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"Play That Barber Shop Chord": A Case for the African-American Origin of Barbershop Harmony is an article written by Lynn Abbott which appeared in the Fall 1992 edition of the University of Illinois quarterly American Music. It is an extensively researched (183 footnotes), 36-page study "which states the theme that African-American quartets of the 1880-1940 period, rather than white quartets of that time, were the originators of barbershop harmony." [Sparks – see below]
Abbott's thesis was acknowledged by Wilbur Sparks, Society Historian. In his January/February 1994 Harmonizer article, "Play that barbershop chord – who?" Sparks states, "His [Abbott's] sources are entirely credible: interviews with people who knew and heard such singers; newspapers and books of that early day and biographies of well-known musicians."