Some guy in New Jersey once told me, if you can't dance to the song, don't play it - he was right. I adhered strictly to his philosophy and it paid off in spades. Soon I had more jobs than I could handle, the audiences were always happy when I arrived, and I've been able to return every month to these locations and wow the audiences with more new songs. Both of the songs Donny posted would put my audiences to sleep. They may be "covers" but I'm not really sure why. Maybe the definition of covers needs to be explored in greater detail. I'm sure these songs would go over well with the American Idol crowd, but my foot-stompin, dancin', hand-clappin' audiences would quickly begin to yawn when the second verse kicked in.

"Originally, Billboard and other magazines that track the popularity of musical artists and hit tunes measured the sales success of the published tune, not just recordings of it. Later, they tracked the airplay that songs achieved, some cover versions being more successful recording(s) than the original song(s).[1] Cover versions of well-known, well-liked tunes are often recorded by new artists to achieve initial success when their unfamiliar original material would be less likely to be successful. Before the onset of Rock 'n' Roll in the 1950s, songs were published and several records of a song might be brought out by singers of the day, each giving it their individual treatment."

That said, I would be interested in hearing Donny and others do both of these songs using the arranger keyboard ONLY! No midi files, no MP3 backing tracks - just your creativity, your vocals and the keyboard.

Cheers,

Gary