Saturday, July 30, 2005
Do I know lounge singers, or just the future?
We've left the friendly confines of My Home Town for the weekend to attend B's family reunion up in Strange City. We find ourselves waiting in the bar of one of those funster chain restaurants, TGI SBWMI Friday's, I think is the name. (Thank God I'm Sitting in a Bar Waiting for My Inlaws on a Friday.)
Just as we sit down, the lounge act -- a classic late 70s folk-pop cover "artist" with an acoustic guitar and a synthesizer -- wraps up Wastin' Away Again in Margaritaville. He warns that he'll be back for another set, and as he packs up, the bar's recorded music comes on with Van Morrison's Moondance. This dialogue ensues.
Moondance.
Five songs later, Brown Eyed Girl.
Do I rule, or what?
**
Just as we sit down, the lounge act -- a classic late 70s folk-pop cover "artist" with an acoustic guitar and a synthesizer -- wraps up Wastin' Away Again in Margaritaville. He warns that he'll be back for another set, and as he packs up, the bar's recorded music comes on with Van Morrison's Moondance. This dialogue ensues.
Oscar: Twenty bucks says he plays Moondance in his next set.Fifteen minutes later, he's back. He opens the set with a langorous jazzy-blues two-chord progression: Doot ... dooooooo...doot ... doooooo...
B: How do you know that?
Oscar: I know his entire repertoire.
B: From hearing him play one song?
Oscar: Okay, either Moondance or Brown Eyed Girl.
Moondance.
Five songs later, Brown Eyed Girl.
Do I rule, or what?
**
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I think if you want lounge singers in bars of chain restaruants to have a more sophisticated repetoire, you'd have to convice the bar to pay them more than 50 dollars for the evening. For 50 (or 100 bucks, which is the usual going rate for a lounge act of that caliber), the fellow isn't going to learn or sequence any new songs. I know I wouldn't.
Which is why I was so surprised 20 or so years ago in a Holiday Inn (when those were still around) in Some Place Far Away From Home to find a trio doing most of Steely Dan - and quite admiriably, too.
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Which is why I was so surprised 20 or so years ago in a Holiday Inn (when those were still around) in Some Place Far Away From Home to find a trio doing most of Steely Dan - and quite admiriably, too.
# posted by 
: 8:36 AM, July 30, 2005
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