Buster is home from school and looking for heavy-lifting jobs that can pay him well for using his bigness, but he’s also putting together a repertoire of selections for a piano bar gig he’s looking at. I heard him tooling around with “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown” and realized he must be running out of ideas. Any requests?
May 14th, 2008 at 2:17 pm
How about the long piano riff from Eric Clapton’s “Layla”?
(Actually it’s a piano-guitar duet, but a piano-only version should work.)
And then there’s “Round and Round” by Ratt - I’m not certain I’ve ever heard it done piano-bar fashion - but it is at least not a cliche.
May 14th, 2008 at 2:19 pm
Requests?
1. “One for the Road”
2. “Piano Man” of course — then again, I am from Long Island
3. “I Guess I’ll Hang my Tears out to Dry”
4. “In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning”
May 14th, 2008 at 3:16 pm
If it is a Pat O Briens type place where everyone is singing needless to say he better get bye-bye, miss American pie down because he will be asked for it every hour
American Trilogy by ELvis is a huge favorite
New York New York of course
May 14th, 2008 at 3:44 pm
Always good to have a well-rounded repertoire — little bit of jazz/blues and classical mixed in with the pop standards.
Gershwin
Beethoven’s Pathétique Piano Sonata
Rachmaninov
J.S. Bach
May 14th, 2008 at 4:37 pm
Lots of things by Bruce Hornsby and Jackson Browne can be great for solo piano. My oldest created beautiful arrangements for “That’s Just the Way It Is” and “Fountain of Sorrow,” among others.
Buster might also explore the Vince Guaraldi catalog. Vince was the guy who did the “Charlie Brown Christmas” soundtrack, but was also a very popular straight-ahead jazz player with many albums out before and after that. His most famous pre-Charlie Brown piece was probably “Cast Your Fate to the Wind.”
May 14th, 2008 at 4:38 pm
“You Don’t Know Me” - Ray Charles
We always request that one when we go out. And the player somehow always knows it.
May 14th, 2008 at 4:40 pm
I forget what the real title is, but “Everyone Must Get Stoned” by Bob Dylan comes to mind as a fun friend maker. Too much fun, sometimes.
“That Old Time Rock’n'Roll” by Bob Seger - has a wicked piano part.
“Leader of the Band” - a good tearjerker
“I Love you just the way you are” if it’s that kind of atmosphere.
May 14th, 2008 at 5:04 pm
If you have a Music & Arts store near you, they have something called the Big Fake Piano book. I need to go buy a new metronome (have two & I think students have both of them!) over the weekend & I’ll try to remember to look at it and get the name to you for Buster.
May 14th, 2008 at 7:13 pm
“I Left My Heart in San Francisco.” Slow and easy.
May 14th, 2008 at 9:44 pm
“Play Misty for me”
Stardust
My way
May 15th, 2008 at 6:24 am
“Something in the Way She Moves” by the Beatles
“Bridge Over Troubled Waters” by the Beatles
“Unchained Melody” by the Righteous Brothers
“Killing Me Softly with His Song” by Roberta Flack
May 15th, 2008 at 11:35 am
#7-”Everybody Must Get Stoned” is actually titled “Rainy Day Women”.
What, nobody recommended “Feelings”?
May 15th, 2008 at 3:37 pm
“At Last” by Etta James
Anything by Cole Porter
Anything by Billy Strayhorn (check out the album, “Something to Live for - a Billy Strayhorn Songbook” by John Hicks)
The Notre Dame fight song if people will be singing along.
May 16th, 2008 at 8:23 am
The Ohio State fight song to encourage people to sing along (unless he’s playing to a crowd of Michigan alums, in which case he’d best not sing it). Nobody with any true soul would recommend “Feelings”.
Or if he really wants to take advantage of his “bigness” and would like to visit Virginia - I have a front and back yard in urgent need of attention!