Music Scene
Take 6 raises a cappella vocals to a special level

By Derek Paiva
Advertiser Staff Writer

Take 6, from left, Joey Kibble, David Thomas, Claude McKnight, Alvin Chea, Cedric Dent and Mark Kibble, makes its Honolulu debut in a pair of pops concerts today and Saturday with the Honolulu Symphony at the Blaisdell Concert Hall. Take 6 Pops concerts with the Honolulu Symphony 7:30 p.m. today and Saturday Blaisdell Concert Hall $15-$55 792-2000 Also: Colon will be the opening act on both evenings

Rehearsals for the group's November tour of Japan? A 10th Take 6 album, set for release in February? Two Honolulu pops concerts this weekend with the Honolulu Symphony, perhaps?

"It has everything to do with everything," said McKnight, laughing. Including an altogether new task for the six-member gospel-infused vocal cadre best known for its masterfully crafted, sweet-as-honey harmonizing: playing their own instruments on stage.

"We all play instruments, but we've never done it with Take 6, and we've never done it while we've actually been singing as well," said McKnight. "Because we're so known for a cappella, it's almost cost-prohibitive for us to bring a band out for maybe three or five of the possible songs we do with instrumental backing. This will let us change things up a little, maybe even change the dynamics of the band, so we're very excited about it."

Take 6 — the group also includes first tenor Mark Kibble, second tenors Joey Kibble and David Thomas, baritone Cedric Dent and bass Alvin Chea — has been busy with more than a few music-related activities of late.

Yep, that really was Take 6 backing longtime friend Stevie Wonder on an instrumentally spare, but vocally rock-solid, live performance of "Love's In Need Of Love" on Sept. 21's "America: A Tribute to Heroes" national telethon.

"Three days before the telethon, Stevie called Mark and asked if the group could participate with him," McKnight said of a travel odyssey that required the group's Nashville-based members to fly to Los Angeles. "We rehearsed the song with Stevie the day before, and then did it that night. But we pulled it off, and it went very well."

As somber as the occasion was, McKnight was moved by the common purpose everyone at the celebrity-studded gathering displayed that evening.

"Whether they were performing or answering phones, there were no egos there," said McKnight. "And it was just incredible to see all of these people ... doing the same thing."

Take 6 also recently completed work on "Beautiful World," an album of mainstream pop covers — albeit pop covers with a spiritual bent — that band members grew up singing or just plain lyrically admiring. "Beautiful World's" diverse track list includes covers of Sting's "Fragile," Peter Gabriel's "Don't Give Up," Bill Withers' "Lovely Day" and Wonder's "Love's In Need Of Love," among others. In the tradition of Take 6's nonsecular reworking of Ambrosia's "Biggest Part of Me" — an adult contemporary and R&B radio hit in 1994 — the album's title track is a spiritual adaptation of Donald Fagan's "I.G.Y.: What A Beautiful World."

"We tried to make sure that the songs fit into the scheme of what we do lyrically, but would also be songs that were recognizable by mainstream audiences," McKnight said of the new album.

The first version of what eight years and one major label recording deal later would become Take 6 was formed in 1980 by freshman

McKnight within the confines of his Oakwood College dormitory in Huntsville, Ala. More precisely, within its cavernous men's room.

"Well, that was a special place," laughed McKnight. "Because, of course, anybody who can sing, and even people who can't, know that you just sound better in the bathroom because of the acoustics. And it just so happened that we were blessed because the dorm had a bathroom so large that we could all fit in there and actually rehearse. We didn't perform a lot, but we were really into honing our craft. Whenever we could, we were in that bathroom learning, learning, learning."

Initially called The Gentlemen's Estate Quartet and then Alliance, college graduations spun the group through a number of personnel changes before it signed with Warner Bros., which offered the sextet a contract in 1987 after hearing a demo tape. The group renamed itself Take 6 after the legendary jazz standard "Take Five" and, no surprise, the number of guys in the group.

The group's self-titled 1988 debut was an instant success, eventually selling more than 500,000 copies and earning two Grammy Awards for Best Jazz Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group, and Best Soul Gospel Performance by a Duo, Group, Choir or Chorus. The last 13 years have seen Take 6 take home an additional five Grammys, 10 Dove Awards, and the respect of countless music idols (Ray Charles, Don Henley, James Taylor, Quincy Jones, Ella Fitzgerald, included), who subsequently invited the group to record or perform with them.

Since 1988, the group's lineup has changed only once, when original second tenor Mervyn Warren was replaced by Mark Kibble's younger brother Joey in 1991. McKnight (older brother of R&B chart-topper Brian McKnight) credits the stability of Take 6's lineup to the strong religious beliefs that have always permeated its members' music and lives.

"I think that our faith is now more a part of who we are musically, individually and collectively than in the beginning," said McKnight. "We try not to do anything when it comes to Take 6 without having a certain amount of spirituality involved in it. I think the only way that we've been able to keep it together is to take everything to the Lord prayer-fully."

McKnight expected this weekend's concerts — the band's first Hawai'i appearances — to mirror the fan-pleasing heavily a cappella performances the band has focused on for the last three years. Which, at least this time around, means a Take 6 straight, without their own instruments.

"We'll probably do four or five songs with the symphony, and then plenty of a cappella to balance that off," McKnight said.