Poughkeepsie
Live:
The “Beat Club” of the Hudson Valley
By Peter Aaron
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Given
the show’s empathy for its guests, it’s not so surprising
to learn that several of the staffers are musicians themselves;
audio engineer Todd Giudice is an acclaimed singer-songwriter with
two CDs under his belt, while Dell fronts the popular cover band
4 Guys in Disguise and leads the Michael Dell Orchestra, a wedding
group. But as a unit everyone at “Poughkeepsie Live”
makes it all run like a Swiss watch, week after week.
“Raj and I definitely have this yin-and-yang thing in the
way we work,” Conte says. “I’ll notice something
I think needs correcting, like some camera angle that could be better
or something. Then I’ll go to point it out to him and he’ll
have already noticed it and be in the process of fixing it. We have
that kind of synchronicity.”
Dell
seems much at ease in front of the camera, perhaps attributable
to his show-business background— besides playing in bands,
he books local comedy nights and his father was a professional singer—but
maybe also because he spent some time on the other side. “I
was a cameraman on the show for four years,” he recalls. “I
would fill in when the last host was sick or couldn’t make
it, and then I just kind of got thrown into it. And here I am.”
So who are his favorite acts to have been on the show? “Wow,
that’s tough. There’ve been so many good ones,”
he says. “Definitely John Pizarelli. I really loved having
him on. I also really dug (ex-Saturday Night Live guitarist) G.E.
Smith, (singer-songwriter) Tracy Bonham, and, especially, (adolescent
blues phenomenon) Miles Mancuso—that kid is just amazing,”
he says.
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