Same old song

Marilyn Shriver remembers growing up in a very musical household. Her father, Paul Lamothe ’56, had a funny habit — whenever someone said something that reminded him of a song, he’d break out singing the first line of the tune. “I know a lot of the first lines of songs thanks to him,” she jokes.

When she happened upon an article in a previous issue of UNH Magazine, she realized his musical talents went farther back than
her childhood.

Lamothe was a member of The Salamanders, an octet founded at UNH in the style of Yale’s Whiffenpoofs. They made their campus premiere during the 1951-52 school year, and Lamothe joined the following year, performing at several nearby schools and making a spring tour of UNH alumni clubs up and down the East Coast.

These days, Lamothe’s grandson, Bennett Shriver, is carrying on both the UNH and the musical traditions: He’s a sophomore and a member of Not Too Sharp, one of the all-male a cappella groups on the Durham campus.

“I didn’t find out he went to UNH until I was thinking about colleges, and when I joined Not Too Sharp my freshman year, it came up that he was in an a cappella group here, too,” says Bennett, who is also majoring in music education. He hopes to one day work with high school students as a choir director.

Bennett says around his family home in Walpole, N.H., his mom will sing lines to songs when she hears a familiar phrase — just like his grandpa used to do.

“I do find it really meaningful to have my mom and my grandfather be so musical, and then I’m pursuing this as a career. They’re both really invested and want to see how I grow, and what I might do as a musician,” he says.

For Marilyn, the 2011 UNH Magazine article brought back memories for her and for her dad.

“We found a CD with a recording of an old album of the Salamanders recently. It had a lot of skips but we listened to the whole CD, and he got teary while he was listening,” says Shriver. “Dad turned 89 in March, and his tenor voice is as beautiful as ever.”