Norwood Park Imperials Alumni Forum
If you click on the Message Topic (first column in the table below) then you will see all of the messages for that Topic. You can then add your own comment by clicking the REPLY button for any message. If you click the QUOTE button on a message, that message will be copied into your reply so that it's clear what your reply is about.
You can start a New Topic as well. Just click the START A NEW POST link below.
All we ask is that you keep it neat, clean, polite, and reasonably intelligent.
A number of recent posts spoke about one of my favorite corps .. the Blessed Sacrament Golden Knights. 
In fact, because they are relatively "unknown" to some of our later alumni, I did a bit of research and also added some recent notes for information:
Blessed Sacrament “Golden Knights”
The Blessed Sacrament Golden Knights were a church sponsored corps from Newark, NJ formed to benefit the local youth. They were often referred to as "Blessed Sac" or "BS" (nothing bad intended there!) They began field competition in 1952 and won their first national title in 1954! (Actually, TWO .. since they won both VFW and AL that year). They were champions in VFW and Legion Nationals many times ... winning NINE Nationals between 1954 and 1963. They were known for having an EXCELLENT horn line, an EXCELLENT drum line and great marching. In fact, in their 21 years of competition, they placed first in 82% of their contests!
By the mid-1960s, Newark NJ was having significant economic and race problems .. culminating in riots in 1965. The Blessed Sacrament parish couldn’t support the corps financially and most of the corps members no longer came from Newark. It became increasingly difficult to field a competitive corps and they folded in 1973. For more info, go to their website: www.bsgk.org
Notes from John Anderson:
The "special help" that Sac had was brass arrangers/instructors who knew how to write for the bugles of the late 1950s-early 1960s. They also taught dynamics and breathing. There was no one else comparable to Sac and their sound in that time frame.
The Sac arrangements use all voices (soprano, baritone, french horn and bass). Most of the other corps from that time frame have the first sopranos play the lead and the other voices play WAA-WAAWAA-WAA-WAA as loud as possible, usually out of tune, and without any perceivable phrasing (breath taken in just plain weird places in the music). Frankly, I really can't listen for very long to recordings of any of the other corps before 1963 because of the intonation problems.
From Dave Borck:
My primary interest with BS was their exceptional rudimentally based drum line. But, their brass line was also great. Their arrangements were exceptionally clear and those buglers all played!
Their drum "trap set" in 63 and 64 was ingenious. They used a tenor drummer standing next to a snare, a bass drummer knelt down in front of them and a cymbal player stood next to the set. It was very effective and a great use of existing equipment, years before the "pit" became popular! (You can see this trapset on their website .. look for the 1964 photo album).
More from John Anderson:
Blessed Sacrament Golden Knights (late 1950s through 1964). Their brass arrangers (Bill Hayes and Jim Day) knew how to arrange for the older bugles. I don't believe Sac ever fielded more than 36 horns and were as small as 27 horns in 1962. Would love to hear them with 60 horns. Great drumlines too.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
What did you do in the Corps? drummer
What years were you a Corps member? 1958-63
