History

Pull together a group of 100+ men volunteering from all walks of life with varying degrees of musical talent and experience, ask them to sing, and the listener may hear something that resembles beautiful music. But call that group The Vocal Majority® Chorus and stand Jim or Greg Clancy before them in the role of director, and one is in store for an extraordinary musical experience from a group that has touched literally tens of thousands of listeners around the world. The Vocal Majority® Chorus' diverse repertoire encompasses music from barbershop favorites, classics to jazz, patriotic to sacred, rounded out with standards and Broadway pops.

Officially, The Vocal Majority® Chorus is the Dallas Metropolitan Chapter of the Barbershop Harmony Society. Not one of the 12 men who gathered on that first cold night of December 2, 1971, could have imagined the success of the VM. They wanted to form a chapter that would become the finest singing ensemble in the world. So, under the guidance of founder, first president, and marketing director Bob Arnold, the Chorus was born, and Ray Anthony consented to be the first director in April of 1972.

Born to compete, The Vocal Majority® would win its first Southwestern District Chorus Championship in the fall of 1973. In the summer of 1974, seventy-three men mounted the risers as the VM entered its first International competition. After a disappointing third place finish, Ray Anthony convinced VM member Jim Clancy to take the role of director in August of 1974. The Vocal Majority® returned to International competition in 1975 in Indianapolis, yielding the VM's first Gold Medal.