[Dixielandjazz] Vocalists

[Larry Walton Entertainment - St. Louis]

When I was a lot younger we were looking for a singer and we put an ad in 
the paper and sent word through a friend who was a secretary at the local 
university music dept.

We were deluged with women who wanted to give it a go.  It was a lot like 
the tryouts for Idol.  The problems that they had were:

1. no experience singing with a mike.
2. had sung with records
3. never sung with a band
4. couldn't read music
5. didn't bring charts they could do.
6. Didn't know what key they sung in.
7. didn't know any of our tunes
8. bad voice quality
9. couldn't sing in tune.

There were other reasons but most shared many if not all of the problems 
above.

Almost all of the wannabees did one or several of the following ---
1. got mad
2. cried
3. wanted another chance
4. told us we had a crappy band
5. thought we were wrong.

The worst one was a gal who had a fair voice and was pleasant to look at but 
you could tell she had no experience with a mike and PA system or singing 
with a band.  She was one of the music majors from the college.  She was 
really bent out of shape when I told her we couldn't use her.  I suggested 
that she work with a mike and PA some because that seemed to be a problem.

I tried to help some of them with a few suggestions but that went from bad 
to worse so I fell back on the old tried and true - Don't call us we'll call 
you. NEXT!

We held auditions for five nights then a young woman walked in and did 
everything right and was a looker on top of it.  We used her for about 5 or 
6 years until her husband got fired (one of the Regan Air controllers) and 
they left the state.  She had her head screwed on right and was very 
professional.  She and her husband had to hustle for every dime and they 
were very focused on making money.  I love talented people like that.  I 
never had to worry if a new tune would be ready or not.  I was in band 
leader heaven.

Cattle calls work but you might get anything and I would suggest not doing 
it.  Find some other way such as Hey baby I'm a talent scout -------- You 
might get lucky or hit in the head.
Larry
St. Louis
----- Original Message ----- 
From: <dwlit at cpcug.org>
To: "Larry Walton" <larrys.bands at charter.net>
Cc: "Dixieland Jazz Mailing List" <dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com>
Sent: Monday, May 28, 2007 4:30 PM
Subject: [Dixielandjazz] Vocalists


> What really ticks me off about so-so vocalists, let alone bad wannabes, is
> their insistence on imposing their egos on the rest of the band and the
> public. Many so-sos are ok for doing a couple of tunes with fun lyrics in
> a live situation as a changeup from instrumentals. But most of 'em are a
> negative value doing more than that, let alone singing any on a CD. And
> their colleagues don't have the courage to record them, make them listen
> to themselves repeatedly, and then tell 'em they [suck] and can't be on
> the CD!
>
> Bill and Larry are quite correct in saying that good style, schtick, 
> panache
> can go along way toward saving bad singing.
>
> --Sheik
>
>
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