Your Fifteen Minutes of Fame Awaits on the Karaoke Stage
by Joe Tarr
Jeremy Holston can't stop pacing outside Big Mama's Karaoke Cafe in Seymour. He's already made several trips to the stage to chat with the DJ and see when his name will be called, then wandered back inside the restaurant to watch the singers on the inside stage. Sporadically, he checks in with his wife—who is also at the club tonight—via cell phone.
Not a drinking or a smoking man, it seems to be the way he fights nerves—to simply keep moving. Although it may not really be nerves at all, but impatience. Holston can't wait to get back up on the stage. Finally, he stops moving and leans against one of the club's support columns, his back turned away from the stage. A demure high school girl has just started the "The Rose," and she warbles out the first few lines, "Some say love/ It is a river that drowns the tender reed...."
"She's nervous. I can tell in her voice," Holston says. A verse later, he adds, "She's getting a lit bit more comfortable now."
For many people, karaoke is something they do after several pints of beer and taunts from friends. But, for Holston and a lot of others, karaoke is perhaps a shot at something more: a bit of respect, a chance to prove your talent, and maybe, just maybe, a crack at stardom. Holston makes his living as a roadside vendor, but his wife Amy says, "He's a struggling country music singer."
The word karaoke was formed from two Japanese words, and means "empty orchestra." Its exact origins are in dispute, but it started attracting attention about 30 years ago, in the Japanese city Kobe. Karaoke didn't start to get big in the United States until the '80s.
My theory about karaoke's popularity is that it has become a means for people to find a way back into the communal experience of music that was once much more common. Before recording technology, most people sang or played an instrument. Families and friends would get together at night and sing on the porch with a guitar and fiddle or (if they could afford it) around a piano.
But, when technology made it possible to record performances, people became more self-conscious about performing. So, they stopped doing it and music became a passive thing, with most people buying it or listening to it, instead of creating it themselves.
Karaoke gives people a way to partake in that culture again. On the downside, the format restricts creativity and forces conformity.
Norbert Stovall—who with his wife Debi owns Big Mama Recording Studio and Big Mama's Karaoke Cafe—says he was the first person in the United States to record karaoke tracks. The recording studio part of their business has been open since '78. It was originally located in the house of Norbert's mother, who was nicknamed "big mama."
Open a little more than two years, the couple claims to have the first karaoke cafe in the country. Although the restaurant serves beer, the owners emphasize the "cafe" part because they're trying to create a family atmosphere more than a nightclub. Many families do come here and kids regularly sing. The Stovalls are hoping to franchise the cafes (perhaps sometime next year), but they've been taking their time, making sure the Seymour restaurant is a success first.
It certainly seems to be a hit. The restaurant has about 10,000 songs to choose from—country, oldies, and pop are the most popular choices. The Stovalls have syndicated a cable-TV show that draws people from all over the country in hopes of getting on the air. Every Saturday afternoon, the restaurant videotapes performances at the club, which a few weeks later, are transmitted to 4.4 million homes. If their success continues, Knoxville could become—are you ready for this?—the karaoke capital of America.
Beckey Burr moved from Georgia to Maryville about a month ago and she's been coming here ever since. She used to sing in a country band and would like to again, but for now she gets her singing fix at Big Mama's. "If I were in a band I'd sing country, I'd never sing a Christina Aguilera song," she says. "But here it's all in good fun. There's nothing like this in Georgia."
She has ambitions to be a professional singer, and regulars are certainly impressed. "The first time I heard her, I was like, 'Wow.' She blew me out of the water," says Susan Spano, who has been coming here since the place opened. Burr has a beauty and innocence about her that would go over well in Nashville. Her strong full voice has a sweet pop sensibility to it, and you really can hear her having a hit single.
Holston would also like to be in a country band. "I don't do drugs and I don't drink," he says. "It's hard to find band members who aren't into that." He fell into singing by accident—a friend runs a karaoke system, and he tried it once. "Since I realized I could sing karaoke a little bit, I've been coming out ever since."
Although he loves singing, he's a bit nervous on stage. "I'm in a different world [when singing]. I hate the stage—that's why I get off the stage and walk around the crowd. I look at their faces. If you've got their attention, you're doing good.
"If I don't have their attention, I'll walk around and sing right to their face."
Before he performs a song, he makes sure he knows it, practicing over and over with a tape or radio. He sings "country and one Eagles song." It was that Eagles' song—"Desperado"—that won him Big Mama's weekly contest in July. Holston's keeping his fingers crossed for when he competes in the annual contest this fall, which comes with a $10,000 prize. "There's going to be serious competition. I've got this much a chance of winning," he says, holding a small space between his index finger and thumb, "but I'm stilling going to come."
Not everybody that frequents Big Mama's is really all that crazy about singing. Although she comes here once or twice a week, Spano says, "I've probably been up on stage three times...I'm so chicken. When I do sing, I make sure everybody's gone."
So why does she like this place so much? "I like to watch other people. Because some of them are really pretty funny, to say it mildly."
It's hard to gauge how many clubs in Knoxville have karaoke nights because there are so many. Aside from Big Mama's, two of the bigger draws are Michael's (which hosts it every Monday night) and Macleods (which has it every Thursday, Friday, and Saturday).
Macleods is located right next to Market Square and the bar's Thursday night karaoke follows Sundown in the City.
Karaoke nights at Macleods are often packed, and wiggling your way through the crowd can be difficult. It's hard to know how many of these people come here specifically for the karaoke or are simply looking for a place to drink after the Sundown show.
But Jaystorm—a local R&B and hip-hop artist—is here to push his CD and get his name out. He hits the karaoke circuit every week and sells a lot of his singles to crowd. (His perseverance paid off with an opening gig for the Mystikal show.)
"Anywhere there's a mic and speakers, I'm hitting it to get the word out there," he says. Tonight, he picks an unlikely song to sing—John Cougar Mellencamp's "Jack & Diane." He puts his own flourishes on it, talking to the crowd and adding his own parts.
He picked it because he knew it would grab attention. "Anything off the wall gets their attention," he says. "I practice all kinds of music. I do country and R&B. I have to be very versatile in this area."
One of the hardest things about karaoke singing, especially for the pros, is that songs are arranged exactly as they were in the hits. So if it's in the wrong key for a singer, it'll sound bad. With a band, you could arrange the song to suit you.
"I only do songs that I know I can do in my key," Jaystorm says. "Songs I know I can nail in my key I do because it shows the crowd I mean business."
But a lot of people don't mean business when they grab the mic. Some can't sing and others just want to clown. "For those people that are awful, when they step on the stage, they're up to get something off their chest," he says. "And they really wanted to know if they can do it or not."
"Some people have to get liquid courage.... When they drink they start believing they can do it.
"A lot of people are not serious about it. And when the serious people get up there, they're looked at as showoffs and know-it-alls."
Sometimes, Jaystorm can't muster the courage to get up there. That happens when the people around him aren't taking the singing seriously and they make it a drunken joke. "What motivates me is when I see another serious singer on the microphone. When I'm the one who has to lead off, I find it very difficult. I want to see someone who is serious up there first."
There are plenty of drunks at Macleods tonight, but there are also a lot of good singers, and everyone generally gives each other respect and encouragement.
Jim McGaha, who owns the equipment and brings it down here, does a damn good Willie Nelson. McGaha used to play in a band, but when he was no longer able to, he bought the sound system to keep up with his singing. "I thought about getting back in a band again, and I thought that was a good way to work on some new songs," he says.
He never did form another band, but he kept acquiring more karaoke equipment. Eventually, he started working the circuit, leasing his set up to bars and parties.
McGaha says karaoke is a way for a lot of people to just put themselves out there. "To some extent, it shows people, 'look what I can do.' If you're a little bit timid and shy, if you really work on a song, it makes you braver to talk to people," he says. "Some are bad. I don't know, I guess they're just drunk and at a party. A lot of them that are bad think they're good. But even if they get this positive attitude from that, it makes their day."
Aaron Webb from Kingston isn't what you'd call a great singer. And, he's had a few tonight. But, he's got energy and when he jumps on the stage with a friend to sing Poison's "Every Rose Has Its Thorn," it's all in good fun. At one point, he exhorts the crowd to "give it up for all the hot ladies," then gives shoutouts to his friends.
Webb and his friends used to sing karaoke regularly when he was at Camp Legune. "It's a rush," he says. "Everybody's got their eyes on you."
September 5, 2002 * Vol. 12, No. 36
© 2002 Metro Pulse
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