Boy wonders ... But what does the future
hold for the Choirboys?
Choirstalls in cathedral cities across the land may soon vibrate to a different beat. Universal Classics has just announced the signing of a new crossover act and, yes, they are a trio of angel-voiced little lads. Laydees and gentlemen, it's time to introduce the Choirboys.
A touch unimaginative branding-wise, perhaps, and potentially confusing for devotees of either mellow Midwestern folk or Aussie hard rock.
But these boys - CJ Porter-Thaw, 11, and his 12-year-old bandmates Patrick Aspbury and Ben Inman - are all about bridging different musical traditions. Kitted out in sharp designer suits rather than geeky cassocks (most unfit for hanging out in 93 Feet East, dahling) they're rumoured to be recording a broad-based selection of tunes.
These range from traditional choral numbers such as Allegri's Miserere all the way to Eric Clapton's Tears in Heaven (which might, thinking about it, not be all that different). The Hollies' ever-reliable classic He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother also features on the Choirboys' debut disc - though, in a winsomely pedantic touch sure to win the hearts of village choirmasters everywhere, it's been renamed He Isn't Heavy, He's My Brother.
Maybe Friday afternoons make us look askance at all this, but we can't help wondering what will happen to the Choirboys when the spotlights fade and the A&R man packs his bags.
Heroin and crack-whore hell it may not be, but ex-choirboys can't have the easiest time when the voice shifts abruptly down a gear and a glittering singing career suddenly, cruelly, hits the bumpers.
Whatever happened to Anthony Way, sweet-voiced star of TV's The Choir? (His Wikipedia entry isn't sure.) To Ernest Lough, spoken of as the best boy treble of all time? (Quiet career in advertising, apparently.) To the anonymous ranks of sailor-suited lads in the Vienna Boys' Choir? Where do they all go? Just think of what's happened to poor, dear Charlotte Church. You wouldn't want that, chaps. Dear me, no.
But it may not, God willing, come to that. Porter-Thaw, Aspbury and Inman have got the original comeback chorister on their side. None other than Aled Jones (he of Snowman anthem Walking in the Air) is the band's manager. After that stint on Songs of Praise, Aled, surely the only way is up. Those boys have nothing to fear.
