Sheffield singers commission first bespoke song in 48-year history for national contest

A Sheffield chorus is to premiere a new arrangement of a show-stopping song from the hit Sheffield musical, “Everybody’s Talking About Jamie”.

Sheffield Harmony on stage at Harrogate Convention Centre in 2025 | Event Photos

placeholder image — Sheffield Harmony on stage at Harrogate Convention Centre in 2025 | Event Photos

Sheffield Harmony will be performing the knock-out ballad as part of its contest set in the forthcoming Ladies Association of Barbershop Singers (LABBS) annual national competition.

They will sing a specially commissioned and locally arranged barbershop version of the beautiful heart-rending song “He’s My Boy”. The ballad forms the emotional heart of the original musical, which was developed and premiered at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield in 2017 before it transferred to the West End.

Arranger Sam Hubbard is pictured far left, singing with his award-winning quartet The Sharrow Vale Blues | Lorin May

“We absolutely cannot wait to bring this big, beautiful song to the stage at Harrogate Convention Centre”, said Sheffield Harmony Musical Director Ros Kipps.

In the box-office hit musical created by Dan Gillespie Sells (music) and Tom MacRae (book and lyrics), “He’s My Boy” is sung by a mother about her enduring love for her son Jamie, a 16-year-old Sheffield schoolboy.

Sheffield Harmony’s music team spent months searching for the perfect song to fit the chorus before settling on the beautifully poignant and lyrically powerful piece.

Ros said: “We wanted a song that the chorus could relate to, that felt like us and that had a Sheffield connection.”

She added: “A lot of typical barbershop repertoire songs are about romantic love and we wanted something a bit different. The theme of maternal love seemed to suit our chorus, which has plenty of mother hens”.

Sheffield Harmony engaged Sheffield arranger, barbershop expert and music judge Sam Hubbard to create a version of the song specifically tailored to the chorus’s strengths and sound. It is the first time the chorus has commissioned an arrangement in its 48 year-old history.

Sam said: “I wanted to create something that would suit the chorus well, that’s true of any group I arrange for, and I really wanted to give Sheffield Harmony something that would allow them to wear their hearts on their sleeves. The lyrics tell a story that so, so many people will be able to hear a bit of themselves in. And so, my aim was to make it as easy as possible for the chorus to use the song to connect with audiences.”

Before writing the piece, Sam undertook detailed research so that he could deliver the perfect piece of music for the 46 -member strong a cappella group.

Sam said: “A good custom arrangement should fit like a glove and Ros was very helpful in telling me more about each section of the chorus, their strengths and comfortable ranges. I also made sure to listen back to plenty of Sheffield Harmony videos as I was arranging, so that I had the chorus sound firmly at the front of my mind.”

Harmonic and structural tweaks were made to ensure the arrangement fitted the barbershop style. Other musical considerations included the song’s exceptionally wide vocal range.

“The original song’s melody runs the gamut from low to high and needs a powerhouse vocalist with a very flexible vocal range,” said Sam. “One of the beauties of barbershop is that I could weave the melody between the different voice parts.”

Sheffield Harmony sings a cappella in the barbershop style, with the” Lead” part usually taking the melody and the other three parts, tenor, baritone and bass, harmonising around it.

It’s a specialised form of four-part harmony and places emphasis on tuning, vocal blend, resonance, as well as visual expression.

The chorus is one of 15 from across the UK competing in the annual contest in Harrogate on Saturday, October 31, and has been working for months on its contest package, under the guidance of MD Ros, who has been at the helm of the chorus for the past eight years.

She said: “We are really excited because this song feels so very special to us; it's tailor-made for us and we’ve worked so hard in preparing it for the LABBS contest.”