by Charles Wills

Created on: April 29, 2008   Last Updated: April 30, 2008

I remember like yesterday my first karaoke experience. It was in 1993, the local VFW.

My first thought was "Some people will do anything for fun." I figured you had to be pretty brave or very drunk to get up in front of a roomful of people and sing your heart out like that.

My second thought was that this would pass like Rubik's cube and Garbage Pail Kids. But back to that night at the VFW...

When my friends and I walked in, some older fellow was singing an old country song. Back then a kj, or karaoke jockey, having a catalog of four or five thousand songs was a big deal among the regulars, so hearing the same song a couple times per night was the norm. By the way, the norm now is upward of sixty thousand songs.

After a couple beers and some prodding (not much prodding as I am a bit of a showoff and clown), I was ready to try this karaoke thing. First Time For Everything by Little Texas was my very first karaoke song. What a rush! People clapped. Someone bought me a beer. By golly it was fun! A few more beers then Garth Brooks' Friends in Low Places became my personal musical playground! Karaoke became my new hobby.

A year later, after hanging out with the same karaoke outfit every week, I was approached about the possibility of working a karaoke show. Running the equipment and such. Wow! This was even more fun than singing! I couldn't believe a job could be this much fun! As I worked for someone else, being a kj became a regular job. I met some super people, heard some great singers, made some good friends. There had to be something else to this karaoke/kj thing.

After eight years, it was time to become my own man. I had waited for the fad to die, but the years brought a new generation of karaoke junkies. With the change from record album sized discs to compact discs, catalog sizes got bigger. More people were singing because there were more songs to choose from. It got more affordable to go out and by equipment and discs. So I did.

In 2002, my karaoke company was born. Having already spent eight years laying the groundwork and making friends and contacts, we hit the ground running! More music meant more songs, which meant more singers, which meant more available gigs. Then came the next big deal - computer karaoke. We made the switch to the computer and digital karaoke. Again, the change brought another wave of songs, singers, and gigs.

Having now been around karaoke from near it's very beginning (at least in my hometown), and having seen so many changes in the nearly fifteen years I have been around karaoke, I believe it is safe to say that while we wait on this fad to die, it will outlive most of us.

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