Ever since Jim Hopper joined the barbershop quartet in 1978, he’s dedicated the days leading up to Valentine’s Day to performing songs for people’s loved ones. Hopper, the Longs Peak Chorus marketing vice president, said receiving the gift of a Singing Valentine from the barbershop quartet marks an experience which, for many of its recipients, becomes the most meaningful Valentine’s Day gesture they ever receive.
Beginning every February, Hopper and his fellow vocalists take requests from people who name a recipient, a place and a time for the quartet to deliver a Singing Valentine. On average, the group travels to approximately 50 locations in Longmont between Feb. 12-14 to carry out orders, Hopper said.
The $40 for a Singing Valentine guarantees a rose for the recipient, as well as a two song performance from the barbershop quartet.
During each performance, which lasts about half an hour, the barbershop quartet, adorned in black tuxedos and bright red ties, harmonizes the words to the classic love ballads Let Me Call You Sweetheart and The Story of the Rose.
Throughout the years, the Singing Valentines have brought smiles to a lot of faces, according to David McWilliams, a member of the barbershop quartet. At the same time, the performances lead to “unique and special occurrences every year,” McWilliams said, which is what inspires him to want to keep doing them.
For McWilliams, two of the most outstanding Singing Valentines he’s helped deliver came when the separate recipients were at opposite edges of their lives.
A couple of years ago, the barbershop quartet responded to a Singing Valentine for a mother and a newborn child who had just been brought home from the hospital.
“We were singing for the mother and a newborn baby at the same time and it was the first time the baby had ever heard any music,” McWilliams described, “and the look in the mother’s eyes when she held that baby just made that day very special for us … and I think for them as well.”
On the flip side of the coin, although on an occasion of equal importance, the quartet delivered a Singing Valentine for a woman who was bedridden and who had been unconscious for a while before their arrival. Miraculously, “we sang two songs and the woman woke and said, ‘that was lovely,’” McWilliams recalled.
The next day, he received a call from the woman’s caretaker informing him that she had passed away overnight, and her last words had been those she’d said in praise of the quartet the day before.
For Hopper, his favorite Singing Valentines are the ones the group delivers to Longmont’s elementary schools, “because the kids just go crazy for it,” he exclaimed.
The barbershop quartet takes orders for Singing Valentines to be delivered to homes, office buildings, restaurants and various other locations. Once, the quartet received a call for a performance in an emergency room.
“On more than one occasion, there’s a tear or two shed, and a hug, and a kiss, and the look on peoples’ faces both of surprise and appreciation,” McWilliams said.
For Hopper, McWilliams and the other members of the barbershop quartet, it’s just as endearing for them to deliver the Singing Valentines as it is for people to receive them, McWilliams stated.
“It’s just a hoot,” Hopper said with a laugh.
