Three Cheers for the Redd

By Chris Manson June 26, 2008 Issue BeachComber Magazine

To my knowledge, Redd—the sassy, brassy performer appearing at Sally’s Backside in Blue Mountain Beach—is the only singing bartender around. She fills beer and wine orders while donning what comedian Tim Wilson called a “Garth Brooks air traffic controller” microphone. She takes requests and does justice to “lovely songs about love” like “My Funny Valentine.” She invests Bonnie Raitt’s hit “Something to Talk About” with more passion than you’d expect from someone who is trying to run a credit card and uncork a bottle of chardonnay at the same time.

“I don’t need to do one with the other, so I’m available for other events,” says Redd. She will appear as part of the Navarre Chamber of Commerce’s summer concert series on Thursday, July 17. Redd will also ride in the Seaside 4th of July parade on the float constructed by Grayton Beach’s Fire, but she won’t be belting out patriotic fare. “They’re calling their entry the ‘Krewe of Cork,’ so I’m going to sing songs about wine—‘Peel Me a Grape,’ ‘Tiny Bubbles,’ stuff like that.”

Sally’s is tucked behind what Redd calls “the only gas station on 30-A that isn’t a Tom Thumb.” The owner, who actually is named Sally, started the bar in January with Redd’s help. “She said, ‘Let me try this one night and see how it goes,’” Sally recalls. “Not only is Redd a good artist, she’s a great entertainer.”

Redd used to work full-time behind the bar at Key West’s Aqua. One day, she was called in to fill a slow Saturday afternoon shift and the idea just hit her: “Why don’t you have me tend bar and sing?” With the bar’s huge selection of karaoke CDs, Redd’s brainstorm proved an instant success.

One of Redd’s obvious influences is Bette Midler, whom she admires for “her outrageousness and amazing talent. Of course, I grew up idolizing Barbra Streisand, though I sound nothing like her. I sing a lot of Linda Ronstadt stuff—she totally made a career singing other people’s songs. I try to write, but it won’t come out.” Her absolute “favorite, favorite, favorite” is Sting, a man who can do no wrong in Redd’s strong opinion. Often, Redd’s sets will include “Fragile” and Police hits like “Every Breath You Take.”

“I have 400 songs on my request list,” Redd says, referring to four-plus pages that range from “Against All Odds” to “You’re the First, the Last, My Everything.” “I know pretty much a lot of what I sing, but I use ‘cheat sheets.’ I probably know maybe 200 in my head.” Tonight, nobody has asked for “I’m Too Sexy,” much to Redd’s surprise—instead, there are a lot of requests for country songs, but twang isn’t one of her specialties.

Redd’s set-up at Sally’s includes the wireless headset and a laptop computer loaded with backing tracks. She would love to sing perform with a band—rock and roll or big band—and longs to collaborate with area musicians on a jazz album.

As Redd’s set winds down, she brings down the house with a novelty tune identified as “The Boob Song”: Some push ‘em up
Some stick ‘em out
Some leave ‘em flappin’ in the breeze…
“This goes over great in Seaside, lemme tell ya,” Redd says. Later, she informs me the song was popularized by a woman named Ruth Wallace but came to Redd’s attention through a lip-synching drag queen friend in Key West. “People love it. I just found the music recently, so I started doing it a month ago.” Now the regulars expect it. They demand it.

Though she wasn’t professionally trained—“I had an extremely good concert choir teacher,” Redd says—she definitely has a way with show tunes, a genre I don’t usually find myself enjoying.

Redd appears at Sally’s Tuesday nights at 6:30 and Saturdays at 8 p.m. “Leave the kids at home, especially for the Saturday show” Redd says. Additional gigs and information can be tracked down at www.reddsings.com.