WHAT IT’S ALL ABOUT
THE BARE NECESSITIES
The site is called THE BARE NECESSITIES, for good reason.
Slow music readers, relax! The charts require musicians with basic reading skills, and often present the absolute minimum, skeletal lead sheets, with chords, song geography, and some definitive riffs.
This site is for cover bands that specialise in weddings, theme parties, corporate functions, cruise ship dances, birthday parties, dinner dances, oompah – singalong gigs, etc. Bandleaders who don’t have the hours it takes to write up need ready-made music charts quickly. On this site, you can search, view, put the chart on the basket, pay and download in mere minutes.
Cover versions
In addition, the charts follow, as far as possible, the patterns of the most popular recorded version of a song, e.g. “I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight” (Dylan), as made commercially successful by Robert Palmer & UB40, so you can run through it with the mp3 at home. Very little sight-reading needed…
Handwritten
The charts are old-school, pre-Sibelius, i.e. handwritten. If you want them transposed to a key more suited to your singer’s range, I’ll do it (for a small fee!). We had a female vocalist for a while, so some songs, like “The Wind Beneath My Wings (Bette Midler), are in the female key, while other female-recorded songs , like “Titanic” (Celine Dion), are transposed to a male vocal key, and others like “Oh, What A Night” (Frank Valli) which are above the average vocal range, are treated in the same way.
You can wade through my HISTORY page story, which will explain how this all evolved.
However, if you’re like me, I would go straight to the SHOP, where you can search for song charts you may like to use, RIGHT NOW!