PLAYING FOR YOUR SUPPER

Buddy Anderson performs at Bessie's Restaurant & Smorgasbord at 3524 William St.

Vi Keys plays dinner music at the Holiday Inn at *-55 and William Street.

Some musicians play music to listen to, some play music to dance to.

Jean Pierre, Vi Keys and Buddy Anderson play music to eat to.

So far none of them has had to employ the Heimlich maneuver, but playing dinner music can be a humbling gig for a talented musician. People are asking about the oysters and chatting with their mate instead of appreciating their chord inversions.

These particular musicians love the job, though. "I have always enjoyed watching people have a good time," says Jean Pierre.

Here are three among a number of people who play dinner music locally.

Jean Pierre

With his beret and backwater voice, Jean Pierre Andre Le Jacque Peletierre looks and sounds like the real thing: a coon ass (a Cajun term of affection for each other). He was born, however, far north of Louisiana and far west of the original Acadians, at a speck in the snow called Porcupine Post, Yukon Territory. His parents came from France to work for the Hudson Bay Co. outpost on the Yukon River.

The post had little in the way of amenities, but it did have a piano. "They had brought it up the river for the miners and trappers to party," he said.

He taught himself to play by listening to the gramophone. "I dinged around from the time I was 5 years old. One day a tune fell out of the piano."

Jean Pierre lost his parents when he was 15. He joined the Merchant Marine soon afterward, eventually sailing to New Orleans, his home port during a 25-year career in the South Seas. Starting as a deckhand, he eventually captained his own cargo vessel.

During his frequent six-month leaves from the sea, Jean Pierre sometimes worked as a guide back in the Yukon Territory, and in 1957 took his first job as an entertainer at the Palace Saloon and Hotel in the Klondike.

A rough and ready Fairbanks saloon was the site of his biggest payday -- $500 in silver-dollar tips.

"They would throw them at you," he recalled. "I had bruises on my head and body from them pitching those silver dollars."

Since then he claims to have played every major saloon in the United States and all the big saloons and riverboats in Canada. He was behind the piano when Broussard's opened in downtown Cape Girardeau and only recently returned after a five-year absence.

Jean Pierre doesn't read music but will try almost anything. His "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" has a happy feel, and everything's done with a langnappe of bayou flavoring. He throws in a lyric on most songs, in a voice that sounds like Dr. John-meets-the-Marlboro-man.

Between sets he works the crowd like a group of long-lost shipmates.

Jean Pierre doesn't have the advantage of 10 digits, thanks to a chain saw accident 20 years ago. The top part of his left hand was severed and re-attached using catgut for tendons. Only his thumb and ring finger are operational. It seems not to matter a bit.

He plays at Broussard's Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays from 5 to 9 p.m. "I want to extend a personal invitation to my old friends and customers to come 'round," he says.

Vi Keys

Seventy-six-year-old Vi Keys plays at the Holiday Inn Friday and Saturday nights and Sundays for brunch. She has been a well-known figure in the Cape Girardeau music scene ever since the days when the Purple Crackle was one of the area's prime dining spots. She and her late husband, Eddie, a singer and guitarist, entertained regularly at the Crackle as a duo and also performed there in a small dance band.

Keys and her husband previously had played in western swing bands in Oklahoma. The winner of a country fiddling contest at 18, one of Keys' earliest musical memories was sitting in with Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys when the band's piano player didn't show up one night in Oklahoma City. Someone else sat in that night as well -- Hank Williams. That was 1952.

They played in Kansas City bands for 15 years before a booking at the Marquette Hotel brought them to Cape Girardeau. They decided to stay when their daughter became sick.

For many years Keys did a duo with her husband, who sang and played guitar. They opened the downtown music store, which she still operates with her son, Eddie.

When her husband died in 1974, Keys quit playing. "I never thought I could do solo because I can't sing," she said. But she started substituting at the Holiday Inn and became comfortable as a single. "You've got to be experienced and know what you're doing," she says.

Keys plays a powerful Hammond B3 organ topped by an electronic keyboard. Her playing style reflects her beginnings. "I like to play country my way, with a little jazz."

You won't hear one type of music at the Holiday Inn. "They don't want classical," Keys says.

There's a difference between playing lounge music and dinner music, Keys says. "In a lounge you can relax. If they don't like it they can leave."

Playing for diners requires a lighter touch, she says, and more sensitivity.

"I can tell who likes music and who doesn't like music."

When the church crowd comes in for Sunday brunch she gives them some "jazz gospel."

Sometimes the college kids snicker when they walk in and see someone playing who looks like their grandmother. "Then I'll play a jazzy blues. They'll turn around," she said, mimicking their surprised look.

"You sell yourself to people."

She doesn't put out a tip jar, not wanting to compete with hardworking waitresses and waiters for tips. But one diner, the father of a college girl who often came to the Holiday Inn, tipped her $100. "He said it was worth it to him to keep her from going across the river," Keys said.

In the end, she thinks her entertaining is good for her, too.

"It's therapy for me. I like to dress up. I do my own wardrobe. It's all beaded. That's what keeps me going."

Buddy Anderson

Buddy Anderson, who plays and sings six nights a week at Bessie's Smorgasbord, views himself as a public servant.

"God gave me the talent and I'm using it," he says. "I love people, and the best way to reach people is through music."

He grew up in the Anna area of Southern Illinois and was playing professionally by age 12. He played for Illinois Gov. William Stratton as a teen-ager in the 1950s, and by now has performed in countless lounges, restaurants and hotels all over the country, including long stints at Pheasant Run in Chicago, and Johnny Bash's and Ruby Dunes in Palm Springs.

That's where he met Frank Sinatra.

"We didn't become friends but we were on a first-name basis," Anderson says.

His lounge work started in high school, playing during breaks for the organist at the old Colony Club in East Cape Girardeau. But his big break was winning a county talent contest while visiting a cousin in Arkansas.

When some people complained afterward that he wasn't local, his uncle -- the county clerk -- "wrote me out a driver's license."

That contest propelled Anderson to the Midsouth Fair in Memphis, where he again won and was awarded television work.

His first big lounge job was at the Black Orchid in Hot Springs, Ark., an exclusive spot in 1960. He also played the Cabana Club in Paducah early in his career.

Between then and now have come a string of long-running jobs, from the Broadwater in Biloxi to the Thunderbird in Las Vegas. From lounges to steakhouses. He's done some modeling, too, and likes to paint.

Anderson doesn't mind that people at Bessie's are at least as interested in the smorgasbord as in his music. "When you're a public servant you have to expect that," he says. "I've had complete attention before."

Anderson decided to perform as a single from the beginning. "At the time most of the people I knew either had problems with drugs or alcohol, and I don't do that," he said. "I didn't want to be responsible for somebody other than myself."

With his piano situated at the front of the room, Anderson friendily greets customers as they enter and leave. His style isn't a sing-along, though, even in a lounge.

"People do not sing with me," he said. "One store owner said, If I wanted people to sing I would have hired them.

Not that people don't try, especially in lounges. "When they get a few drinks, everybody can sing," Anderson said.

Chinese influences can be heard in his playing, a circumstance he attributes to being "an old soul. Even in my artwork there's a slight oriental flair. I accent my life with Chinese things."

Anderson's wife died last September. For now, he plans to continue doing just what he's doing.

"I don't know where God will lead me," he says. "Whatever's meant to be, that's what I'll do."