When asked if visiting women’s colleges was the reason for founding the Duke’s Men, Parker Towle ‘55 responded that he could not confirm but was unable to deny. Indeed, once upon a time, in the days when Yale was male, gay life was largely closeted, and the northeastern landscape was dotted with all-women’s colleges, the highest aspiration of the Duke’s Men of Yale was a weekend at places such as Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York. Parker’s wife of 50+ years was a student there when he, Paul Thompson ’55, Walt Farrier ’54, and a few other visionaries founded The Duke’s Men. Skidmore was a favored destination of the earliest Duke’s Men tours. Draw your own conclusions.
As da doox grew in prestige, so did their hunger for more exotic travel. What if the delights of rock stardom during a concert weekend at Skidmore could be replicated every night for a week? Or even two weeks? The mind boggled. The Whiffenpoofs went to Bermuda every spring. Should da doox aspire to anything less? And so it came to pass that under the leadership of Pitchpipe #3 Jeff Freeman ’57, Business Manager Jon Foote ‘58 and the unlikely harmonic convergence of a year when two Ohioans (Todd Kendrick ’57 and Bob Hewett ’57) were both in the group, in the spring of 1956 The Duke’s Men took their first Spring Tour to Ohio. Why Ohio? As Jeff explains it: “Why would you go to Ft. Lauderdale in early April for two weeks of beach and sun with hordes of kids from other colleges when you could be singing to rapt crowds of captive coed collegians amazed at the audacity of Ivy Leaguers willing to travel around to Ohio campuses and entertain crowds for nothing more than pitchers of 3-point-2 brew?”
Fast forward 60 years, and the Duke’s Men of 2016-17 spent their Spring Tour in China.
Many tours, large and small, near and far, separate these bookends, but based on countless stories from many generations, some things have remained constant. Freedom from the rigors of academic life for a short period of time (remember, for much of this history, no cell phones, no internet to stay in touch with school) bring an intensity and focus not only to performances, but to the personal dynamics of the group. The extensive planning and concentrated and intense execution cause each group to get to know itself better, with members cementing the bonds of friendship (and occasionally, annoyance) that form during the school year on campus. It is safe to say that, the occasional malcontent aside, each generation of Duke’s Men has thought itself lucky and at the cutting edge of exploration and fun on Tour. At this, our 65th anniversary, we celebrate the Tours. Exploring what was exotic and memorable will tell us a lot about where the group was at different times in its history.
In addition, continuing our recent practice of calling out a particular era of the group’s history for recognition, we will this year bring some special attention to da doox of the ‘80s. At our 55th reunion we celebrated the group’s first decade, roughly 1955-65, its Founders and First Followers. At the 60th, we focused on revolution, especially the effects that the protests of the end of the ‘60s on the group from round about 1968-78. After the turmoil of the 1960s (in the early years President Brewster’s veering away from the emphasis on the prep-school educated sons of alums and outreach to the best and the brightest men that our nation’s public schools had to offer, and later the anti-war protests that closed the decade) and to a lesser extent the 1970s (when the campus came to know co-education and the cynicism of post-Watergate America), the 1980s were a period of relative optimism and calm both nationally and on campus. For da doox, the decade was bisected by the only death ever to occur of an active member. We’ll hear how these and other events affected the membership, music and tours of that generation.