A traditional take on caroling

Music troupe dons Victorian clothing to give holiday a classic touch

RALEIGH -- The carolers at Mayor Charles Meeker's street-lighting ceremony recently were not your typical ho, ho hummers.

They dressed up in bustles, crinoline skirts, mutton sleeves, tails, ascots, top hats and other garb from more than a century ago to belt out their joyous noels.

The Victorian Carolers, 10 friends from Wake County, decided three years ago that for a bit of seasonal merriment they would go into the entertainment business together.

With professional singers in the bunch, they realized they could make extra money by bringing in spouses and friends, donning Dickensian costumes and performing in four-part a cappella harmony at holiday parties and tree-lightings.

Johnny Walters, a language arts teacher at Cedar Creek Middle School in Youngsville, and his wife, Paula, are in the group. She is a professional singer. Johnny Walters plays a rare 1870s Victorian guitar on several of the numbers, but he laments that his voice is not of operatic quality.

"I'm certainly no Pavarotti," Walters said. "I'm in it for the drama part."

Since his teen years in Lexington, Walters has had a flair for the dramatic. On Christmas Eve, he and his sisters used to gather in his bedroom to recite the words of Charles Dickens.

They closed the door to keep their parents out, lit candles and read "A Christmas Carol," Dickens' evergreen morality tale of the miser who was redeemed from a life of bah humbugs by the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future to a hereafter of generosity and kindness.

"I would usually read the voices," Walters, 36, said.

Now, nearly two decades from his high school days, Walters still likes a taste of Dickens during the holidays. Between carols, he dishes up his best British accent, masking any hint of Southern drawl, for audiences that sometimes number in the hundreds.

Their repertoire includes "Deck the Halls," "Carol of the Bells," "Silent Night" and the more modern "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree."

"It's a lot of fun," Paula Walters said.

To hear the carolers, go to http:// raleighcarolers.com/index.htm and click on "sound clips."