Biography

Born in Illinois, in 1953 the fourth of five children, tribute artist, singer, song-writer, Dave Karl, grew up in a very old town of Wooddale where his father worked in construction and his mother a stay-at-home mom. He started out as a kid doing cartoon character voices for family and friends – an early discovery of impersonating!

Mel Blanc was his mentor, the voice behind all the Warner Bros. ® cartoon characters. At age eight, Dave learned the guitar and at that time he took an interest in singing as well. Impersonating the styles of Elvis, the Beatles, along with other rock-n-roll artists. He spent a lot of time writing music with fellow musicians and going into recording studios to cut 45 rpm records to sell to their followers, trying to make it into the music industry.

When he turned 18 years of age, he turned to Country Music. Impersonating stars like, Merle Haggard, Johnny Cash, Conway Twitty, Kenny Rogers and even actors such as Walter Brennen who released a song in 1962. In the mid- 1970’s Dave also learned the Bass guitar along with self-teaching the piano. From 1986 to 1993 Dave was invited to be a member of a well-known Chicago Country music group, “Heartland”. There he played keyboard and guitar. Opening acts for stars such as, Marie Osmond, Lee Greenwood, Ronnie Milsap, and many others. After the band split in 1993, he focused on being a single act. He continued to impersonate as he worked local clubs.

In early 2008 Dave put together a Tribute Act to Kenny Rogers. The show is called” A Touch of Kenny”. His ability to impersonator Kenny comes so easily for him because even his own speaking voice is dead on to Kenny’s voice.

January of 2010 he moved to Arizona and in March of that year, he was casted by “Movie Works” a motion picture company to play the part of Kenny Rogers in a movie called “Queens of Country” not yet released.

Back to performers