ALong the same vein, I play and sing in a group that does lots of music from the 60s ie Peter Paul and Mary as well as Kingston Trio etc. The delemma we have is invaribly the audience wants to hear lots of old workhorses ie MTA and Tom Dooley and things of that nature. My group wants to continue doing more obscure stuff that they like to play and perform and would never consider playing the real request stuff like If I had a Hammer, Puff the magic Dragon, WHere have all the FLowers gone etc.

Myself being an entertainer much more than a musician, am always leaning toward pleasing the audience as this is where I get my kicks, rather than playing an obscure song and trying to educate the audience on the origin of the Uprising of 1798. I would like to seek a happy medium but it seems we continue performing higher quality but losing out when it comes to the entertainment.

I guess the question is should we do what the crowd wants or what we think they should hear? We still have very pleased audiences by the way, but it just seems that from an entertainment issue only, we are constantly at B to B plus when it would be so easy to get A ratings across the boards. Just call me a stage whore!