I took Geneva over to Del Lago on Sunday morning to check out the "Neil Diamond Tribute" karaoke. It's not "come up and sing" karaoke -- it's a guy with all the Neil Diamond karaoke CDs and a system, and (only) he sings. He's actually pretty good, and the old ladies were groovin' to it. He doesn't really "imitate" Neil, but he sings a lot like him, and wears a fancy shirt and gold chain. He's probably 55 or so himself, pretty close to Neil's current age, I'd guess.
Counting us, there were probably a dozen people there at the peak (all *not* his wife and friends). The interesting part is that he got people out there (and his "steak house in Dana Point" gig, and a private party in the condo complex across the street later that day) on the strength of his "come hear Neil Diamond songs" promo. If the poster had said "guy singing along with karaoke box", nobody would have been there. But these folks showed up 'cuz they knew what to expect.
Makes me wonder about, at least, the Marketing/wording on our "poster", and, at most, possibly doing something similar but with a James Taylor spin.
To start with, I can replace "Family-friendly classic pop" on the poster with something more specific, like a list of Featured Artists. Sorting the List by artist yields clumps of James Taylor, Beatles, Paul Simon, and Willie Nelson. I'm willing to leave Willie off the list, since although I think people like his songs (or these few, anyway), most folks around here probably don't think of themselves as Willie Nelson Fans. Maybe something like " James Taylor, Beatles, Paul Simon, and many more". Maybe stick Chris Isaak in there, for the young(er) ones.
Or, more extreme, we could do some kind of "James Taylor Night". On the Long List, there are 15 JT songs, some of which we don't *really* do, but which I can kinda do, and might could be worked up better (Mexico, Sarah Maria, Daddy's Baby). And I can probably work up a batch of the easy but not compelling (to me) ones. We could advertise a "Tribute", do all the JT songs in one "set", and see if the folks roped-in thereby (if any) would hang out a little longer for some non-James-but-along-the-same-lines tunes. That JT hook sure seems to work on coffee shop owners, as an intro line...
