Almost Famous

My wonderful Dad brought home a little gift for me tonight: "Pitch Perfect: The Quest for Collegiate A Cappella Glory." For those of you who don't know, yes, I was an a cappella singer in college. In fact, we were one of "those" groups that author Mickey Rapkin details as he "...follows a season in a cappella through all its twists and turns, covering the breathtaking displays of vocal talent, the groupies (yes, a cappella singers have groupies), the rock-star partying, ... and all the bitter rivalries." In the prologue, Rapkin relates the story of Denise Sandole-- an AOL music exec who was attending the Grammy's in 2005, and was cheering for her then unknown, but about to be uber-famous, friend who happened to be introducing Kanye West that evening. Rapkin goes on to tell how they met-- in college, when they were members of the same a cappella group, the UPenn Counterparts. He also throws in that in 1997 Sandole and said presenter performed together at Carnegie Hall where they, with their group, competed in the National Championship of Collegiate A Cappella (NCCA) (no joke-- it actually exists; and now it's the International competition, because peeps across the pond wanted in on the action).

Anywhoo-- a little bell went off in my head. I thought, "hey-- wait a second; we competed in the NCCA in 1997... and we lost in the semi-finals, which happened to be in Pennsylvania (at Haverford). I couldn't for the life of me remember who won, but a few minutes of internet sleuthing later and lo and behold I found that, indeed, we did lose to UPenn in the semi-finals that year. What I remember about that night (besides a bit of a major non-a cappella-related disaster) was that although we didn't win the overall competition that would have moved us to the finals at Lincoln Center, our "pitch" (musical director), Amanda Weeden, won best soloist-- beating out Sandole's friend, who was runner-up that evening. The friend? John Stephens-- better known today as John Legend.

BooYaw! Amanda, still an amazing vocalist, you had star power even back then. And I continue on my quest to be almost famous!