Tony Backhouse

Tony Backhouse (born 1947) is a musician from New Zealand. He played in NZ bands such as The Crocodiles, and formed Australian a cappella groups, the Elevators, the Cafe of the Gate of Salvation, the Honeybees and the Heavenly Lights. Currently he lives in New Zealand and works as a singer, composer, author and workshop leader, in the areas of vocal arranging and Gospel Music.

Backhouse completed a B.A. (English), and B.Mus. (Composition) at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, under the tutorship of composers David Farquhar and Jenny McLeod. He later completed a graduate course in ethnomusicology (focusing on blues and gospel) at University of Memphis, USA.

Backhouse composes and arranges mainly for a cappella choirs, always with an ear to vernacular traditions – contemporary funk, African choirs, gospel – and to anything polyphonic. Works that typify his style are Jubilation and in the Shadow of Thy Wings, (Café of the Gate of Salvation).

In the early seventies, Backhouse composed and performed music for NZ radio, theatre and film, but most of his energies were spent in NZ funk/soul/pop bands, including Mammal, Spats, Rough Justice and the Crocodiles (which won three Recording Industry Awards in 1980).

Relocating to Australia in 1981, and following the demise of the Crocodiles, Backhouse formed his own band, Vulgar Beatmen (with ex-Crocodile Jonathan Zwartz and ex-Rough Justice Peter Boyd and Mike Gubb) and sang and/or played guitar with Renée Geyer, Joe Walsh, Jenny Morris, Jackie Orszaszcky and many others. He has arranged and recorded backing vocals for Dave Dobbyn, Tim Finn, Vince Jones, Justine Clarke and the Umbrellas.

Backhouse's songs have been recorded by Jenny Morris, Renée Geyer and others, and he has contributed to film soundtracks including Sweetie (Jane Campion), Rodney & Juliet (Fane Flaws) and Brain Dead (Peter Jackson).

In the mid-eighties Backhouse became fascinated by the Black gospel tradition, and, as a result, increasingly involved in community music, choral directing and running vocal workshops. He founded the a cappella quartet the Elevators, a cappella gospel choirs the Café of the Gate of Salvation and the Honeybees and a cappella quartet the Heavenly Light Quartet.

Backhouse has received awards from the Contemporary A Cappella Society of America and composer commissions from The Song Company and the Australia Council. In 1990 he received an Australia Council International Study Grant to research Black gospel traditions at Memphis State University. In 2006, his song Lost in the Heavenly Light was nominated for the Australian Classical Music Awards for Vocal Work of the Year.

Since 1987, Backhouse has been running vocal workshops throughout Australia and New Zealand, Canada, the Pacific Islands, France, Italy and the UK, and has been a solo performer at festivals throughout Australia. He has published two African American gospel songbooks 'A cappella – Rehearsing For Heaven' (1995; accompanying double CD, 2003) and 'Move on Up' (2005), and a book on directing vocal groups, 'Freeing the song'.

His current activities include running workshops in a cappella traditions, composing and arranging for vocal ensembles and choirs, singing with the Heavenly Light Quartet (whenever he gets to Sydney) and recording original music with long-time colleagues Peter Dasent and Fane Flaws under the name Bend. He runs a community gospel choir in Napier, NZ, and plays bass & guitar with Fane Flaws' band No Engine.

Beware The Man – Sam Hunt & Mammal (1974)

Tears – The Crocodiles (1980)

Looking at Ourselves – The Crocodiles (1981)

The Café of the Gate of Salvation (1991)

A Window in Heaven – The Café of the Gate of Salvation (1994)

Rehearsing For Heaven (gospel anthology & tutorial) (2003)

Deluxe -The Café of the Gate of Salvation (2004)