I was surprised Saturday night.

I was channel surfing and came across a program on PBS featuring Doo-wop, a form of music popular in my younger years — much younger years.

Seeing groups performing Doo-wop on PBS is nothing new; the programs appear quite often on PBS, especially during their fundraising periods. What surprised me was who was performing the music.

Instead of seeing groups like the Coasters, or Frankie Lymon, or Little Anthony, the majority of performers were younger artists; what I now in my older years call “kids.” These young people were wonderful. In a past column I lamented that the younger singers of today who perform popular music can’t sing; that they swallow their words and mumble, and get so close to the microphone that they almost eat it.

That wasn’t the case with these singers I heard Saturday night. Their voices were bright, and the words came out clear and very understandable. The harmony was great, especially when they were joined by some of the original artists. I sat there and enjoyed every minute of the program, and sang along with the groups — something I rarely do, because my voice can pierce a dog’s ear and peel paint off a wall. And a bucket doesn’t help.

It’s great to see the younger generation pick up the torch and continue the tradition set by groups like The Temptations, The Platters, The Drifters, Dion and the Belmonts and the Four Seasons. Many of the young performers interviewed during the program said they weren’t interested in today’s popular music and found Doo-wop more appealing. As someone who grew up in the 50s and 60s, that was good to hear.

Like country music, jazz, blues and gospel, Doo-wop is a distinctly American form of music with its roots going back to the 1930s and 40s with groups like the Ink Spots and the Mills Brothers, who sang harmony and in many cases a cappella. It blossomed in the 1950s and 60s and then began to fade a little. The most recent performance of Doo-wop was Billy Joel’s performance of the song, “The Longest Time,” in the 1990s. It’s good to see the revival.

I grew up on rock n’ roll, jazz and big band. My father was a country music fan, and I didn’t appreciate that genre until after he died and I lived in an area where the radio stations blared rap and hip-hop. I have oldies, R&B and big band stations marked on a music app on my phone, and I listen to Glenn Miller, Cajun and Zydeco music through YouTube on my laptop.

But I always go back to the oldies to listen to 60s rock and Doo-wop.

And I find myself agreeing with Kevin Kline’s character Harold in the movie “The Big Chill,” when he’s asked if he had “any music from this century” while Procol Harum’s “Whiter Shade of Pale” from the 60s plays in the background.

“There is no other music,” he responded.

John Surratt is a staff writer for The Vicksburg Post. You may reach him at john.surratt@vicksburgpost.com