Having Fun Is The Main Attraction

Like four alley cats out on a Saturday night prowl, the Main Attraction stepped onto a Pioneer Square street corner nine years ago and started singing.

It was a chilly autumn evening. People - dressed for dancing, bar-hopping or strolling through the square - stopped to watch, applaud and throw money.

The foursome began prowling Pioneer Square bars for gigs.

``During breaks, we would just step up there and take the mikes,'' recalled lead singer Antowaine Richardson. ``We got known as the group that went around and stole other people's audiences. We would just sneak up there and do it.''

It was the beginning of a lasting partnership. Their first album, ``By Request,'' sold 4,000 copies in two years and made the national air waves. Satin Records in Snohomish has just arranged to distribute it in England and Japan. Their second album is scheduled to be released in January.

And they're still singing.

Do wop. Country. Jazz. Ballads. All a cappella.

But now they are stealing shows on bigger stages, and getting paid for it: They have opened for Eddie Murphy, Smokey Robinson and the Four Tops, Charlie Daniels, and Helen Reddy.

They have sung the national anthem at Mariner, Seahawk and Sonics games, and at this summer's Goodwill Games. The group is a regular on the regional college band circuit. They won the best vocal group award for the past two years from the Northwest Area Music Association.

``We are really at a crossroads,'' Richardson said. ``We are able to land these choice gigs in the Seattle area. We are at a level where we could go national. I think we all are dedicated and committed to trying to see how far we can take it.''

They all have families and regular jobs, performing on most of their evenings and weekends.

They talk about their children. Richardson, 32, and his wife, Sheila, have three. Ronnie Rowland, 35, and his wife, Willie, also have three

children, including a newborn daughter. Lee Conerly, 34, has two children, and Tony Graves, 43, has four.

``We are not only burning the candle at both ends, but in the middle as well,'' Rowland said. ``What keeps it going is that it is fun.''

They are good friends. Like every group, they have their squabbles, but the friendship, ambition and love of music that brought them together, keeps them together.

``It is really hard working with four men,'' Richardson said. ``The ego comes into play. We have our viewpoints, discussions, disagreements. We fight. But we always come back. The Main Attraction is bigger than us all.''

``The friendship is what has made it work,'' Graves added.

The men have a polished and seasoned spontaneity, the kind that springs from many years of work. Along with original material, they blend, shape and work old classics into original creations.

``Our a cappella is different,'' Richardson said. ``If you listen to most a cappella groups, they have a group sound. Ours is an individual sound. What we do has to be high energy. There is a lot of spontaneity that comes in. You don't reach that level of comfort until you have been together as long as we have.''

When the Main Attraction opened for Gladys Knight at Bumbershoot this year, the energy was on. In matching white suits and shoes and brown jungle print shirts, they stepped briskly onto the coliseum stage, cool, confident, hands raised in the air.

With their backs to the audience, they opened with bird calls and elephant trumpets, creating a jungle atmosphere for the song ``The Lion Sleeps Tonight.'' Richardson coaxed the audience into a chorus of ``Wimoweh'' as the three others harmonized. Then Richardson slipped in a rich, high alto call before splitting the ``Wimoweh'' harmony into four parts.

From his work with the Main Attraction, Richardson, plucked the part of lead raisin in the popular national California Raisin commercial two years ago. He's the voice of the lead Claymation raisin mimicking the Temptations' song, ``My Girl.''

``They created a caricature of my face and put it into the raisin,'' Richardson said. ``If you look closely at the face of the raisin, it is me.''

Richardson also is the mover behind the group. He got them out on the street corner, and he got them their first real gig, three months at Matzoh Mamma's on Capitol Hill, after they wowed the owner during open-mike night.

``I told the guys you can't just sit back and wait,'' Richardson said. ``You have to have an aggressive attitude.''

The former University of Washington star linebacker is competitive, ambitious and adept at winning. He started on the victorious 1977 Husky Rose Bowl team.

After graduating with a UW engineering degree in 1979, Richardson played football one year for the St. Louis Cardinals of the National Football League before a knee injury landed him back in Seattle as a Boeing industrial engineer.

Rowland, head of security at Edmonds Community College, graduated with a UW sociology degree. The second tenor is nicknamed ``Mr. Enterprise.''

``He is liable to do anything on stage,'' Richardson said. ``Musically, he boldly goes where no man has gone before.''

The guys call Conerly the preacher. His appreciation for harmony grew from his New Orleans gospel roots. But Conerly studied photo technology at Texas Southern University in Houston, and didn't begin singing professionally until he moved to Seattle in 1979, where he landed roles in two Pacific Light Opera productions.

Conerly, who works in shipping and receiving at Microsoft Corp., sings baritone and second tenor.

``Harmonizing is what I enjoy doing,'' Conerly said. ``If fame and fortune come, great. But the important thing is we enjoy what we are doing.''

Graves is the ``human base.'' He can sing the lower octave of the piano, and imitate the timbre of a base guitar string.

Graves, who now runs an auto detailing shop, was a longshoreman in 1981 when he called Richardson and Conerly to form the group. He had been involved in the Seattle music scene since his local group, the ``Ink Spots,'' opened up for Lou Rawls in Seattle in 1974. He sang in another group called the Main Attraction from 1975 until it split up in 1979.

``I decided I had one more shot and it was time to really do something,'' Graves said. ``It took me a year to call them.''

It's been a nine-year bond. Few men sustain such a level of friendship and shared ambition, and fewer still find fame. The Main Attraction hope to be among those few.