Joost, let me say that you are an exceptional player, however, I agree with everything Boo stated above. I guess I'm somewhat fortunate in that I've always had a decent voice. My vocals provided me with a good living when I was doing voice-overs for car commercials on local radio and TV, it kept the family fed when I did newscasts on the radio, and it still provides me with a good income as an OMB entertainer.

That said, I'm not, by any stretch of the imagination, a good musician. Sure, I can play most of the chords I need to put most songs together, and provide some right-hand lead and comps, but there are 12-year-old kids that can play circles around me. Now, I have performed in Europe when I was a young kid in a small band when in the employ of the U.S. Navy. And at every location we performed, mostly in the Mediterranean area, the audiences loved us, and we were not that good by a long shot. I'm not sure, however, if they loved my vocals, or just loved American music because it was new and exciting to European audiences back in the late 1950s. We played mainly in bars, but the only drunks we had to contend with were American sailors.

Boo's statement pertaining to Karaoke is right on the money. My sister and brother-in-law go to the local American Legion every Friday night for Karaoke. Neither of them sing, and they applaud for nearly every singer that gets up there and makes horrible noises they sincerely believe sounds great. When I ask my sister why she applauds for those horrific vocals, she usually responds "We'll, they just having fun, and we have fun listening to them." For the life of me, I've never understood that mentality - especially when it comes to music.

Gary