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From History Teacher To Karaoke King

Tribune photos by JASON BEHNKEN

Retired school teacher and longtime Elvis fan Jack Carney uses his karaoke machine to entertain audiences.

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By MICHELLE BEARDEN | The Tampa Tribune

Published: March 27, 2009

TAMPA - The buzz ricochets through the senior center: Jack is back!

Forty-five minutes before Jack Carney's mid-afternoon show begins, the residents make their way to the activities room. Some push walkers, others are guided by a caregiver.

"This is one of the highlights of their week," whispers Dawn Bersano. Her job at Arden Courts, an assisted-living facility for people with Alzheimer's disease, is to set up social events. It's the fourth time she has booked the one-time Tampa Catholic High School teacher, now known as Karaoke Jack.

Then Jack bounds into the room wearing a bright Hawaiian shirt decorated with cherry-red martinis. It's party time.

He sets up his karaoke machine — which he affectionately calls "My band in a box" — queues up the music and adjusts his microphone. In the time it takes to get his props in place, a few audience members have begun to nod off.

He taps the mike. "Is everyone ready for a good time?" Eyes pop open. The women in the first few rows are alert, ready to participate. Some near the back of the room stare straight ahead, seemingly oblivious to the white-haired man with a spring in his step. One elderly gent in a wheelchair stares glumly out the window.

With St. Patrick's Day around the corner, Jack puts on a headband with a pair of springy shamrocks and opens the set with "The Unicorn Song." Dancing a little jig, he belts out the famed anthem by the Irish Rovers in a lilting brogue. The words scroll across a screen behind him:

There was green alligators and long-necked geese

The loveliest of all was the unicorn.

It doesn't take long. A few more Irish numbers, then a string of standards from the 1930s and '40s, followed by a Hank Williams standby and some favorite folk songs. He tells a few corny jokes and sings duets with his lady friend, Rose Alvarez. Their enthusiasm is catchy. Before long, several residents are out of their chairs, clapping their hands and swirling in circles with a partner.

The elderly gent in the wheelchair doesn't get up. But when Jack starts crooning a smooth-as-Sinatra version of "What a Wonderful World," the old man smiles. He seems to be remembering some moment, somewhere in time.

Seeing that flicker of recognition is why Jack does this.

"I'm not just singing the songs," he says, after his hourlong show wraps up. "I'm singing their memories. If I can take them back to a happy place, then I'm doing my job."

Retroman

This is Jack Carney's second act.

For 40 years — 37 at Tampa Catholic and three at the now-closed Holy Name Grade School in Gulfport — he was a teacher.

He taught social sciences. World civilization, American history, current events. He loved it. When he retired in 2003, two years after heart bypass surgery, he wasn't so much burned out as "teched" out, as he calls it.

"Putting grades in the computer, now that is scary stuff," he says. At 69, he's not into newfangled anything. He drives a 1996 Buick and calls himself "Retroman." He wanted to leave before he got too out of touch.

Students loved him. They never knew when he would break out in a song in the middle of a lesson. But the fun factor didn't make him a pushover. He challenged them and made them think. Sometimes he'd stride into the room and start sniffing the air. "I smell a weasel," he'd say. That signaled a pop quiz was coming.

"Some days you just have to sell your subject, and the students aren't buying," says Natalie Pawlowski, a 2000 graduate who teaches English at her alma mater. "But Mr. Carney was so enthused, you couldn't help but catch it. I think of him and I know that's the kind of teacher I want to be."

Mary Donovan, 53, recalls a teacher who was "respected with love, not with fear." When the class of 1973 celebrated its 30th reunion, someone invited Mr. Carney. They regaled their former history teacher with stories of the funny things he did, things he had long forgotten. He didn't know he had made such a lasting impression on them.

"He seemed surprised," the Lutz woman recalls. "I'm glad he finally found out how much we loved taking his classes. He was inventive, and he was interesting. He took what could have been a dry subject and made us hungry to learn more."

No one is too surprised that Jack has reinvented himself as a karaoke king. His love of making music dates back to his teen years. In 1956, he and his family moved from New Jersey to Florida. He had a bad case of acne and a fear of girls. So he started playing the guitar to assuage his loneliness and insecurity.

He never mastered the instrument, just enough to get by. But he learned he had a pretty good voice and a comfortable stage persona. He sang at weddings and played coffeehouse gigs while attending Florida State University. After he married and started teaching, three babies came. He moonlighted at a local brewery to bring in extra cash.

At Tampa Catholic, he was a perennial favorite in the school talent show, at sock hops and fund-raising carnivals. Some remember him with The Highjackers, the group that performed at Tampa Bay Rowdies games and on homecoming weekends. Then there was The Wormdiggers, his three-member group famous for playing "the greatest hits that were never known."

"I think people used to hang around to hear what we couldn't sing. We really weren't that talented," he says with a laugh. "Finally, we just faded into oblivion."

He dabbled in all genres, but his favorite then and now was the King. He bought a white jumpsuit, a pair of dark shades and a plastic lei, transforming into the later-day Elvis Presley for parties. He listened to old recordings and nailed down a respectable imitation of the hip-swinging heartthrob.

"Yes, he's a ham, but he's a talented ham. He does one heck of an Elvis," says Al Fernandez, a Tampa Catholic teacher who worked with Jack for 11 years. "You realize pretty quickly that he's a solid, compassionate, old school guy, and darn fun to be around."

His New Passion

A few years before his retirement, Jack started thinking about what should come next in his life.

He had been living alone since his marriage ended amicably after 20 years. His three grown children had lives of their own. As much as he loved music — country, old standards, rock 'n' roll, gospel and folk — he knew his garage band days were coming to an end.

As if on cue, the karaoke craze swept in. Jack fell hard. Who needed a band with all the arrangements available at the flick of a switch? At first he dreamed of being a karaoke jock on cruise ships, spinning tracks for passengers competing for applause. But he realized he didn't want to be in the background. Singing along was too much fun.

Jack bought himself a karaoke machine and set it up in his back room. After school, he'd come home, draw the curtains, bounce around and sing for hours on end. He even put up a disco light. It was nirvana.

Saying goodbye to a four-decade career wasn't so hard once he found a new passion.

"Golf and fishing bore me. My brothers love it. I can't believe we came out of the same oven," Jack says. He loves to garden and bike, and go dancing and compete in heated Scrabble tournaments with Rose. He still plays the "Singing Santa" at the Tampa Catholic Christmas party. He has his two cats, Elvis and Presley, to keep him company at home.

He's not too adept at self-promotion. The Karaoke Jack gigs, which he books for $60 a show, don't come too often. He keeps an extensive collection of tracks, but promises "nothing newer than the '80s." That's OK, because he prefers venues and events that cater to senior citizens.

There's a synergy he gets from entertaining the elderly. He calls it the "sandwich syndrome." He's the peanut butter. The audience is the jelly. Put them together and it makes a pretty good combination.

"There's nothing altruistic about this," Jack says. "I'm getting as much enjoyment out of it as I hope the listeners are."

Plus, he says, performing is a lot like teaching school. "Only everybody is paying attention. That's the cool part."

Carney can be reached at (813) 876-3544 or via his Web site, karaokejack.homestead.com.

Reporter Michelle Bearden can be reached at (813) 259-7613.

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