Celebrating 40 years as the University’s premier male a cappella group, Grains of Time organized a concert Saturday as a tribute to groups past.

The group, composed of eight members, has diligently worked for a year to recruit former Grains of Times groups to return to the stage, according to Daniel Knight, a senior in history and political science who has been a member since 2005.

Knight said the performance will include about 50 Grains alumni, including almost all members from the early 90s and the original group from 1969.

“We are really wanting to showcase through the years with the Grains,” Knight said. “We’re going to come out, do a couple songs and then introduce the next group and chronologically go from the original members and work up. We are going to focus the concert on the Grains as a whole through our history, all 40 years.”

Milton Bliss, former faculty member of the Music Department, said he first founded a smaller men’s vocal group from select members of the Varsity Glee Club in 1967. Each year the Glee Club would tour, performing at high schools around the state, he said. The new group, originally named the Statesmen, was intended to extend the length of the shows as well as perform music that was more appealing to high school students, according to Bliss.

“I tried to form a group with a more modern type of singing,” Bliss said. “At that time the Kingston Trio was prominent, the youngsters liked the folk songs and ballads.”

The group was also briefly known as the Bell Towers, Bliss said, before settling on the Grains of Time in 1969.

“I don’t know why that particular name was suggested but that’s what they wanted,” he said.

Although the Grains included acoustic guitars as late as the 1980s, Bliss said it has operated as a self-managed, student-run group that performs its own arrangements since the beginning.

“I’m amazed that it’s been forty years,” he said. “I hope they have forty more.”

About 75 percent of the material the group performs is contemporary pop music, Knight said, but songs such as “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” and “Stand by Me” have been passed down from previous incarnations.

“It’s the Grains’ tradition to keep those songs alive and to keep them performed,” Bliss said. “In the history of the Grains, there has always been a steady change in the styles of music.”

With respect to the pieces they actually perform, regardless of pay, it all depends on their audience.

  “A lot of times, they’ll ask us [to sing certain songs] beforehand,” Stephen Wrightenberry, a sophomore n mechanical engineering said. “I know the chancellor loves ‘Boardwalk by Brad,’ so every time we go sing for him, he wants to hear that song.”

Because of the flexibility of song choices and performances, Knight said it has helped the group continue.

“You have some student groups that strictly remain to just student organizations, but then you have some groups that strictly stick to just paid gigs,” he said. “There are benefits to both, but this flexibility is one characteristic of the group that has always been there.”

For the anniversary show, they will perform “selections from a couple of different genres- Cold Play, Akon, Alicia Keys, Backstreet Boys and then some traditional songs,” according to Matthew Tucker, a freshman in human biology.

Not only does flexibility exist with song choices and performances, but also within the group. Members have majors ranging from engineering to English. Despite their varying interests, they are united by their love of music. 

 ”We get into this group because we all have some kind of roots in music and we want to continue that,” Brad Wood, a junior in textile engineering, said. “We all have some tie back to music that we just want to develop and in this group I have heard some of the best talent, even better than those that are getting paid to do it and I am just really proud to be a part of it.”

Nathan Leaf, director of choral activities, is the faculty advisor for the group. He said while he offers occasional input, they are largely self-run.

“The Grains are a credit to the University and a credit to the music department, and they work very hard to be an outstanding ensemble,” Leaf said. “They put in a lot of time and a lot of hard work and they come up with good results.”

With the night drawing near, the Grains, beloved by the late Coach Kay Yow among others, is becoming increasingly excited. 

“It seemed like this night for the 40th anniversary would never come and now it’s here,” Wood said. “It’s going to be something truly amazing.”