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Bongo 2026 Collection

Off Topic Song Ideas please

I don't know if it fits but:
Dixie Chicks: Everybody Knows, Voice inside my head
Morcheba: Rome wasn't built in a day
Barenaked Ladies: Brian Wilson
 
Melissa Etheridge has a lot of nicely driving songs on her debut album, great bass lines too.

And Annie Lennox, solo and with Eurythmics, is worth a look: Little Bird & The Gift (DIVA Album), Missionary Man, her cover of River Deep, Mountain High, which brings us to the great Tina Turner ...

Plenty of material to choose from! :)
 
+1 on The Pretenders. Tasty stuff, that. "Middle of the Road" is a great, driving song.

Another popular standby for female singers is "I Love Rock n Roll" from Joan Jett and the Blackhearts.

Some stuff to consider going forward... sorry for the long post, but perhaps you might find some of this useful.

If your objective is to get paid gigs, then you might consider choosing songs based on what will get the audience fired up.

My current band was formed with the specific intention of working, and we've been reasonably successful at it. We gig as much as we want to and to date our best day paid us $2500 (that was very unusual, by the way... a typical bar gig might pay us $350-$400 if we're lucky, and we're a five-piece band). We've only been together a year.

So how do you do that? Club owners are only interested in one thing: Getting people in the door and keeping them there. They do not care what kind of music you play. So, most like to see people dancing rather than sitting around listening. And people like to dance... especially women. Not to put too fine a point on it, if you can get the girls up and shaking it, the guys will stick around.

So think about that when choosing your material. A song might appeal to you as a musician and your band might sound great doing it, but that doesn't make it a good choice for a paying gig. Don't forget why you're there. You're there to entertain the audience, not play stuff that you want to hear. You can stay in the basement and do that.

There's music that I'd dearly love to play, and that my band does really well... but if it doesn't get the butts off the chairs and keep them out on the dance floor, it's not getting the job done no matter how cool the song is.

For us, the ideal song is one that everybody knows, but that is not on the set list of every other bar band out there. Last night we debuted one of those... "Reach Out (I'll Be There)" from the Four Tops. If you don't recognize the name of the tune, go find it... you know this song but I'd bet one of Jack's Bongos that you haven't heard a bar band play it (you can't have my Bongos, sorry).

It was a HUGE success.

Unfortunately, not every song is like that. Sometimes you have to play stuff you'd rather not. People LOVE "Play That Funky Music." Gets them dancing every single time. So as cliched as it is, we suck it up and do it anyway. And we get asked back by club owners because people are having a good time. That's what it's all about.

Another way to differentiate yourself is to decide on an identity and stick with it. If you look at a lot of standard cover bands' set lists, you'll find that they have no real direction and the band has no distinctive image.

We decided that we'd focus on something that appeals to as broad a spectrum as possible... old-school R&B, Motown, soul and funk. More important, we try hard to keep the sound and energy authentic, rather than pumping out typically lame cover-band versions. You can do a warmed-over rendition of Mustang Sally and you'll hear crickets. But if you do it like Wilson Pickett did, people will most definitely be grooving to it.

It's a formula that has paid off for us, because we're not like most other bands in the area. It's not the only way to get gigs by any means, but we've found that it is one way that does work.

PS: From a pay/effort standpoint the most lucrative gigs are weddings (another reason to think about all-ages-friendly music). Next are private gigs... parties. Bar gigs are at the bottom: not only are they ridiculously hard to get these days, but they pay poorly and you have to stay up really late.
 
How about these:

"If it makes you happy" or "Steve McQueen" - Sheryl Crow

"Do you wanna touch" - Joan Jett

"Up the neck" - The Pretenders
 
Excellent suggestions everyone.

Mr. Douglas, your advice is excellent. We had a big discussion in our band about that very topic. In sense, we need to look at ourselves as producing a product that would be of interest to the bar owner. This is why I started this thread. I wanted to know what you experienced musicians have found to be successful in your gigs.

I will definitely add these songs to our list things to try. Thanks everyone, keep 'em coming!
 
Mentioning Motown, of course there is Respect and Rescue Me is another that is pretty easy and should sound good.
 
The Middle of the Road - The Pretenders always works for us.

I agree with everything adouglas says. We pretty much do the same thing. We occasionally try some outside songs to see how they'll go over (certain venues and crowds will like different things), but if it doesn't get much of a reaction, we end up ditching the song.

As for TABs vs standard notation and learning by ear. TAB really is only potentially beneficial for a very short period of time when beginning. I would strongly suggest learning to read standard music notation before TAB dependency becomes a bad habit.

And you do not have to have perfect pitch to be able to pick stuff up by ear. What really helps is having a strong sense of relative pitch, which is different. Perfect pitch is when you can identify a specific note without any reference. Relative pitch is when you have a reference note/key/chord and can identify notes in relation to that reference.

In my experience, most online TABS have significant errors anyway. It's like one person posts a TAB for a song and then everyone copies that TAB and spreads it around. And plus, you don't get the rhythms from the TABs.
 
Tom Petty's stuff covers well with a female vocalist. Don't know if it sells where you're at, though.
 
OK. Spend the last two or three hours browsing through my iTunes music library in order to find something suitable. Most of the songs are probably the usual suspects, but I also aimed for songs that are easy to play (I checked most of them playing along), are not keyboard heavy and are suitable for a rock band in a bar. I hope none of these have already been named....

Alannah Myles - Love Is
Alannah Myles - Black Velvet
Anastacia - Not That Kind
Anastacia - I'm Outta Love
Anastacia - One Day In Your Life (...also check out her other songs on the Anastacia 2004 album wich is quite heavy, maybe something in there you and your singer dig)
Blondie - Maria
En Vogue - Free Your Mind
Foreigner - Urgent
Garbage - Push It
Garbage - Sex Is Not The Enemy
Golden Earring - Radar Love
Guano Apes - Open Your Eyes
Guano Apes - Lords Of The Boards
Jamiroquai - Deeper Underground
Katy Perry - I Kissed A Girl (Rock Mix)
Kiss - I Was Made For Loving You
Linkin Park - Shadow of the Day
Linkin Park - What I've Done
Madonna - Papa Don't Preach (check out the Kelly Osborne cover for arrangement)
Melanie C - Next Best Superstar
Meredith Brooks - Bitch
Michael Jackson - Beat It
Michael Jackson - Billy Jean
Michael Sambello - Maniac (though that might proof difficult without keyboards)
Mother's Finest - Baby Love
No Doubt - Just A Girl
Patti La Belle - Lady Marmelade
Pink - So What
Pink - God Is A DJ
R.E.M. - It's The End Of The World
Republica - Ready To Go
Shania Twain - That Don't Impress Me Much (you need to arrange this)
Spin Doctors - Two Princes
Sunrise Avenue -Fairytale Gone Bad
Survivor - Eye Of The Tiger
Texas - I Don't Want A Lover
Texas - Summer Son
White Stripes - Seven Nation Army
Yes - Owner Of Lonely Heart


Hm. That was quite fun to do :D
 
If you're reaching back a bit for chick vocal songs...

Consider something from either Heart or Pat Benetar
 
IMHO the best songs for a female singer really depend on the singer. Some are real screamers (Pat Benatar, Janis Joplin), some are really powerful sopranos (Aretha), some are much sweeter (Linda Ronstat).

Pick the song to match the voice, not just the gender.

Adjust the key to match the capabilities of the singer (another good reason not to rely on the tab crutch).
 
adouglas said:
IMHO the best songs for a female singer really depend on the singer. Some are real screamers (Pat Benatar, Janis Joplin), some are really powerful sopranos (Aretha), some are much sweeter (Linda Ronstat).

Pick the song to match the voice, not just the gender.

Adjust the key to match the capabilities of the singer (another good reason not to rely on the tab crutch).
Click to expand...

Again, good advice. For the record...I have been studying music theory as well. So transposing keys is getting easier.

For example we did American Woman today. to spice things up a bit we decided to use the key of E for the singing parts but went to the key of C for a guitar solo. This added some nice variety.
 
oli@bass said:
OK. Spend the last two or three hours browsing through my iTunes music library in order to find something suitable. Most of the songs are probably the usual suspects, but I also aimed for songs that are easy to play (I checked most of them playing along), are not keyboard heavy and are suitable for a rock band in a bar. I hope none of these have already been named....

Alannah Myles - Love Is
Alannah Myles - Black Velvet
Anastacia - Not That Kind
Anastacia - I'm Outta Love
Anastacia - One Day In Your Life (...also check out her other songs on the Anastacia 2004 album wich is quite heavy, maybe something in there you and your singer dig)
Blondie - Maria
En Vogue - Free Your Mind
Foreigner - Urgent
Garbage - Push It
Garbage - Sex Is Not The Enemy
Golden Earring - Radar Love
Guano Apes - Open Your Eyes
Guano Apes - Lords Of The Boards
Jamiroquai - Deeper Underground
Katy Perry - I Kissed A Girl (Rock Mix)
Kiss - I Was Made For Loving You
Linkin Park - Shadow of the Day
Linkin Park - What I've Done
Madonna - Papa Don't Preach (check out the Kelly Osborne cover for arrangement)
Melanie C - Next Best Superstar
Meredith Brooks - Bitch
Michael Jackson - Beat It
Michael Jackson - Billy Jean
Michael Sambello - Maniac (though that might proof difficult without keyboards)
Mother's Finest - Baby Love
No Doubt - Just A Girl
Patti La Belle - Lady Marmelade
Pink - So What
Pink - God Is A DJ
R.E.M. - It's The End Of The World
Republica - Ready To Go
Shania Twain - That Don't Impress Me Much (you need to arrange this)
Spin Doctors - Two Princes
Sunrise Avenue -Fairytale Gone Bad
Survivor - Eye Of The Tiger
Texas - I Don't Want A Lover
Texas - Summer Son
White Stripes - Seven Nation Army
Yes - Owner Of Lonely Heart


Hm. That was quite fun to do :D
Click to expand...

Wow...what a list. I have some listening to do. Thanks Oli.
 
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