Musical pair that's sung on cruise ships comes ashore to area restaurant
LAKE SHORE -- A musical duo with a long list of cruise ship performance credits opened this week at Bar Harbor Supper Club.
Yellow Pages, which plays a variety of popular music, will appear Wednesday-Sunday, starting at 8:30 p.m., through June 25.
The group is a last-minute replacement for another duo, Karen and Carl, that cancelled its June 7-July 2 booking at the popular Gull Lake eatery and nightclub for undetermined reasons, said a Bar Harbor spokeswoman.
Soloist Bill Shaw, who played the supper club May 3-21, will return June 28 for the final week of Karen and Carl's booking, the spokeswoman said.
Yellow Pages includes veteran performers John Colson and Ronn Reed, with nearly 65 years of professional musical experience between them, according to the group's promotional materials.
Colson cut his teeth as an instrumentalist with several major entertainers, including Chubby Checker, Harry James, Little Jimmy Dickens, Bobby Goldsboro and others, the material says.
Reed, the songwriter for the duo, "achieved national success in 1980 when he co-wrote 'Who Shot JR,' a hit by Gary Burbank," the material says.
In recent years Yellow Pages has performed aboard many of the world's top cruise ships, including the M.S. Caribe and the Dolphin IV, according to the group's material.
Yellow Pages draws its material from a variety of popular musicians, including Duke Ellington, Bob Seger, Eric Clapton, The Black Crows, Jimmy Buffet and several country stars.
"We play an excellent variety of music ... and when these are combined with a nostalgic medley of a '50s show, you have a group that is made to order for a cruise ship or a lounge," Colson said in a news release.
Yellow Pages plays mostly cover tunes, although the group's musical itinerary includes "two or three originals" written by Reed, the material says.
"Our equipment includes horn sequencing and when it is blended with John's (Colson) live horn, it results in a larger than duo sound," the material says.
The group also employs digitech vocal harmonizer in its arrangements, creating three- or four-part harmonies from just a single voice, according to the material.
"With our Caribbean party sounds of hot, hot, hot, electric slide and volcano, we are able to create the party atmosphere that is so important on a cruise ship or in a lounge," the material says.