Every Wednesday, people can head down to the Qualicum Beach Inn CView Restaurant and listen to the a cappella group Fouray.
Fouray was created in the fall of 2010 by Jay Cousins, Brian Cullingworth, Jim Mick and Barry Jones. Each of them had sung in quartets for the past 20 years.
There decided to join forces as an a capella group in the barbershop-style.
Since then, Jones has retired and Rod McDonald came in as a replacement.
Fouray has expanded from competing to public venue performances, including birthdays, anniversaries, singing Valentines and even a jingle for TV. Most recently, in early 2016 Fouray won the Seniors Quartet Championships within their division for the second time since 2011.
Fouray has a repetoire of more than 50 songs ranging from Rat Pack numbers to doo-wop tunes to blues numbers.
Some of their songs include That’s Life (Frank Sinatra), My Cup Runneth Over (Tom Jones), Hallelujah (Leonard Cohen) and You’ve Got a Friend in Me (from Toy Story). They are currently working on a Simon and Garfunkel arrangement which includes Scarborough Fair, Sound of Silence, Mrs. Robinson, Groovy and Bridge Over Troubled Water.
Cullingworth said that their performances are very intimate.
“We don’t just stand in one place,” he said, adding that they move around to different tables. “You don’t just sing to them, you chat.”
Fouray performs at the restaurant Wednesdays starting at 6:30 p.m. Their sets run for about 45 minutes.
After their first week, Cullingworth said the group was shocked by the positive response they received.
“We’re not bad, the response that we got, we were just blown away,” Cullingworth said.
— NEWS Staff/Fouray