Over these many decades of being an entertainer, I've always made it a point to determine what my audiences want to hear. Sometimes it's a real challenge to determine what will get their undivided attention and put them on the dance floor. I've always strived to provide the most diverse program of any band in my area, and in that regard, I think I've succeeded.

In another thread, Chas talked about the demise of Jazz bands, and for the most part I agree with his statements. I really don't know a lot about Jazz, or jazz bands, other than I've never been able to listen to Jazz for more than 20 minutes and then had to switch to something else. Same goes for blues and reggae - after a while every song began to sound the same.

In contrast, I often listen to Willie Nelson albums while driving. Same goes for Jimmy Buffett. I believe they both provide a diverse song list on each and every album they produce, which is why they hold my attention.

Apparently, my preferences seem to coincide with my audiences preferences as well. They tend to enjoy the music I enjoy, which should be no surprise since I'm not that much younger than the vast majority of my audiences. The only exception to that is when I was performing in the Florida Keys, and surprisingly, the spring breakers asked for a lot of 70s and 80s stuff, especially anything by Sinatra. Who wudda thunk it?

A recent survey revealed what many of us probably already knew - Country leads the list of preferred music genres, followed by rock, while Jazz is at the bottom of the list and blues is no longer on the charts at all. A couple years ago, blues was at the bottom, making up just 3 percent of the consumer music sales of CDs. There was a Bar Rescue show that revealed the same data when they rescued a blues bar and transformed it into a another type of venue to prevent it from going bust.

Here's a link to the popularity of music genres that I thought may be of interest to everyone here that performs for a living: MUSIC GENRES

All the best,

Gary