The Ditty Bops

Vocal duo

The Ditty Bops, the Los Angeles duo of Amanda Barnett and Abby DeWald, offer an unclassifiable mixture of vintage ragtime and swing styles, folk-music idealism, modern pop, and a bit of imaginative eclectic experimentalism. Tying their sound together are their tight vocal harmonies, which appear in almost every song, and the theatrical quality of their live presentations. The Ditty Bops select a different visual theme, complete with distinctive costumes, for each show, and their concerts have involved such novelties as puppets and unicycle riding. In 2006 the Ditty Bops undertook their Bicycle Tour, which saw them riding across the United States and stopping to give concerts along the way.

Barrett, born around 1979 and raised in the Topanga Canyon area near Los Angeles, is the daughter of former circus performers. Her father was a clown who had given up touring by the time she was born but continued to perform at parties and corporate functions. Her mother was part of a Celtic musical group devoted to pagan worship, and she taught Amanda to play the dulcimer. DeWald, a year older, grew up in Northern California's Shasta County. The predominant music in her household was classical, but she later became fascinated with blues guitar and classic ragtime.

The two met briefly at the University of California at Davis, where DeWald was an art major (she later contributed the drawings that showed up on the Ditty Bops' album covers and website). The meeting made little impact at the time, and Barrett returned to the University of California at Santa Cruz, to evenings that were often spent in local karaoke bars. The tall, slender Barrett spent several years working as a fashion model, and the two moved independently of one another to New York City. They met again at a midnight showing of the cult film The Rocky Horror Picture Show in Manhattan, and this time the friendship grew. On one of the first occasions when they spent time together, they discovered a common passion for juggling; later they sometimes incorporated juggling routines into their musical act.

The two became a romantic couple, returning to California around the beginning of 2002 and settling in Los Angeles, but the creative relationship was trickier. "We had this insecurity that we couldn't make our different styles work," Barrett told James Reed of the Boston Globe. "I was really into experimental synthesizer stuff at the time, and Abby was listening to a lot of Western swing." The two performed for a time in a band that did covers of 1920s songs, and they began to work out their distinctive vocal harmonies. Their new act acquired a name when an elderly neighbor who played old jazz invited them up to his porch for a jam session after they wandered into his yard looking for a lost cat. The neighbor, Marty Kupp, became fond of the two women and encouraged their performing ambitions. "Some people grow orchids, I grow Ditty Bops," he would say (as Barrett told L.A. Weekly), referring to an old slang term for musicians. The name stuck.

After the two began performing around Los Angeles, working rehearsals and gigs around their jobs at a Los Angeles farmers' market, it didn't take long before they began to garner press attention. Each Ditty Bops show was a revelation; for instance, they might show up in a variety of costumes such as prom dresses, Lone Ranger masks, or superhero garb. And their fan base was broad. "We get all kinds of people at our shows, from grandmothers who like the old-timey stuff to little kids singing," Barrett told Reed. "But we also had this guy who was a total [metal band] Slayer fan who said he had driven 13 hours to see our show in Seattle." After half a dozen shows, the duo were signed to the Warner Brothers label and released their debut album, The Ditty Bops.

The album was a mixed bag stylistically, filling out Barrett's mandolin and DeWald's guitar with dulcimer, piano, violin, trombone, and ukulele at various times. Various guest musicians appeared, and the producer was Mitchell Froom, who had worked with Crowded House and Suzanne Vega, among other artists. The album's only cover was a version of the pop standard "I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate," which a farmers' market baker had originally taught DeWald to play on the ukulele. The duo's original songs evoked folk and pop styles ranging from those of Simon & Garfunkel to modern times. "You'll be listening and think, 'That sounds kind of like …' Then, before you can put your finger on it, Amanda Barrett and Abby DeWald are onto something else," wrote Anna Lazowski in Horizons. The slightly off-kilter vintage folk rockers Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks were an important influence, and were named by DeWald as her favorite band.

An appearance on the radio show A Prairie Home Companion gained the duo a national audience, and proved that they didn't depend exclusively on stage props for their appeal. The Ditty Bops also toured with 1960s pop icon Nancy Sinatra, vocalist Tori Amos, the heavily theatrical band the Dresden Dolls, and progressive acoustic trio Nickel Creek, trying out new material for a second album that would be based on the freewheeling atmosphere of their live shows. The 2006 release of Moon Over the Freeway inspired a Newsweek reviewer to comment that the album "sounds like what Betty Boop might have had on her iPod." Once again there was one cover, of the Everly Brothers' "Bye Bye Love." Mixed in with old-time pop influences was a streak of social commentary in the typically adventurous Ditty Bops lyrics. "Angel with an Attitude," in the words of Monterey County Weekly writer Stuart Thornton, "sounds like it is being sung in a '20s-era supper house by a pair of female vocalists wearing sequins and feathers." The duo used the sound to satirize judgmental religious attitudes ("I've got God on my side./Who's that? I don't know./But I'll practice my religion while I'm stepping on your toes").

Some Ditty Bops lyrics also reflected the duo's environmental consciousness, which grew after DeWald's car was wrecked after she lent it to a friend. She began riding a bicycle, never replacing the car, and her devotion to bicycling became the basis for a grand theme for the Ditty Bops' 2006 tour in support of Moon Over the Freeway. They launched their Bicycle Tour, which took them across the United States on bicycles with the support of a van driven by a band member. A Bicycle Bikini calendar marketed at shows along the way depicted Barrett in a bikini on an old-fashioned bicycle with one giant wheel and one very small one, with DeWald behind her holding a parasol over Barrett's head. Despite hills, wind, and a close encounter between DeWald and a wildcat near Monterey, California, they had made it over the Rocky Mountains by the middle of 2006, posting daily updates on their website and accepting sponsorships from readers to benefit organizations that promoted cycling. Along with a knack for audience rapport that they picked up along the way, the two women acquired bike repair skills while on the road. "Maybe that will be another line of work to look into at the end of this," Barrett quipped to Jason Kellner of the Reno Gazette-Journal.

For the Record …

Members include Amanda Barnett, mandolin, vocals; Abby DeWald, guitar, vocals.

Formed in Los Angeles, CA, c. 2002; signed to Warner Brothers label after very few shows; released The Ditty Bops, 2004; appeared on the PBS A Prairie Home Companion radio program; toured with Nickel Creek; released Moon Over the Freeway, 2006.

Addresses: Management—Gary Stamler Management, 3055 Overland Ave., Ste. #200, Los Angeles, CA 90034. Website—The Ditty Bops Official Website: http://www.thedittybops.com.

Selected discography

The Ditty Bops, Warner Bros., 2004.
Moon Over the Freeway, Warner Bros., 2006.

Sources

Periodicals

Boston Globe, June 10, 2005, p. C12.

Chicago Sun-Times, October 25, 2005, p. 50.

Horizons, Summer 2005, p. 39.

Inside Bay Area, June 9, 2006, Music section.

Interview, September 2004.

Monterey County Weekly, May 25, 2006.

Newsweek, May 29, 2006, p. 31.

Reno Gazette-Journal, June 9, 2006.

Wisconsin State Journal, May 31, 2005, p. D1.

Online

"Goddesses," LA Weekly Music, http://www.laweekly.com/music/music/goddesses/1501 (July 4, 2006).

"Gotta Have My Bops," The Advocate, http://www.advocate.com/currentstory1_w.asp?id=28951 (July 4, 2006).

"Our Story," Ditty Bops Official Website, http://www.thedittybops.com (July 4, 2006).

"To Watch For: The Ditty Bops," Paste Magazine, http://www.pastemagazine.com/action/article?article_id=772 (July 4, 2006).