‘Lady J’ operates karaoke like clockwork

Laura Jordan of Albany, who goes by Lady J with her High Stakes Karaoke venture, runs things smoothly and efficiently on Wednesday evenings at the Smiling Skull Saloon on West Union Street in Athens.

That’s no small task, with her karaoke patrons given up to five hours to sing their favorite rock and country songs starting at 9 p.m. About 25 customers did so on June 19, and some customers belted out more than one song. When the Smiling Skull is at its karaoke-busy best, duets are commonplace.

Gigsalad.com rates Lady J’s business as a Top Performer, and her customers appear to concur.

“She’s awesome,” said Amos Harber of Wellston, after crooning the ‘70s Bill Withers classic “Lean on Me”. “She is always on top of it and has everybody on point, (with) no gaps or delays.”

Lady J said she has fine-tuned the ability to set her customers at ease, while also running things like a well-oiled machine. Any song a patron requests to sing is looked up on a laptop computer search bar, which is connected to her sound drive, and to a number of amplifiers. Long gone are the pre-pandemic days of large binders full of karaoke songs by category — as people would “spill beer on them,” she said — or song submission by cue cards.

Lady J keeps tabs on who is up next to sing on the computer, but also by handwriting names in a notebook. If someone is, say, due to sing but is upstairs enjoying the patio, she simply fills in her own name and goes on to the next singer. Whoever missed their turn can get back in the “karaoke line,” so to speak. After each performer, she sprays a smidge of cleaning solution on the microphone.

When Ohio University was in full session before the COVID-19 pandemic, Lady J said a really busy night would have as many as 100 karaoke enthusiasts come in wanting to sing. The current numbers are still good, but there is always a bit of a slowdown in the summer. Her patrons are a diverse mixture, ranging from college age to retirement age.

“It’s a relaxed atmosphere,” she said. “I just like to keep it moving. The college students like to sing, it helps to settle them down.”

Kristina Denbow, who works at Goodwill and has taken classes as a music therapy major at Ohio University, said being a regular patron on karaoke night with Lady J is good for mind, body and soul, a way to spend quality time with friends who support each other’s singing aspirations. True enough, a few sang along with Denbow as she hit the high notes to the Aerosmith rock hit, “Dream on.”

“I love to sing, and this is a way to let some stress go that’s so much fun,” Denbow said.

Lady J, who also offers her High Stakes Karaoke business to weddings, private parties and even funerals, started at the Smiling Skull nearly two decades ago. These days, she works with the Wolfe family. Back then, her husband, Clyde, a surveyor, liked to sing with her.

At one point, the two were working on a duet they would perform together originated by Kid Rock and Sheryl Crow, called “Picture.” It’s one of those incredibly popular songs that went viral, with more than 352 million views on YouTube to date. Clyde wanted her to learn it by heart, Lady J said.

But before they could perform together, Clyde passed away suddenly from a form of meningitis, she said. It was heartbreaking, as the two had known each other since childhood.

So, 18 years ago, she got into the karaoke business, at first with others alongside her. Later she decided to make it on her own. Lady J worked for American Electric Power for 44 years, she said, as “a manager’s secretary for most of that time.”

“I started doing this to celebrate my husband’s life,” she offered, adding that she has a son and grandchildren, and hopes to leave the business to them one day.

Originally from the Shade area, where she loved horses and participated in 4-H, Lady J attended Alexander High School.

She keeps her High Stakes Karaoke business fresh by going to new places on occasion to set up and do a gig, and offers fun challenges at times like “name that tune” or “name that artist.” One advantage of being a karaoke deejay is that it’s a traveling business and can always take you to new places, she said. Her services are offered within a radius of 120 miles.