GERIATRIC & THE PACEMAKERS FOR SUN CITY MUSIC LOVERS, IT'S ALWAYS THE SAME OLD SONG AND DANCE

"Probably one of the most revered tunes in Sun City is `Proud Mary.' They'll get out there and swing the hell out of it and really move. There was this eighty-year-old guy who used to come in with a gal, and the first thing he'd ask for was rock 'n' roll tunes. He wasn't kidding. He would say, `How about doing "Proud Mary"?' He'd stay out there for four hours."

But Nice 'n Easy can't rock out all night. "They're hung up on the big band sound," Ives says with a sigh about the Sun Citians, "so you have to kind of cool it that way and stick one in here, and stick one in there."

What the Iveses seem to have learned better than anything during their Sun City stint is to pick their spots with the right material. For instance, Ives 'n' Ives have experimented with Lionel Richie and Grover Washington songs, but Sun City isn't that funky. "When you get to the Lionel Richie stuff, you're getting into a different world," Ives says. "They just don't know how to move like the younger kids do. They don't understand the beat. You've gotta cool it. Take the Grover Washington tune `Just the Two of Us.' Nice tune, but it doesn't work. They just don't get the feel for that kind of beat."

Nor do Sun City hoofers warm up to the slow stuff. "It looks like they're not too fond of doing close-together-type dancing," Ives observes. "The minute we play a ballad, everyone goes and sits down. I don't know if they don't like embracing older women, or maybe it's just that their wives don't want to embrace. I haven't figured it out. Slow tunes are kind of a no-no. In a night, we might play one or two ballads, and some nights, not even one. They just don't go over. The minute you play a ballad, they say, `Come on, let's swing it.'"

OVER-THE-HILL STREET BLUES LET'S SEE, NO... v5-23-90