Members Shaster Posted October 28, 2016 Members Share Posted October 28, 2016 Sometimes I get so tired of the tried and true that I throw in a tune just for myself. Sometimes those tunes get more response than the sure fire hits. Maybe I play them better because I enjoy them. Maybe I look like I'm enjoying them and the enthusiasm is catching, I don't know, but I am often surprised by what goes over. So this is my short list of tunes that garner applause or comment where the Moondance's of the set do not:Destination Moon - this is an obscure jazz tune but lately people have been responding to it.Rikki Don't Lose that Number - okay this one kinda makes sense, but people actually sing along with this one:Josie (Steely Dan) as an instrumental. Now sometimes this bombs, but sometimes it gets a big hand.The Thrill Is Gone, again not the most joyful tune, but people often really like this one.Sleepwalk, more like the Larry Carlton version. Guitar players like it, and there seems to be a bunch of them. I wouldn't recommend learning any of the above (especially without tracks) because they probably shouldn't work in the first place - and sometimes don't. I guess I'm just curious to see if anyone else has tunes that suddenly and surprisingly go over well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members pogo97 Posted October 28, 2016 Members Share Posted October 28, 2016 "Desination Moon" I first heard that, I think, by Beverly Kenney. I LOVE her. A bit modern for me , but a dandy song. In the context of the songs I do (20s-40s and before), the surprise hits recently have been "How Deep is the Ocean" and "Shenandoah." Uptempo be damned! [video=youtube;WICzHNSiG6o] [video=youtube;khxx3sCVhtE] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members steve mac Posted October 28, 2016 Members Share Posted October 28, 2016 I am finding 80s and 90s hits played acoustically go down well, I think because they are unexpected. For example when I play Together in Electric Dreams (Human League) the audience who would have been boppin to it aged 16yrs are now in their late 40s and at first don't recognize it without the synths and assume it's a folk song. Then slowly their subconscious hears a phrase they remember. I love watching as they nudge others at the table and tell them to listen. Suddenly people of a certain age are singing along. Then I go back to Fulsom and the moment is gone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members pogo97 Posted October 28, 2016 Members Share Posted October 28, 2016 There's something about a song you don't expect to hear, and the lead-up to the moment of recognition, that carries a really strong emotional pull. I love it when that happens. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators daddymack Posted October 28, 2016 Moderators Share Posted October 28, 2016 I have been doing Sleepwalk for years in bands, duos, trios, and try as I might, could not do it as a solo with the looper, it just never quite sat right to my ear.The ones that usually got the most response as a solo: Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, Crazy and of all oddities, Stay With Me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members J.Paul Posted November 11, 2016 Members Share Posted November 11, 2016 I've started playing Donald Fagen's "Ruby Baby" and it's a nice change of pace from the "party songs" I've been doing. You can't sing along, or dance to it, and it doesn't feature an extraordinary performance so based on that, it becomes a "pacer" "listening song" but people seem to like it and know it. I've not played it on the mainland yet though, it's translating on cruise ships.... don't imagine it would work in college towns, but you never know. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators daddymack Posted November 11, 2016 Moderators Share Posted November 11, 2016 well, that song goes back to 1958 [the Drifters] and came back in 1963 [Dion and the Belmonts]... Fagen's arrangement is definitely more jazzy and modern, the the song remains the same... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members J.Paul Posted November 12, 2016 Members Share Posted November 12, 2016 Yeah that's exactly why I rotated it in ~There is so much "out with the old in with the new" on these ships that I just don't have anything for an elderly couple that wanders into the room (they don't wanna hear The Cranberries or Incubus). I knew they would at least know the song from Dion / The Drifters plus it wouldn't a sappy torch song for other (younger) people that had never heard it. I'd like to have the time to build a half hour of this kind of material (Elvis doesn't count) so I've got something for them Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members steve mac Posted November 12, 2016 Members Share Posted November 12, 2016 My audience tends to be older however, at the height of the season it's mixed and so my ideal songs are oldies that have been covered by newer artists, or featured on adverts or film/tv series. So something like Glee was a godsend for me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members pogo97 Posted November 12, 2016 Members Share Posted November 12, 2016 The other night at a jam, my normally-americana-playing buddy trotted out ELP's "Lucky Man." Huge hit with all of us. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators daddymack Posted November 12, 2016 Moderators Share Posted November 12, 2016 did you cover the synth parts? I used to do 'In the Beginning' by ELP...has that neat but simple 'bass' riff... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members pogo97 Posted November 12, 2016 Members Share Posted November 12, 2016 No, nobody was quite ready to do that. I played slide and if I'd had a volume pedal, well who knows? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Notes_Norton Posted November 14, 2016 Members Share Posted November 14, 2016 We learned Mose Allison's "Your Mind Is On Vacation (And Your Mouth Is Working Overtime)" but we play it harder, more like a Chicago Blues Style and people like that. "Shame And Scandal In The Family" originally by calypso singer Sir Lancelot (Lancelot Victor Edward Pinard), updated it, and wrote a couple of verses myself. I've been playing it for nine years now and it still gets requested. It's a song about a boy who asks dads permission to marry and each verse ends with dad telling him no becase "The girls is your sister but your mama don't know". Finally he tells mom and "She laughs and says, 'go man go' because your daddy ain't your daddy but your daddy don't know". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members pogo97 Posted November 14, 2016 Members Share Posted November 14, 2016 Oddly enough, I wrote a conference paper on just that song. It was published by The Canadian Society for Traditional Music and it lives on in their website. https://journals.lib.unb.ca/index.php/MC/article/download/21738/25227(this link downloads the file -- I can't get a reliable link to simply read it) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Notes_Norton Posted November 15, 2016 Members Share Posted November 15, 2016 Thanks. Interesting. BTW, my neighbor is a big Robert Service fan and has many of his poems memorized. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members pogo97 Posted November 16, 2016 Members Share Posted November 16, 2016 It's a great, funny, song. And easy to remember. What more could you want? A couple of years back I ran across another version -- rather dry and long-winded British take on it, I think. From 1934. But the same joke. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Notes_Norton Posted November 16, 2016 Members Share Posted November 16, 2016 On our weekly marina gig, the regulars bring friends and request the song. I like watching the females. Some of them start to get a little irritated by the fourth "your mama don't know' verse, which builds tension. Then when the last verse comes around, the tension is released with a big grin or even a laugh. I've always thought some of the great pleasures of life are attained by tension and release. You get hungry (tension), cook dinner (increase the tension) and eat the meal (release). --- You long for sexual pleasure, flirt (tension), foreplay, (increase the tension), have coitus (even more tension building) and then at the climax comes the giant release. I wish I had a dozen songs that build and release tension like "Shame And Scandal".. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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