Sean Altman - Rockapella Years

Rockapella Years

After graduating from Brown together, Altman and fellow High Jinks member Elliott Kerman joined classmates Steve Keyes and David Stix to form a new a cappella group called Rockapella. Rockapella began its career humbly, performing on street corners in NYC while Altman still focused primarily on his Blind Dates work. The group's repertoire consisted of a mix of barbershop arrangements and a cappella renditions of classic doo wop pieces. As the group grew in experience and Altman honed his vocal arranging skills, they began to focus less on oldies and barbershop, and more on contemporary rock music. A dinner party performance for television personality Kathie Lee Gifford led to the group's 1988 appearance on the ABC-TV show Live with Regis and Kathie Lee. Rockapella's performance of Altman's signature arrangement of the calypso novelty standard Zombie Jamboree caught the eye of producer Gerard Brown, who invited Rockapella to perform on the PBS "Great Performances" TV special Spike Lee & Company - Do it A Capella, which featured established a cappella acts Take 6, Ladysmith Black Mambazo and Rockapella's idols The Persuasions. Elektra Records released Rockapella's live recording of "Zombie Jamboree" as a single, and the group's recording career was launched.

Producers of the future PBS Kids game show Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? took note of Rockapella's talents and signed the group to appear as the show's comic troupe and vocal house band. The half-hour game show aired daily for five years, catapulting Rockapella into mid-level television celebrity and making the Rockapella-performed theme song (penned by Sean and his childhood friend David Yazbek) into one of the best known television themes in history. Altman is particularly remembered for his trademark blond braids, which were ceremoniously sheared in the last episode of the fifth and final season by the show's host Greg Lee. The soundtrack to the show features five of Altman's original songs, including the aforementioned theme song and a duet with The Persuasions on "My Home". A sequel album co-produced by Altman was entitled Carmen Sandiego: Out Of This World and contained four Altman compositions as well as contributions from the rock bands XTC and They Might Be Giants. While Carmen Sandiego ran in the United States and Canada, Rockapella released seven albums in Japan, on which appeared a total of 14 original songs written by Altman both solo and in collaboration with others. The group also toured Japan briefly during this time.