DATE: Friday, July 18, 1997                 TAG: 9707180111
SECTION: DAILY BREAK             PAGE: E1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: LAMONT-DEANGELO FEREBEE, CAMPUS CORRESPONDENT 

                                            LENGTH:   49 lines

BAC II BAC MAKES SWEET MUSIC

A SWEAT-DRIPPING, vocally diverse, and highly choreographed performance could mean one of two things. Either the Temptations have made a comeback or Bac II Bac has taken the stage.

For the past six years, twenty-some-things Walter Winslow, Carl Williams, Victor Spence, and Wheelman Andrews, also known as Bac II Bac, have gone from singing songs they hear on the radio to producing their own music.

``We can get a song together in 30 minutes,'' said Winslow. Just start with lyrics from one or two members, add vocal arrangements by another, and by the time it has reached the final member of the quartet, the song is complete.

``Everyone has a strong decision,'' said Spence ``We vote on everything.'' That includes the type of music the group will perform. Bac II Bac prides itself on its versatility. The group can move easily from a hip-hop tune to a slow ballad, but R&B is the group's preferred style.

Although Bac II Bac has spent the last few years performing in clubs and high schools and opening concerts up and down the East Coast, the group hopes to hit it big. Along with manager Gary Singleton, the singers are putting together their first album and keeping their fingers crossed.

You could say Bac II Bac got a sweet start. All four worked at the Fudgery at Waterside. There they sang as they prepared the hot fudge treats. Nicholas Jones, now the group's executive producer, happened by one day and liked what he heard. He suggested the fudge fellows get together and enter a local music competition. The group won and was headed to Amateur Night at the famed Apollo Theater in New York. Last December, they won five Amateur Night performances.

Each member of Bac II Bac has a strong sound cultivated by years of practice. Together they put down a harmony that compares with the Temptations of old or the contemporary group Blackstreet. Although they're flattered by the comparisons, the members of Bac II Bac hope to establish their own identity.

They're not family, but the musicians conduct themselves like kin, said Williams. ``It's like brothers. When one of us is doing something, all of us are doing the same thing,'' he said.

The group's resume includes opening for Aaron Hall, Brian McKnight, Horace Brown, After 7, Nas, and recently Snoop Doggy Dogg, just to name a few. But Bac II Bac doesn't limit itself to large, young audiences. It also takes time to perform at Sentara Hospital for the Aging. MEMO: Lamont-Deangelo Ferebee is a sophomore at Norfolk State

University. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by JIM WALKER, The Virginian-Pilot

Bac II Bac...

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