from l-r: Scott Leonard, Sean Altman, Barry Carl, Elliott Kerman

Originally created in 1981 as "The Lunchtime Specials", college friends Sean Altman, Elliott Kerman, David Stix, and Dean Ziff were the very first incarnation of an a cappella group that would go on to become Rockapella. They formed out of Sean's love for music while he and his pals were studying at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. Funny enough, Sean and Elliott (along with friend and future Rockapella member Steve Keyes) had been in another a cappella group while at Brown called "High Jinks", but not at the same time.

from l-r: Dean Ziff, Sean Altman, Elliott Kerman, and David Stix

In 1986, with the addition of Steve Keyes, Rockapella began performing on the streets of NYC.

from l-r: Steve Keyes, Sean Altman, David Stix, Elliott Kerman

Not long after forming, David Stix left the group to pursue an art career, and was replaced by Charlie Evett. (David Stix has since passed away, if I recall correctly. Unsure what happened to him.)

After performing at a dinner party for TV personality, Kathie Lee Gifford, the guys made an appearance on hers and Regis Philbin's NYC morning talk show, performing a cover of the Harry Belafonte song, Zombie Jamboree. This caught the eye of producer Gerard Brown, who invited them to perform on the PBS "Great Performances" TV special Spike Lee & Company - Do It A Cappella, which put them in the national spotlight. However, before the special could be filmed, Charlie Evett left the group to pursue a career in software design, and was replaced by Barry Carl. Barry originally didn't want to join the group, feeling that they were nothing more than a barbershop quartet, and that wasn't his scene. However, after Sean called him every day for a month, he relented and joined the group.

The video for Zombie Jamboree, with Steve Keyes and Charlie Evett in the group -- taken from Charlie's YouTube channel!:

The video for Zombie Jamboree, from Spike Lee & Company - Do It A Capella, with Barry in the group:

This documentary got them noticed by an unlikely company. In 1990, WGBH Boston was working on a gameshow for kids, due to the terrifying reality that kids in the US were absolute garbage at geography. The gameshow was to be based on the Broderbund Software computer game, Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? and the creators wanted Rockapella to be invovled. The guys agreed, but however, Steve Keyes had left the group to pursue a legal career. They put out an ad in a few music magazines, looking for a new high tenor to join. The ad was answered by Scott Leonard. Scott auditioned and Sean and the guys liked what they heard, making him the new high tenor of the group.

Sean and childhood friend David Yazbek began writing the show's theme song, which has since went on to be an icon to all us '90s kids. Even so to the point that Rockapella always finish their concerts with the song to this very day!

On the show, the guys were the house band, did all the ambient melodies/background music, and even found themselves as "fellow gumshoes" to the contestants. There were also hilarious skits, such as Scott as "The Dying Informant", in which he would do dramatic death scenes as he gave clues, Barry Carl as Mrs. Pumpkin-Klanger, the upstairs neighbor, etc. The guys would also do musical interludes where they would often supply contestants with clues.

During their time on Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?, they continued to tour, even doing a tour of Japan in 1992, presumably during the show's off-season. In 1993, they added a new member, Jeff Thacher, who became the group's vocal percussionist.

A gif of Jeff and Sean.

Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? ended in 1995, and during the show's final episode, Sean had show host Greg Lee (who was in character as Phil the Barber) cut his iconic braids. Sean has given various reasons throughout the years as to why he cut them. In 2020, during a livestream, he said he "no longer wanted to go through the rest of the '90s with hair from the '80s". In a blog post from the lateish-'90s, early-2000s, however, he said that he cut them as symbolism, as he was preparing to leave Rockapella, and felt it was a way to shed his association with the group so he could lead into his solo career. Sean's a bit of a mystery sometimes.

As stated above, Sean did leave Rockapella to go solo in 1997. He was replaced by Kevin Wright, and Scott became the leader of the group. I admit that as a huge fan of Sean's, I stopped following the guys when he left, so apologies for my knowledge being sparse from here on out.

Next to leave the group was bass singer Barry Carl, who left in 2002 to focus on other things. For the most part, he's stated that he's retired from performing. He was replaced by George Baldi III.

Elliott Kerman left the group in 2004, to also focus on a solo career and other musical projects, being replaced by John K. Brown. Interestingly enough, Elliott, Sean, and Barry formed a new group called XRP (eX-RockaPella) and began performing.

Scott and Jeff are the only Carmen era members left in the group to this day.

The current line up of Rockapella is Scott Leonard (high tenor), Jeff Thacher (vocal percussion), Calvin Jones (tenor), George Baldi III (bass), and Manny Houston (tenor).

In October 2022, Sean, Scott, Elliott, Barry, and Jeff reunited at Elliott's home to do a livestream autograph session, where Carmen host Greg Lee joined by webcam. I took part in the chat with them, it was so fun! The guys cracked jokes, read comments, Sean flirted with everyone in the chat (LOL), and they finished the stream by performing the iconic Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? theme.

A photo of the guys from the October livestream. Still looking fantastic all these years later.