You see more arrangers in one block in Mexico than in an entire city in the U.S., as a rule.
I know of only one other guy playing one in the Shreveport metro area. A few years ago there were several, but most have died! One exception I almost forgot. One of the Mexican restaurants uses guys from Mexico quite a bit. They all play arrangers, most of them quite old, such as early Korgs, and PSR 2000s, etc. They usually are just here for a short while and then disappear. Maybe they go back to Mexico? Every one I've seen there has been really good.
There is just nobody promoting them or demonstrating them. I get a lot of people, many of them musicians, who are interested in what I'm doing, but even when I explain it they don't really comprehend. It's very common for someone to ask if I do my own tracks!

Also, I think the general public has come around to enjoy and appreciate a scaled down performance with just guitar or piano and vocal. At least here in my travels here in the States when I go to hear solo and duo acts , it seems pretty rare to hear guys using tracks and drum machines. That seemed to be the norm for years but I think that has been changing, at least in smaller venues that don't have a dance crowd.

So true about Mexico! Some of best arranger players I've met are Mexicans. There is guy in my wife's home town that was a big rock star in the 60's singing Spanish language covers of American Rock N Roll hits, and now he plays on the patio of a chicken joint. He plays an old entry level Yamaha, but he plays and sings so great that you forget he's basically playing a toy. He can sing and play like Nat King Cole and of course he kills the Latin stuff. Nice guy, I invited him to my in laws place and we jammed all day! Another guy I meet, lived just a few doors down from my in - laws. He used a prs 900 and muted the auto bass and played his own parts with pedals. Amazing player! For a few bottles of tequila he taught everything I needed to know about my Tyros. Good times!

I have sold three arrangers to my friend Angel Campos in Mexico. He bought PSR8000, PSR2100 and Korg PA3X. He has a cousin who lives in South Texas and I get them to him and he takes them across the border.
I also sold a PSR 2000 to one of the guys playing at the Mexican Restaurant in Bossier City. He had one that he had worn out and wanted another one just like it!

In my neck of the woods, I’m the only arranger player around that I know of. Most local venues are college bars, with solo or duo acts on guitar doing original material, or small combos playing either blues, or styles that I can’t describe----because I don’t know what it is. Most of the wedding receptions and big events seem to go with large R & B, or funk bands from the bigger cities around. I’ve had good luck adding a great woodwind player, vocalists, and, occasionally, a drummer, none of which have problems with arrangers. It’s nice having a special niche that arrangers can provide, especially for small dinner/private parties, receptions, and the like, where larger bands would be overkill for those particular events.

I've used my Arranger with a band but as just as keyboard doing LH Bass/ Organs & Piano. Also just Organ and Piano with a different band.
No Arranger players here. One band called Ross2, a husband and wife team uses one. The husband just changed to a Yamaha 710 from a BK5 but just uses it for drums which he heavily edits. Along with that he does LH Bass and Piano. The wife uses a Keytar and plays the he** out of it doing guitar, brass, and synth parts. They both sing. My favorite band here.
Keyboards in general are not big here at all.

Paul, when I played with Zim, mostly at a local restaurant in west Baltimore called Kibby's, most of the time I played the keyboard as just a piano, which I'm not very good at, but he thought I was. Most of the time he had a drummer with a minimal rig, but there were times when I used the keyboard styles with most everything nulled out but the drums and one right hand voice. He had a vibe player from the US Navy Band that was absolutely sensational, and IMO, better than Lionel Hampton.

When I was at the Palace Las Americas in Cancun, they had an arranger keyboard player on stage every night at the shows, even when the big bands were performing. He was using a Yamaha, but I never could see the model number, just the name off to one side and it had a black case. I'm thinking it was a PSR-5700, which was a fantastic arranger keyboard when it came out. Just 35 styles and about the same number of voices, but the sounds were fantastic, especially the piano and vibes voices.

Now, I have not heard you sing, but I have heard your wife sing on several occasions. She has a great voice quality and she interacts very well with the audiences. The reason I offered the information about the voice lessons at the colleges, is because at the very first part of your post you said no one would want to hear you sing for four hours. Maybe the would after the lessons - I don't know. When I was in Nashville, I came across a lady that offered articulation and diction courses for up and coming singers. During her career, she worked with a huge number of the nation's top singers and had rave reviews from them all, including Elvis.

All the best,

Gary

I use my arrangers in my band, but can't use auto acomp because only half can keep time with it. To be fair, this is a senior band with hearing issues. However, I am the foundation, as well as major soloist, so the people know full well I am playing, yet when I do my own songs for specials and breaks, many think my KB is a damned jukebox, and all I do is push a song selector button and the rest is Karaoke or MP3. I, sometimes, pull a Gary tutorial for the uninformed, but it is a losing battle, and as long as the audience enjoys my music it remains just a vanity issue.

Exactly Bernie all we are to them is someone who is operating an AUTOMATIC Gizmo that makes some kind of music.....if your a good singer it will OFFSET the stage presence suedo DJ persona giving you a better credibility when they know your singing to some kind of musical background be it playing some kind of instrument, backing tracks, or whatever....
sadly no body cares how it's done,.....as long as you produce music for them to dance, listen, enjoy, they are happy and who can blame them young or old.

Also it helps if the audience can see your hands and you have a good stage presence. Try not to let big binder or laptop block the audiences view of your hands.