Sun, 30 Apr 2000

Guess What? Bill Saragih

What's in a name? It's money. Oops, not really. But for veteran jazz musician Bill Amirsyah Saragih, a name has a lot to do with business. That is why he changed his name to Bill Simatupang.

"Simatupang is Siang malam tunggu panggilan (Waiting for order day and night)," Bill joked during the cocktail party held in conjunction with the 17th anniversary of The Jakarta Post at The Regent hotel in Jakarta on Tuesday.

Bill said he has become "a high-class unemployed man" since he stopped performing at pubs in the city recently and started to take orders from companies, "including state-owned pawnshop company Perum Pegadaian".

But now he prefers to sing at Chinese wedding parties.

"It's a true business," he said. At such parties, he only sings one or two songs, but receives quite a nice sum of money.

One day, he said, after he sang one line of a song at a wedding party, suddenly there was a blackout. Not too long afterward, the family of the bride came to him and handed him a receipt to sign. He could not believe it. "It's big money," he said. (Darul Aqsha)