How many actually sing and play here?

That's all I ever did - play and sing, including way back when I was playing guitar in smoke-filled Baltimore bars. Back then, though, I had other forms of employment, otherwise we would have starved to death.

Gary

Almost always, but I do have enough material to do all instrumental if necessary.

99.9% of the time ...

As for memorizing tunes, try to recognize patterns such as "stock" chord progressions like (I vi ii V) . You should have a good understand the relationship between the melody and how it relates to the chord. Basic music theory can get you pretty far!

Also this might be too obvious, but rehearse for your gigs! You may have over 3000 songs in your book, but your not going play them all at one gig. Try to figure what your client wants and focus your practice on the tunes that fit for the event.

Paul, I agree, wholeheartedly. However, I've always believed that you have to be extremely versatile and be able to provide a wide variety of songs for your audiences, thus the need for thousands of songs from every genre. Additionally, you must be able to look in the crowd and have the ability to read the audience. Unfortunately, not many entertainers can do this, and I've seen this first hand at many events. More often than not, those that cannot read the audience and get a good response from what they're playing, tend to crank up the volume to ear bleed levels, mistakenly believing that the louder they play, the more response they'll get.

Cheers,

Gary