Unlimited Digital Access / Get £25 off your Annual Digital Subscription! Use code 25OFF
GET STARTEDMore on KentOnline
Unlimited Digital Access / Get £25 off your Annual Digital Subscription! Use code 25OFF
GET STARTEDMore on KentOnline
Christmas is cancelled but not the music of enterprising choristers.
Snowdown Colliery Welfare Male Voice Choir had put together a recording and video of Bill Haley's Rock Around the Clock.
It has now been issued in time for the festive season.
The members, having to stay separate because of coronavirus, filmed and recorded their parts separately and the sound was mixed by an engineer.
Peter Whibley, choir publicity officer, said: “This was the first time in the choir’s history that we have embarked on such a project, which has brought some good cheer to all in these really challenging times."
Concert secretary Peter Hare got the idea when the more common method of linking separated people, using Zoom, didn't work for the choir.
They found it impossible to produce good harmony because of members’ different internet download speeds.
Planning for this virtual performance recording began in the summer with every singer producing their own vocal track against backing music.
They then produced their own video film.
Most of the sound and vision recordings were done in members' own homes although one was done at Walmer beach.
Dover District Council paid £212.50 for the engineer from the winter round of its Community Grants Scheme.
The Snowdown Colliery Welfare Male Voice Choir was formed in 1929 by miners travelling from South Wales to work in the Kent pits.
Snowdown Colliery, near Aylesham, finally close in 1987.
Bill Haley and His Comets' recording of Rock Around the Clock, in 1954, brought rock and roll into mainstream culture globally.
The single reached number one in the charts that year,both in Britain and America.
The choir's video can be seen here.
