Re: [Harp-L] Re: Mustang Sally

[icemanle@xxxxxxx]

Good points.
 
It is a guaranteed dance floor filler, regardless of how well it is played. 
 
Perhaps this leads to a negative mindset amongst less enlightened musicians - they know in their hearts when they play a song badly - if it is received with standing "O's", it feeds a sense of "audience doesn't know anything about music" amusement and eventually a lack of respect towards the "civilians" and the song that they love. This can poison the attitude towards playing "Mustang Sally". (Check out the -eye rolling- musicians when this song is suggested and you will know who this applies to).
 
How about forming an attachment to the song - the lyrics, the groove, changing the groove, whatever, to become personally involved with its performance.
 
Take a tip from performers such as Tony Bennet - perhaps he is "tired" of "Left My Heart in San Francisco". However, every time he sings it now, it sounds like the first time. A GREAT crowd pleasure for him, I'm sure.
 
The Iceman
 
 
-----Original Message-----
From: billybudd1313@xxxxxxxxx

   
  1. It's too easy from a crowd-response perspective.  It's like the "electric 
slide" at a wedding.  Almost any middle-of-the-road live music audience will 
pack the dance floor for Mustang Sally, regardless of how good or how poorly a 
band has performed to that point.  
   
  2. As a result of #1, every blues/soul/RnB/classic rock...etc band for the 
last 25+ years has played it, or had it requested over and over.  It gets to a 
point where enough is enough.  
   
  3. As a result of 1 and 2, many performers are either sick of playing it, or 
they associate it (far too often) as a tune used by "hacks" to compensate for a 
lack their own of entertainment value.  The feeling I perceive is "Why play 
'that song' if I don't need to?"
   
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