I have not heard of a single act who does cover tunes NOT take requests. MY wife carrys hundreds of SMF files and CD tracks of songs she doesn't normally play but has them just in case she gets a request. The tip jar fills up quickly with requests. She encourages requests.

She claims is getting paid as a live juke box for the client and should play what people want to hear. But then again she does not consider herself as a cover player an "artist."

More like someone who traces on tracing paper over the artist.