CHOIR PRACTICE
Choir Practice is a retrospective album by the Choir that has been released in both LP and CD formats. This album was assembled by Bob Irwin and Jeff Jarema from a variety of sources. Most compilations of music by garage rock bands collect the singles and possibly an unreleased track or two. However, in this case, only their classic “It’s Cold Outside” is included on this album; even the highly regarded flip side of this first single, “I’m Goin’ Home” is omitted. (More from Wikipedia)
A retrospective album of music by the Choir called Choir Practice shows a host of styles that the band recorded over the years.
(February 2010)
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After I got a copy of Choir Practice, the retrospective album by the Choir – which someone at a pre-blog bulletin board about the Raspberries told me about – I wrote up an article on that band. They are basically a predecessor band to the Raspberries, before Eric Carmen joined as the lead singer – in fact, Carmen had failed his original audition to join the Choir. Their song “It’s Cold Outside” is one of my favorite songs of that era; it was a big local hit but unaccountably never made much noise nationally. Read about them in Wikipedia at: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Choir_(garage_band) .
(September 2013)
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The Cleveland music scene has long fascinated me; rock bands from the future home of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame included the Choir, the Outsiders, the James Gang, and the punk rock band the Dead Boys. I had picked up a more comprehensive album of songs by the Choir, called Choir Practice, and also an album of material by the Starfires, the predecessor band to the Outsiders who still had that name when they were trying to line up the release of their major hit song “Time Won’t Let Me”. More recently, many years after locating their other three albums, I finally found a copy of Album #2, considered by most rock critics to be the best album by the Outsiders.
(December 2017)
