This past weekend I played with some musicians for a variety show for a fund raiser event. We were backing up a group of singers that were impersonating several different acts including The Andrews Sisters, Liza Meneli, Sony & Cher, Neil Diamond, The Beatles, Kool & the Gang, Styx, etc. complete with costume changes. I even had to wear a Beatle wig and John Lennon glasses for part of it.

It was quite a task to cover all these different styles and get all the right tones for each act. (this is the kind of stuff that I love to do!)
I used my Variax modeling guitar which proved to be perfect for this kind of gig. I also used my Vox Valvetronix amp and a separate acoustic amp for various tunes.

I used the Rickenbacker 12 and 6-string models to cover the Beatle tunes (Hard Days Night, Twist & Shout) and also the Sony&Cher (I Got You Babe) and it sounded really authentic for these tunes.

For the Kool&the Gang tunes I used the Tele model in the middle position to get the funk guitar tones.

I used the Banjo model (through an acoustic amp) for the tune Cabaret, while the keyboard player did a clarinet part and it fit this song perfectly.
The banjo model doesn't work for everything, but it sounds great for strumming parts for dixieland style banjo style which is what I used it for in this tune.

The wierdest part of the show was when I had to play the guitar part for the Styx tune "Come Sail Away", (Les Paul through a Marshall sound) and then go immediately into a Barbara Streisand medley. I thought that my amp was going to develop a personality disorder :-)

It was great fun for all of us and my wife was one of the singers too, so that made it nice to do something together. We had a blast.

-- Jim