Karaoke Singers Are Just One Step Above A Jukebox
It’s 5 p.m. at the Sunset Bay Bar on Long Lake and one of Spokane’s original rockers is back on stage.
But Dick Baker, who helped form the “Blue Jeans” in 1954, isn’t banging on the drums like the good old days.
The portly man in the blue ball cap and Bloomsday T-shirt perches on a stool surrounded by racks of high-tech electronic equipment.
Baker, 58, stuck his blue suede shoes in a closet some time ago. The music he plays these days comes as canned as supermarket corn.
The bald rock relic is now one of the area’s premiere karaoke kings. He sells the sophisticated sound units and owns five that he hires out to taverns and parties.
Today, Baker is cueing sound tracks and calling out names at the Sunset, which he owns with his friend, Bobbie Small. One by one, members of the audience troop up to grab a mike and belt out tunes that range from moldy oldies to fresh hits.
The arrangements are polished and antiseptic. Lyrics appear on Teleprompters that also display generic music videos.
Karaoke is music’s affirmative action program. It gives even the tone-deaf an opportunity to pretend they are Elvis or Madonna for a few minutes.
Musicians like me view karaoke the same way faithful Baptists view the anti-Christ. “It’s twisted,” says a guitar-playing pal of mine. “You ever see me doing karaoke, put a bullet through my head and put me out of my misery.”
The major gripe is that pre-recorded karaoke music puts living, breathing musicians out of work. The other gripe is that karaoke is just plain tacky.
But more and more professional singers, argues Baker, are starting to see the value of this insidious Japanese entertainment form that invaded the United States about a decade ago.
“It’s a dog-eat-dog world and you’ve gotta go where it’s at,” says Lee Anne Mitchell, a throaty country singer who has performed all over the Northwest. Mitchell has her own karaoke unit that gives her an income in addition to driving a logging truck.
With karaoke, Baker adds, “you don’t have to worry about musicians who get drunk or stoned and don’t show up.”
True enough, Dick. And if you feed enough quarters into a jukebox, your ears will never be violated by some drunk butchering show tunes from “Cats.”
Had it not been for this “Amateur Hour” venue, Baker counters, some singers would never have discovered their hidden talent.
He has a point and her name is Tara Madder, 17, who recently graduated from Suncrest’s Lakeside High. Tara began wandering into Baker’s open-mike Sunday karaoke fests last summer.
“She was so nervous and quiet I had to turn the microphone up as high as it would go,” says Baker, throwing in a laugh. “But she kept getting better.”
Tara has it all: stunning looks, stage presence and a big-time voice reminiscent of some of today’s top-selling country crooners.
The other day, she won the Eastern Washington Karaoke championship, beating out 11 other singers with far more experience. In August, she will go to Orlando, Fla., to compete against karaoke-ites from all 50 states for the national title.
The young woman says her singing career began at age 5, when her mother bought her a Smurfland tape. “I memorized it all,” she says. “I don’t watch much TV, but I listen to the radio and I’ve learned all the words to about every song.”
Tara is a natural blessed with a clear, expressive voice.
She’s not the only karaoke wonder, either.
Julie Kenyon, 39, never sang outside the home until three years ago, when a friend got her into karaoke.
Wall Street should sell shares of her voice. It’s that fine.
Which is why Tara and Julie should find some real live bands to sing with. Leave karaoke to the amateurs and the tone-deaf drunks who want to be Elvis.
, DataTimes