Good points, Don. I always figured on 20 to 30 songs per hour, which translates into somewhere between 80 and 120 songs for a 4-hour performance.

When I quit the nite-club/restaurant scene and went strictly to the senior circuit, it was for a couple reasons. First and foremost, the hourly rate was much higher than the bars and restaurants ever paid. Bars and restaurants in Baltimore and the surrounding counties pay an average of $100 per four hour performance for weeknights and $150 for Friday and Saturday. Most do not have music on Sundays, unless it's for a special event.

Additionally, the hours for the senior circuit were far better. Most of the jobs were in the middle of the day, I no longer had to drive in rush hour traffic jams and the vast majority of the jobs were situated just 15 to 20 minutes drive time from home. Gotta love it!

When it comes to tips, I quickly discovered that the locals rarely drop anything in a tip jar. However, if you get lots of tourists from out of town, they tend to be good tippers. That was the nice part about working in Little Italy - lots of out of town folks coming to the baseball and football games at both stadiums, which are relatively close to Little Italy. I'm sure DonM has a fair number of out of towners in his audiences as well at Ernest's Restaurant.

Like DonM, in my song collection, I also have a lot of variety, songs from just about every style category on the keyboard. You never know what will please certain audience members, so you really have to cover all the bases. I can clearly recall when I was filling in for a friend at The Raven Inn in Towson, Maryland one evening and decided to play and sing Black Velvet. An 85-year-old lady in the audience grabbed a 50-year-old man, dragged him out on the dancefloor and did some real close and personal dancing with him. When I finished the song, she walked over to me and said "How did you know that was my favorite song?" Then she gave be a hug and kiss, a big smile and went back to her table. What a night that was. Last time I saw the guy, he was headed for the rest room in a cold sweat.

Gary