video on YouTube)  And as lead with the Sundowners from 1965-71, he earned 2 silver medals at Internationals. Today, Larry is the owner and lead engineer in his digital recording studio in Brentwood, TN. 

A great place to find barbershop arrangement and learning tracks is Larry's website:  http://www.larrywrightmusic.com/