Twisted Tales: Sex Scandal Severs Singing Senators Supergroup

Posted on Jul 3rd 2009 2:00PM by James Sullivan
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This Fourth of July weekend, you might feel moved to cue up Jimi Hendrix's 'Star-Spangled Banner' or the Ray Charles version of 'America the Beautiful.' Maybe Neil Diamond's 'America,' if you're feeling especially swell-chested. But your Independence Day playlist would be a lot longer if the Singing Senators hadn't broken up with such spectacular fireworks.

Formed in 1995 to sing a barbershop-style version of 'Happy Birthday' for fellow U.S. lawmakers, the Singing Senators were four Republican legislators with a shared taste for four-part harmony. Mississippi Sen. Trent Lott sang bass; Missouri's John Ashcroft sang baritone; Vermont's Jim Jeffords sang tenor, and lead vocals were handled by Larry Craig of Idaho.

The Singing Senators quickly made a name for themselves outside politics, performing on 'The Today Show' and with the Oak Ridge Boys. Taking instruction from Guy Hovis, a Mississippi organizer for Lott better known as one-half of Guy & Ralna, one of the more popular featured acts on the old 'Lawrence Welk Show,' the Senators recorded an album, 'Let Freedom Sing,' in Nashville in 1998.

But all supergroups are saddled with baggage, and the Singing Senators had more than their share. Ashcroft lost his re-election bid in 2000 -- famously, to a dead opponent (Missouri Gov. Mel Carnahan, who died in a plane crash two weeks before the election). Next, Jeffords bolted the Republican party to become an Independent.

Following the departures, some members went solo. Ashcroft, appointed Attorney General in the George W. Bush administration, began making appearances singing his own over-the-top patriotic ballad 'Let the Eagle Soar.' Though Michael Moore mocked the song in his documentary 'Fahrenheit 9/11,' Hovis sang it with a straight face at Bush's 2005 inauguration. (Ashcroft's attempts to get his staff to sing it at their daily briefings didn't go over so well. "Have you heard the song?" one attorney asked a reporter. "It sucks.")

Craig, meanwhile, debuted his own solo act with help from 'Late Show With David Letterman' bandleader Paul Shaffer. Playing at a private fundraiser, the Idaho senator sang a song about Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito to the tune of 'Maria,' from 'West Side Story.' He and Shaffer also worked up a duet on the Irving Berlin pop standard 'Anything You Can Do,' trading lines such as "I bring home the pork" -- "I stick it with a fork" and "I can dodge the press." "Not getting caught?" "Yes!" "That's what I thought."

Those lines would soon sound creepily prophetic. Though the Singing Senators (minus Jeffords) reunited in June 2007, the comeback was short-lived. The day before the group's reunion, Sen. Craig was arrested at the Minneapolis airport for lewd conduct in a men's room. The scandal effectively killed off the Singing Senators' career for the last time.

So much for Yankee doodles.