I'm a bit like DonM in that I never sang until one night when our guitarist/lead singer didn't show up for a gig and it was like, "Hey, can you sing?", "er, no", "okay, here's the words". LOL! That was many years ago and I've sang ever since.

I'm also a bit like Hellboy in that my wife and I are a duo. We're both pretty decent singers, certainly no Karen and Richard, and I consider myself a good keyboard player and our audiences have never complained. We don't use midis or mp3's, just style playing and I think that as long as people recognise the song and you do a competent job of it, they really don't care much if it's not exactly like the record. To counter that, I think that younger audiences are less tolerant of 'loose' covers since they've been brought up on having ready access to the original recordings via ipod's and such.

montunoman: The voice is like any other instrument, practicing always improves it. Here's a link to a BBC website that has some handy hints, etc. on singing. Hope you find it useful.