It's interesting - I usually do all right remembering the lyrics of any song I plan to sing at a session (though if someone asks for something I haven't done in a while and hadn't prepared and I'm fool enough to do it I can get in trouble). When I sing at our local open mike I'm more apt to have the words on stage with me, though I've almost never referred to them - something about the spotlight in my eye that makes me fear my brain may go out the window. They're within reach (though out of sight) to minimize the time spent getting back on track in case I do get in trouble - a security blanket that I rarely use.

However, remembering the chords for Charley's songs when I play guitar to back up his banjo is a whole lot more challenging for me - I learned to play by picking out tunes from songbooks, so reading music is fairly easy for me while playing by ear comes very hard (when it comes at all). I'm much more likely to have a sheet in front of me or a scrap of paper with the chords for the songs he plans to sing when I'm playing backup than when I'm leading a song.

And you'd better believe I had the sheets in front of me when we recorded his CD - though he didn't because (as many other folks have said) he sounded much better singing from memory even with an occasional flub. It meant we occasionally did a second (or third) take - we thought it was well worth the extra effort.

JudyB