Tips for Song Stories

[SierraTango]

My duo played last Saturday night at one of our regular venues. It's a upscale Restaurant with a cozy bar area for lounging. Been performing off and on for 13 years there. As you would expect we see the regular patrons and a few new faces every now and then.

We were about halfway through our 2nd set when a nice looking woman I hadn't seen before came up and dropped a $50 in the tip jar. "Do you guys know "Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most?" Fortunately that tune is in our rotation and we did a super job with it that night.

After the set I found her at the bar. Turned out she was a visiting Doctor at our local Hospital and heard there was Jazz on Main St. "Why that song?"
I asked. "Just love the melody and nobody plays it anymore" she replied. Turns out her ex was a Sax player.

Any of you guys have a memorable money for a Song story?

[wintermoon]

Not necessarily $ for a song but once an organist I was looking forward to working with hired me for his trio.
The very first tune was an uptempo # but something didn't sound right/in tune. I was sweating it thinking I was screwing up my first gig w this guy so I tried retuning in the middle of it and found my guitar was right on. Couldn't be the organ of course, so??
Well after we finished a guy dropped three fifties in the jar and said "you guys were smokin' but something didn't sound right"
I told the organist to turn off his Hammond B3 and restart it. Turns out he didn't let the tone generator warm up/get spinning fast enough before disengaging the standby switch so the organ was 1/4 tone flat.
Problem solved.

ps can you get me her #?

[alltunes]

Not necessarily $ for a song but once an organist I was looking forward to working with hired me for his trio.
The very first tune was an uptempo # but something didn't sound right/in tune. I was sweating it thinking I was screwing up my first gig w this guy so I tried retuning in the middle of it and found my guitar was right on. Couldn't be the organ of course, so??
Well after we finished a guy dropped three fifties in the jar and said "you guys were smokin' but something didn't sound right"
I told the organist to turn off his Hammond B3 and restart it. Turns out he didn't let the tone generator warm up/get spinning fast enough before disengaging the standby switch so the organ was 1/4 tone flat.
Problem solved.

ps can you get me her #?

Once did a gig on a boat and the onboard electricity caused the Hammond to be out of tune by a couple of semi-tones. It took us a while to realize it

[garybaldy]

Not necessarily $ for a song but once an organist I was looking forward to working with hired me for his trio.
The very first tune was an uptempo # but something didn't sound right/in tune. I was sweating it thinking I was screwing up my first gig w this guy so I tried retuning in the middle of it and found my guitar was right on. Couldn't be the organ of course, so??
Well after we finished a guy dropped three fifties in the jar and said "you guys were smokin' but something didn't sound right"
I told the organist to turn off his Hammond B3 and restart it. Turns out he didn't let the tone generator warm up/get spinning fast enough before disengaging the standby switch so the organ was 1/4 tone flat.
Problem solved.

ps can you get me her #?

I play guitar a lot with horns. I always sound sharp until they all warm up.

[mr. beaumont]

I was playing piano at a gin joint in Morocco...

[A. Kingstone]

I played for 5 years in a restaurant with just a trumpet player. That photo brings back good memories.

It's where I learned to play.