Changing Keys: Martuni's Piano Bar Thrives In A Karaoke World

It's packed enough in the back room of Martuni's piano bar to fog up your eyeglasses, but people make room for Juanita Harris. Patrons secure their large drinks with both hands and lurch out of Harris' way as she emerges from the shadows and strides purposefully toward pianist Joe Wicht.

"That's it," she declares. She didn't want to sing. She needed to. "I got to do 'When You're Good to Mama,'" she announces to the room. Harris performs that very number onstage in San Jose -- most weekdays and twice on Saturdays and Sundays -- where she's playing Matron Mama Morton in a City Lights Theater production of Chicago. But, on this night, bar patrons stand an arm's length from a vocalist of the first order belting out a showstopper with the abandon you'd expect from a woman who just slammed down a fishbowl-sized martini and stood to sing because, damn it, she had to.

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