After an impromptu beatboxing lesson from a pro, Paul MacInnes, the Guardian’s slightly disheveled entertainment editor, takes the stage and delivers a valiant if somewhat silly-looking live performance. I gotta say: it’s good to see a reporter who doesn’t take himself too seriously.
“They’ve got a special bit for me in the second half,” he says in the video. “It’s going to involve all my noises.”
Thankfully, it doesn’t.
His tutor, incidentally, is Kevin Fox, the Toronto-born baritone and member of the storied Swingle Singers a cappella octet. Oddly enough, the band was founded way back in 1962 by a hip cat named Ward Swingle, who had to be the only Alabaman in Paris at the time. Swingle and his crew made a name for themselves — and scored five Grammies — doing strangely awesome things like scatting the works of J.S. Bach.
Today’s Swingle Singers make a living selling their sound to big-name TV shows like Sex and the City, The West Wing and Glee. They also put out a CD every year or so, but really — and I’m not trying to be mean here — would you pay £10 or $17 for a cappella versions of Christmas carols and Air on a G String? Maybe I’m just uncultured.
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