Worth the Wait: Oakwood's Unique Singing Group

Founded in the 1980s, this a cappella singing group traipses through the holiday season in Victoria-are garb, singing carols.
by Matt Lail | photography by Liz Condo

On a chilly night in 1984, Haskell Fitz-Simons had a spur-of-the- moment idea. The then-artistic director at Raleigh Little Theatre convinced a few eager souls to don their finest — tuxedos for the men, sequined gowns for the ladies — and head over to Historic Oakwood to sing a few Christmas carols.“Haskell loved to sing. He had to sing,” remembers Lee Baker, his friend and a member of the Oakwood Waits. “So, he grabbed a few people and said, let’s polish up some carols.”

It was a modest beginning, as far as origin stories tend to go. But that night was the beginning of the Oakwood Waits, a group that, over the past four decades, has become synonymous with Christmas in Raleigh.

The Oakwood Waits are one of the region’s preeminent a capella singing groups. But they are also known for what they wear: authentic-looking Victorian- era garb. Not long after the group’s founding, then-member Vicki Olson made the first of the costumes that the Oakwood Waits are known for to this day. “We’re not pretending to be people from the 1800s,” says member Jon Parker Douglas, a bass in the group.

“But the Dickens look is already burned into people’s minds of what Christmas looks like — we look like an old Christmas card.” What started as a quartet on that first night doubled soon after. By Christmas 1993 the Oakwood Waits had added a fourth soprano-alto-tenor-bass quartet, plus an extra soprano.

Today there are still 17 members. The crew has various day jobs, including a lawyer, a therapist, a waiter, a social worker, a coder and an educator. Says Baker: “It’s a bunch of people who just love to sing.”
The term “waits” is — like the clothing its members wear — a throwback to the Victorian era. In those times, waits were street musicians or singers, like night watchmen, who would mark the passing of the hours by singing “all is well.” Baker, a soprano, was invited to join the Oakwood Waits in 1993.

Today she and tenor Eric Ellenburg are the two longest tenured members. Members credit the sense of community for their longevity. “It feels like my choral arts family,” says Douglas, who joined the group in 2018, two years after moving to Raleigh. One doesn’t get to be in the Oakwood Waits just because he or she is a great singer — members tend to stay in the group, so there are rarely auditions, and
the bar is high in terms of its members’ musicality.

“We are a cappella but we are not conducted,” says Baker, “so we have to be really well-rehearsed. We rely on eye contact and close proximity.” The Oakwood Waits also don’t just sing“the hits.” (The familiar carols that “everyone knows,” according to Baker, are referred to collectively as “the Chestnuts.”)
The ensemble sings popular carols and novelty songs, but they also sing early American shape-
note songs and tunes in other languages like Spanish, Latin, German and Catalan. The Waits
maintain an impressive set list of some 150 songs. The group will likely perform about
90 of those songs in a holiday season of 25 to 30 performances.

Rehearsals are key for the Waits, particularly for lesser-known Spanish carols like “Riu Riu Chiu” or more technical songs, like “The Shepherd’s Farewell.” More recently, the group has worked on mastering “Christmas Time Is Here.” “It’s a deceptive little booger,” says Douglas. “We’ve been spending an oversized amount of time working on it.” The hours of rehearsal have paid off.

The Oakwood Waits have recorded three albums (the most recent in 2017), perform annually at the governor’s Executive Mansion and have been invited to sing in the East Room of the White House three times — the most recent time being just last year. “It was enchanting,” says Baker, who has had the honor of singing all three times at the White House. Last year’s concert was for the White House’s staff
and families, which Baker called “a very big honor.”

But the Oakwood Waits emphasize that they are just as honored to sing for children, neighbors or residents at lo cal nursing homes. (For years, “Jingle Bells” was the only children’s song the group knew, until around 1998 when it added more. Today the Waits have a solid 30 minutes of children’s songs.) The group, which is a 5 01(c)(3), hosts a benefit concert each year, with proceeds going to a charity. This year’s concert, to be held Dec. 15 at St. Michael’s Episcopal Church, will raise money for Western North Carolina hurricane recovery relief.

The group’s connection to Historic Oakwood remains special. In the early days, most (if not all) of the members lived in or around the neighborhood. Today, that isn’t the case, but the annual traipse through Oakwood — typi cally the Saturday before Dec. 23 — remains a homecoming of sorts. On that night the group walks the streets, singing carols among the old homes — some of them Victorian, a fitting backdrop to their period costumes. In the early days, the traipse would start around 6 p.m. and not end until the wee hours of the morning. “That’s the night where we let our hair down,” says Baker. These days, the Waits tend to complete their singing at a more reasonable time, as many have families to mind or a slate of gigs the next day. They also continue a tradition of performing in the neighborhood during its annual Candlelight Tour of histori c homes .

Fitz-Simons passed away in 2013, but the imprint he left from the early days of the group continues on — as do the costumes of a bygone era.

“In an era of ‘cringe,’ when people have a hard time taking things seriously, it feels like a throwback to being genuine and celebrating aspe cts of Christmas that I love,” says Douglas. “The costumes give people permission to step out of who they are. They let themselves be trans- ported to a less cynical time — even if just for a few minutes.”

Baker adds: “A lot of people will say, it’s not Christmas until we’ve heard you.”