Endless Love: Buoyed by forever-fervent fans, karaoke lives on

Wednesday, July 17, 2002 | 8:23 a.m.

Stewart Warren is a little hard of hearing. He is soft spoken and quiet, not exactly shy but not exactly outgoing, either. At first glance the 71-year-old retired carpenter appears to be someone who would avoid the limelight, a person who blends into any crowd.

But three nights a week Warren shrugs off his cloak of anonymity and becomes a star.

Karaoke is his road to fame.

"I've been singing karaoke for about 4 1/2 years," Warren said.

He became infatuated with the world's most popular form of entertainment (according to Karaoke Scene Magazine) when he went shopping at Just For Feet at the Forum Shops at Caesars. The store was having a promotion shoppers could get a 20-percent discount if they would sing with the karaoke machine.

"I'd never had a mike in my hand before," Warren recalled. "Never even sang in public."

But he discovered he had a pleasant singing voice at Just For Feet.

"I sang for 45 minutes straight," Warren said. "They said as long as no one else wanted to sing, I could keep on singing."

And he's been singing ever since.

Almost every Tuesday and Wednesday night Warren can be found at the Stratosphere's Crazy Armadillo Lounge, singing everything from "Music of the Night" and "If I Were a Rich Man" to "Play that Funky Music."

"I sure do wish I had pursued (singing) as a career," Warren said. "I'm making a feeble effort to get into it now, in a small way. I have commerical karaoke equipment at home. I've started to record some music."

Peter Parker is the publisher of Karaoke Scene Magazine, based in Cypress, Calif.

"No other form of entertainment is as prevalent as karaoke is now in Los Angeles," Parker said. "And that's true of most big cities."

There are more than 100 karaoke bars and clubs in Las Vegas. And there are hundreds of more venues where people can sing along with karaoke machines -- ranging from private parties to corporate functions.

"Karaoke started as a fad," Parker said. "Unfortunately, because of the humble beginning, it got a reputation as a bunch of drunks getting together and trying to sing and act stupid. It's like that a lot, there is always room for beginners who can't sing and like to act funny.

"But karaoke has evolved way past that. Home sales of karaoke equipment are way up."

The Singing Machine Co., based in Coconut Creek, Fla., is one of the nation's leading manufacturers and distributors of karaoke equipment and audio software for the home. In February the company announced sales in the quarter climbed 146 percent over the same period a year ago, from $13.9 million to $34.2 million.

"Karaoke is a very user-friendly form of entertainment," Parker said. "It's a participation sport."

Doctors, janitors

Karaoke is Japanese for "empty orchestra." It began in Japan in the early '70s and came to the United States in the mid-'80s.

"Karaoke is a social thing," Parker said. "It's the people's music. It is unlike other forms of entertainment. Beyond being entertainment, it is also a participatory thing. It's a shared experience, a huge umbrella with people from all walks of life sharing their love of music and artistry.

"Doctors sit at the same table with janitors talking about how much they love Frank Sinatra."

Parker, 55, once was a professional musician.

"In my humble opinion, the best karaoke singers are as good as the best paid singers -- some are even better," Parker said.

Parker says karaoke is popular for a variety of reasons.

"It's a great booster of morale and self confidence," he said. "A lot of singers may be impaired in some way -- I have a friend who suffered a severe head injury in the Vietnam War and he has trouble speaking, and one side of his body is paralyzed, but when he sings karaoke, he sings beautifully."

Renee Dawn might be described as a queen bee of karaoke -- she has a part-time karaoke business and whenever she sends out word that she will be setting up somewhere, her fans swarm to her KJ (karaoke jockey) performance.

"Karaoke has gotten so big from where it was when I started five or six years ago," said Dawn, who sang with a band for several years before investing in her karaoke equipment. "When I first started only a few singers would sign up, but now you get long waiting lists. People may sit for an hour waiting to get up to sing one song."

A karaoke session is a gathering of friends.

"You see some of the same people wherever you go," Dawn said. "Some of them can tell you where every karaoke place is in town. I do a lot of weddings and private parties now, but when I get a gig in a lounge or a club I call some people and before you know it the whole group shows up. It's like having a yard sale."

She said some karaoke fans are so involved that they spend hours practicing before they perform in public.

"For some, it's all they do," she said. "This is their moment. They are a shining star."

Some singers are better than others, but all of them have fun and audiences have fun watching them.

"I have had more fun with karaoke than almost anything," Dawn said. "As much as I like to sing, I would not give up karaoke. I have met some wonderful people and made a lot of friends. People come from China, Russia -- all over the world, and a lot of them keep in contact with me. It's a fun and wonderful experience."

She says there is a lot of unsung talent out there.

"A lot of people do impressions of singers such as Willie Nelson and Frank Sinatra," Dawn said. "One guy did Elvis and he was so good that he started doing it for a living."

New twists

T.J. Tyler is an impressionist from Canada who has been performing as Elvis, Tom Jones, Rod Stewart and more than a 20 other celebrities at various venues in Las Vegas for 12 years.

He can be seen doing his show, the "Great Baldini," at the Howard Johnson on West Tropicana Avenue near Interstate 15 Thursdays through Sundays.

Or, you can catch bits of his act on karaoke night at the Crazy Armadillo on Tuesdays and Wednesdays or Arizona Charlie's West on Mondays.

Tyler has added a slightly new dimension to karaoke. He works for Karaoke Las Vegas as a host, rather than a KJ, appearing in various costumes throughout the evening and doing his impressions.

He also has wigs, boas and other costumes available for karaoke singers who really want to get into their acts.

"My thing is just to make everybody relaxed and to see they have a good time," Tyler said. "I try not to get in the way. I try to get as many as those folks up there singing as possible. They're not there to see me."

He says everybody has a little ham in them.

"It's sort of the Walter Mitty type of thing," Tyler observed. "People work at a desk all day, and they come here to get to be up in front of people."

A lot of the singers at the Stratosphere lounge are regulars.

"The rest are just walking by and see people having fun, and they join the party," Tyler said. "You never know from night to night how it's going to turn out."

Jack Greenback owns Karaoke Las Vegas. A former drummer for Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys, Greenback saw the possibilities of karaoke when the first karaoke bar opened in Las Vegas in 1986 at Ellis Island.

"When I saw Ellis Island do it, I thought that was right up my alley," Greenback said. "I had been doing sing-along for years. I was the first to do karaoke in Las Vegas, after Ellis Island."

Greenback has between five and eight karaoke systems working at various venues around town at any given time, including casinos, nightclubs, conventions and private parties.

"It's hard to find people to run all the equipment," he said.

It's also hard to find karaoke on the Strip. Gilley's Saloon at the New Frontier and the lounge at the Barbary Coast offer it, but none are listed at the more popular destinations.

"Every major town in America has karaoke," he said. "The thing that gets me is that people sing in their home towns and when they come to Vegas, they want to sing on the Strip. But they can't."

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