Despite the use of the word "tit", which I'm sure has everyone thinking the basest thoughts (shame on all of you!), this particular phrase is a derivation of the words "This for That." In other words, "if you do/give this, then I'll do/give that to you."
Here are the rules:
- Each singer will select four (4) songs for the other person to sing--for a total of 8 songs to be reviewed and sung in one night
- All songs must be completed the same evening
- Songs could be solos or duets.
- 1 Point for Successful Completion and Extra Points for Really Good Performances
Chris, who not only enjoys singing a wide variety of music, but also has the killer vocals to pull it off, was game for this little "adventure." So I told him we'd start first with Stevie Wonder at Ailina's site (@ailina_) where she has a lot of Stevie songs posted, and tagged him in both "Overjoyed" and "Send One Your Love." Unfortunately, Stevie's vocal range and the song's key turned out to be unreachable for Mr. "Mac", so he opted out...giving me an automatic 2 point lead! YEAH!!
Now it was Chris's turn. For his first two songs, Chris, decided to make my two point lead evaporate like so much water in the hot Texas sun.
First was Tom Jones's signature song, It's Not Unusual. Anyone who grew up in the 70s will remember Tom Jones--his dark curly hair, smoking good looks, and "leisure suit"--simply oozing the newly coined "sex appeal" all over the stage. Tom Jones would "belt out" the first line of that song and the women would go mad! Now, here's the rub...Chris decided to put as much "Tom Jones" into his performance as possible. So while I was expecting a nice country-ish sound (Chris, after all, does hail from Texas) what I got instead was a very realistic sounding Tom Jones circa 1970s. It was, in fact, so good that I could not stop laughing. Even three (3) takes later--and now seriously running out of time, I still had a terrible fit of the giggles and you can hear it on the recording I made.
In the vernacular or my southern friends..."dang it," one point back to the Texan.
For his second choice, Chris chose the newly Smule "minted" oldie "Never Gonna Give You Up" with Ric Roll. Okay, I was in serious "doo" now and I knew it. The original artist had a prominent low tenor sound and one of the arguably "biggest" sounding voices in pop radio at the time. Natch, Chris was able to pull off a "room filling" sound with his voice, and I could only try as much as possible to keep up. Although Chris commented "good job," I saw defeat on that one, another point to the Texan.
Okay, the score was now 2 to 2...even. I chose two more songs this time the Sonny and Cher classic "I Got You Babe" and the Lady Antebellum's "Just a Kiss." Because both Chris and I were far less than serious in the Sonny and Cher performance, we gave each other a 1 point apiece. For the Lady Antebellum, Chris's comments were just "wow...just wow" so let's say I got the point on that one.
Chris then countered with "Sway" by Michael Buble. Now this song has never been easy for me. When I posted it during my 30 day challenge, I had to have my duet partner, @Shwrsngr_42 sing the entire song for me and then I ran his "plays" up to over 40 trying to get it right. Well, it had obviously been too long since I've done "Sway" since Chris easily slid through the key changes and I "oopsed" more than once on the notes. So point for @sparky_mac, but I still claim 1/2 point for being able to tell him what a "marimba" is!! Ha ha!!
The game winning song was Chris's choice, and he chose a Billy Joel song, "Just the Way You Are." Now I love Billy Joel. As a piano player, I was forever pounding Billy Joel songs on the keyboards and my baby grand piano. However, as a singer, Billy's keys and vocal range screw me up. He's both too high for my high end and too low for my low notes. Kills me every stinking time!! So when Chris said, "I have a special song this time," and I saw Billy Joel pop up, internally, I groaned. I was going to lose this...the last and tie breaking point.
But I "soldiered on", as they say, and sang this with as much emotion and feeling as I could to compensate for the fact that I would sliding all over the place to keep the song from getting too screechy or too low, which creates the "fry" that all the rock stars love, but sounds terrible unless you mean to do it.
After hearing it, Chris had nothing but fabulous, wonderful comments that he posted. However, if you ask me, he won that last point. He claims now as he would if you asked him, that it was a "draw," but I'm going to hand it to @sparky_mac, he rose to the challenge and then kicked my respective behind with his killer vocals and the depth and breadth of his vocal stylings.
The best part of our challenge is that Chris and I both ended up with new OCs on our sites to share with other members of Smule Sing! And the "remnants" of our challenge can be seen as the first duets on each of these songs. It was a great challenge and one that I plan to open up to the members of Sing! in the very near future.
Want to join me in a Smule wide "Tit for Tat" challenge in April? Get on Line, and Line me at PokeypalGrace. We'll travel the globe singing OCs on different sites! More on the Smule Wide "Tit for Tat" in upcoming blogs!
More About the Singers Featured Here:
@sparky_mac is really Chris from Texas. He sings a variety of songs including country, and records OCs where he plays his guitar for others to duet with him.
@shwrsngr_42 is "C" or "Car" as I call him because he frequently sings in the car. Car is a high tenor with a wicked big range that will take him to "Johnny Cash" low notes.
@ailina_ is Ailina from the Hawaiian Islands. Ailina hosts and posts some fantastic OCs that everyone can join! She has an incredible voice, huge singing range and, personally, she's one of the nicest people I've met on Smule! Check out her site for great songs to sing!
Me? I'm Grace and I go by the sing tag "Pokeypal." Join me for both the Sonny and Cher song and the Just a Kiss song that Sparky and I created during our duet challenges!!
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