From the August 14, 1992 edition of the Vineyard Gazette:

You may have heard the sound on the streets of downtown Edgartown. Or perhaps you caught it at the Dockside in Oak Bluffs, or at the Seafood Shanty in Edgartown.

But if you haven’t heard the sound — excuse, The Sound — then you’ve missed one of the pure entertainment delights of the summer.

The Vineyard Sound, an all-male a cappella singing group made up of 10 college students that is at once polished and peppered with improvisation, is the hottest entertainment on the Island this summer. And the singing? It is, as the kids say, awesome.

But don’t think you have to be a kid to enjoy The Vineyard Sound, because part of their charm lies in their broad appeal. They sing pieces from West Side Story alongside stuff written by Joni Mitchell. They sing Sesame Street, top 40, ‘50s doo-wop and sea shanties.

“We sing something from everybody’s decade,” says Townsand (Todd) Belisle, co-organizer of The Vineyard Sound.

Actually, the story of The Vineyard Sound is an Island story. Todd, who lives in Woodstock, Vt., met Chris Bettencourt, a Vineyarder, at the All Eastern Music Festival when they were both in high school. The two forged a friendship and kept in touch as they went on to different colleges — Todd to Skidmore and Chris to Connecticut College. Both sing in their college a cappella groups. Last summer Todd came to the Vineyard and worked as a waiter, living with Chris and his family.

That was when the idea began for The Vineyard Sound. “We would go around singing together,” Chris recalls. “People would say, ‘You guys ought to do this.’”

Todd remembers: “In my opinion Island entertainment was blah. I had it in my head all summer — wouldn’t it be great to have the guys down here.“

By January Todd, an economics major who comes from a musical family, had launched his plan to put together a singing group to come to the Vineyard. But it was not without obstacles.

“I felt like everybody was against me — they all said, no way, you’re never going to get a house. I had been on the Vineyard and I knew what people thought of college kids,“ he says.

Still he was undaunted. He subscribed to the Vineyard Gazette, kept making calls for housing, and consulted frequently with Chris. “I told Chris to single out guys from his group, guys who really wanted to sing and would be into this. I wanted to run this as a cooperative. But I will be honest, I was not looking for what I will call the beer-soaked college student. I wanted responsible people.”

By late spring Todd had found a house. He and Chris had assembled a group which included four members of CoCoBeaux from Connecticut College, four members of the Bandersnatchers from Skidmore and two members of the Wesleyan Spirits from Wesleyan University. They arrived on the Vineyard on June 1 armed with full repertoires of their groups, a lot of rent to pay and no jobs. The goal was to secure day jobs, leaving them free to perform at night. But in the beginning there were no gigs.

“In the back of my mind was panic,” says Todd. “So we spent a ridiculous amount of time practicing — sometimes three to five hours a day.”

Then things began to happen. “Slowly and slowly and slowly we started to get some gigs,” says Todd.

They sang at the Taste of the  Vineyard, to the delight of the patrons. They did their first street concert at Four Corners in Edgartown until the traffic was stopped for blocks around.

They approached the Navigator Restaurant in Edgartown, but the manager was unconvinced. So they stood outside the restaurant and sang. “The entire wait staff and half the patrons ended up outside, and the manager came out and said, ‘What is going on out here?’” The Vineyard Sound got the job. They landed a regular job at the Dockside and at Warriner’s. Then the Shanty.

The tip bucket (labeled Financial Aid) began to fill. “We tell people we are starving college students, and if you like what you hear put a dollar in — if you don’t like it, put a dollar in to send us home,” says Todd.

As their Vineyard summer draws to a close the group looks back at the good times — and the bad. “The hardest moment was when the first rent payment was due,” says Todd.

The best moments? “When I would get a phone call from someone asking for Townsend Belisle and it wasn’t my mother,” says Todd. “The first night we sang at Warriner’s,” says another.

“That moment of silence just before a song is over,” says another.

Todd adds: “We’ve had producers come up to us — I had no idea it would go this far. And now people are saying, come back.”

But it is unclear whether there will be a comeback for The Vineyard Sound, whose members may travel different paths next summer. Thinking about this, Todd lapses into college generation speak, where the conversation is peppered with words like “random” and “genius.” He says: “We don’t sing, we ‘bust’. We like to say we’re out on the Vineyard busting in the sun.”

Compiled by Hilary Wallcox

[email protected]