On Tuesday night, karaoke takes the spotlight

The Yo! Karaoke Disciples are up there working it out.

“KEEP SMIIIIIIIILIN’! KEEP SHIIIININ’! Knoooowing you can always count on ME, for SURE...!”

Kimberly Stewart, Kecia Ellick, Fahamu Pecou and Jamila Crawford are under the spotlight singing the 1986 hit “That’s What Friends Are For.” Ellick is crooning the Gladys Knight verse; Crawford the Dionne Warwick verse; Pecou is playing air harmonica to the Stevie Wonder part and Stewart, event planner, wife and mother of two, is belting her best Elton John. They are loud, they are free and reveling in every note, rendered on key or off.

“THROUGH THE GOOD TIMES, AND THE BAD...” “I’ll be on your side for ever MOOOOOORE,” the crowd sings back.

It swoons and sways like a congregation at a revival meeting, each member waiting for his or her turn on the Yo! Karaoke stage.

Five nights a week Pal’s is a blues and funk bar. It sits on a corner of Auburn Avenue, just beyond the hulk of the I-75/85 underpass.

For generations it has been a “Sweet Auburn” institution.

But since February, on Tuesday night, the bar turns into a karaoke hall for a fellowship of Atlanta’s young African-American creative class. You’re as likely to see an urban planner belt out “I Want to Know What Love Is,” by Foreigner or a writer screeching Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” as you would a photographer rapping to the old-school classic “Children’s Story” by Slick Rick. They had teacher appreciation night the other week and a whole bunch of Atlanta Public School teachers showed up for their last blast of summer, which included more than a couple of trips to the microphone.

Funk and R&B singer Joi is a regular, as are local actors and actresses, including one or two of Tyler Perry’s favorite cast members. Atlanta District 2 City Council member Kwanza Hall shows up on the regular, but he has yet to get up the nerve to take the stage.

“I need to learn a song first,” Hall says. “It would probably help improve everybody’s listening pleasure.”

A ‘karaoke fiend’

You’d think karaoke is played out, about as fresh an idea as bar trivia. Yeah, and so what if it is? At least that’s the way Pecou sees it. He started Yo! Karaoke because he is a great, big, old, self-admitted “karaoke fiend.”

The 35-year-old is also a noted painter, whose meditations on hip-hop culture have been exhibited internationally and reviewed in publications from Harper’s Magazine to Art in America. When he’d go to other bars around town to sing, he was often one of a couple of African-Americans on the microphone.

It’s not that he felt out of place, but he wanted to do karaoke around people who knew that the first few bars of “Flash Light” by Parliament was reason enough to send up a rapturous, communal scream.

Pecou approached a couple of popular joints in town with established karaoke nights and asked to let him host a karaoke event once a month. With his connections and a few tweets he believed he could deliver a packed house. No takers.

So earlier this year he approached Devon Lee, the 31-year-old, fourth-generation proprietor of Pal’s. Lee believes his generation will be the one to bring about the long-promised revival of Sweet Auburn. And if singing at the top of your lungs to Lou Rawls’ “You’ll Never Find” will hasten its arrival, then Lee is all for it happening at his place. Pecou is the MC who is trying to help usher it in.

Drawing a crowd

The first Yo! Karaoke night at Pal’s was in February. Try going in there now on a Tuesday night and it’s hard to move.

Look around. You can tell the regulars by the custom T-shirts they wear identifying them as true “Karaoke Disciples.”

Stewart, 33, and Ellick, 35, won’t stop. Fresh off their “Friends” performance, they are sweating, dancing and cheering on a new performer. Somebody starts singing a Foreigner song and Stewart pulls out a lighter and waves it in the air, 1980s style. Seems like everyone in the place is singing “I want you to SHOOOOOOW MEEEEEEE!”

A few months ago, Stewart performed Ashford and Simpson’s “Solid as a Rock” — while dressed as both R&B songwriters, Nickolas Ashford and his wife, Valerie Simpson. One side of Stewart’s body was made up like Ashford, complete with his lion’s mane of hair. The other side was the petite, braided Simpson. Everybody at Pal’s still talks about it. About the only thing that could rival it was her performance in the Michael Jackson tribute on the one-year anniversary of his death. In a tuxedo and Afro wig, Stewart was “Off the Wall” Michael. Ellick was “BAD” Michael. The place was so packed it was hard to moonwalk.

Ellick works for recruiter Red Bull Music Academy. Sometimes, though, she wants a little spotlight to shine on her shoulders, so she heads over to Yo! Karaoke. Singing the Gladys Knight verses tonight is a dream fulfilled.

“I’ve always, always wanted to be Gladys,” Ellick says as she and Stewart step outside to catch their breath under the red Pal’s sign.

“Sometimes, you don’t want to be a wife, you don’t want to be a mom. You want to be Ashford and Simpson,” Stewart says.

“Or Michael [Jackson] or Diana [Ross],” Ellick says.

The electronic thump of an ’80s drum machine pops through the open bar door. There’s a count-off. Somebody’s about to sing “Raspberry Beret.”

Time to go inside and be Prince.

Yo! Karaoke