Anyone who thought that Randy Sparks' New Christy Minstrels represented the most well-scrubbed element of the folk revival never reckoned with the Serendipity Singers. This mixed-voice nonet, founded at the University of Colorado by Mike Brovsky, H. Brooks Hatch, and Bryan Sennett, made Sparks' group look like a raw blues band by comparison. They sang magnificently, however, and did sell records; and, like the Christys, in a distantly related form, the name Serendipity Singers is attached to an ensemble that has continued to perform into the 21st century.
Sennett founded the...