Barbershop music encompass both men's and women's singing in the barbershop style – in quartets and choruses. Sweet Adelines International and Harmony, Inc. are two women's barbershop singing organizations that operate globally and in North America, respectively. Other women's organizations include the Ladies Association of Barbershop Singers (LABBS) in the United Kingdom, the Spanish Association of Barbershop Singers (SABS) in Spain, and the Irish Association of Barbershop Singers (IABS) in Ireland. A barbershop quartet is an ensemble of four people who sing a cappella in the exacting barbershop music genre. In North America most male barbershop quartet singers belong to the Barbershop
Barbershop music Jazz musician Louis Armstrong told of having harmonized on New Orleans street corners as a boy, and NAACP executive secretary James Weldon Johnson "grew up singing barbershop harmony". English "barber's music" was described in the 17th century by Samuel Pepys as amateur instrumental music. The "Encyclopædia Britannica" considers the 19-century origins of the quartet style as "obscure", possibly referring back to barber's music, or dating to when barbershops served as community centers, where men would gather for social and musical activities with barbers traditionally being musicians. Later, white minstrel singers adopted the style, and in the early days of the