Function/ Cover Band Research

''A cover band (or covers band), is a band that plays mostly or exclusively cover songs. New or unknown bands often find the cover band format marketable for smaller gigs, and these bands may be known as a wedding band, party band and function band''


This definition fits our band, The Harmonettes, as they describe themselves as a cover band without limitations on the songs they can do in order to appeal to a wider audience. They mentioned they aim to gig at weddings and some corporate functions although they have not been booked yet.
Many cover bands or artists can gain great success through covering well known songs, it is said that The Rolling Stones created 3 albums worth of cover songs before their original stuff, another example of a great successful cover band is The Jeff Healey band whose original music featured in the soundtrack to the film 'Roadhouse'.
A more modern example of a successful cover band are The Baseballs who introduce a unique style to modern songs and it is also known for reality TV show winners from programmes such as The X Factor to have their first release as a cover song; some have clearly been more successful that others.
Our band has highlighted they are not aiming for the professional route and sticking to local events and certain booked gigs, and due to their diverse range of songs, they do not attach themselves to a particular genre and so this broadens our research completely and it would be wrong for us to pin a particular label to them so we have organised our ideas and material around the actual song and performance music video. The video will act as a one off feature of the band that can be played to potential clients and the value added material such as DVD cover, and promotional poster will be effective advertising ploy joined with the video.
Target audience for function bands would vary depending on venue but particular wedding venues or corporate gigs would assumingly be at the 25+ age range. A wedding may have a more diverse age range going from small kids, to teens, to young adults, to adults and old people so it is important for our band to remain slightly modern, if not appeal to those that would have grown up with Motown music. This fits in with the idea of appealing to those that would have grown up with Cher's version of The Shoop Shoop song and you may find many of them at a wedding. Having said that the bad would appeal to those over 30 at the least and the band itself does not attract specifically males or females which broadens their audience however one could argue that due to the song and the lyric content it attracts more females.


I researched local Motown bands to try and find some ideas however this was fairly difficult. I found Mission Blue but the website looks old and outdated so the information may be irrelevant.
I also found The Curvettes, who are similar to our band as they are fronted by three lead female singers, however on a bigger and more glamorous scale. (Their band name also conforms to the Motown conventional  name layout that I found).


This website (link) has also been useful in finding any other conventions of Motown and I can use it to try and take any more elements to include.