mousethief,
Thanks for the positive feedback. Always good to hear from you. Even when it is not positive. Honest.

Genie,
Thanks for parsing that pitiful attempt at multiple negatives. That is in fact what I meant. My grammatical reach far exceeded my grasp.

Anyway,
It seems to me that one source of the disagreement about "Those Who Sing From Books" (TWSFB) comes from the fact that the contributors to the thread are talking about significantly different venues and the expectations which are appropriate to those venues.

So when I say that being one of TWSFB works for me, I should be a little more specific about just WHERE it works for me.

These days I mostly sing for fun with people who know me to some extent. I know a very large number of musicians and sing with a number of different groups and subgroups. But in any given group most of the participants will have some familiarity with me and my music and my approach to music and my musical foibles, and I with theirs. I notice that as you pay some dues and people get to know you they becomes more and more willing to cut you some slack.

When I get together with my musical buddies, the assumption is that we will all participate and contribute. We are both the performers and the audience. We don't ordinarily get together in a public place where there will be a significant number of non-musicians present. If we're at a party, we'll seek out an empty corner or room. Non-musicians are free to drop by and listen, but we're just as happy if they leave us alone.

I occasionally do music with strangers. But I have been doing this long enough to have learned some lessons the hard way. I remember the night I was jamming with some Irish musicians at a party and remarked that learning the tunes was kind of hard when they only get played three times and that changing keys every time we changed tunes made my life a little difficult. BOY, DID I GET PUT IN MY PLACE.

So, when I am doing music with strangers I am much more circumspect and keep a lower profile until I have figured out the ground rules. The laptop stays in the case until I have scouted the territory. In spite of the fact that I am one of TWSFB, I know enough songs from memory to be able to pull my weight. But as I said, I love a lot more songs than I can remember.

I have also learned to avoid situations where I sense that my approach will cause problems. There can come a time when the best thing to do is quietly pack up and leave.

That said,
I don't even have problems when the singer is a professional and opts to sing from a book. If I like the piece my eyes will be closed anyway. If I don't care for it, I don't care how impressive a demonstration of a prodigious memory it is.