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And in a sense Emerson, Lake and Palmer could be considered a Mussorgsky and Gershwin cover band since they also did the Fanfare from Rodeo.....



Back in the day with the Vegas show group I did Emerson's version of Hoedown as an instrumential feature on B3. Me and the guitarist transcribed the whole thing note for note by ear. We put in a jazz break in the middle of it. That was the only time in my life I got standing O's for a performance. Not every show of course but often enough. We were the only band in Musart's stable that did strong instrumental's as part of our show. All the other groups were excellent but they were typical Vegas vocal groups. We had some resistance to that but we proved through management reports that strong instrumentals will go over if the showmanship is there. We didn't have to do Feelings and Brother Love all night but we still did those. The bandleader did MacArthur Park as a serious almost over the top classical style thing on a grand piano for show set 1, Hoedown was set 2 and our guitarist did Classical Gas as a feature in set 3 sitting on a stool in front of everybody with a small spot on him. He was scared to the death the first time he did that, me and the leader were behind our big pieces of stage furniture but he was out there like a bug on a plate. All three of us got our share of standing O's.

Yeah, you can make a living in music under certain conditions. I know for a fact in the past and maybe even now all I have to do is call some agents and I would get on with somebody and hit the road. Again. I can see it now, Grandpa Bob is back!!

Bob

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