With 'Diamond,' It's My Way and The Highway
by James Temple

The Contra Costa Times
Appeared 8/26/06 in the "WHERE WE LIVE" section
  
"Diamond" Dave Hosley can see he hasn't connected yet with the St. Mary's crowd, the 20-something students mostly chatting among themselves in the lounge, so he ignores an older patron's request for Sinatra's "My Way."
  
"Here's a song," announces Hosley, the longtime singer at Petar's Restaurant & Pub in Lafayette, "you're never gonna hear another white guy my age play."
  
A familiar, buzzing bass line fills the room, and I know what's coming next.
  
"My humps," he sings in a high-pitched voice, emulating Fergie's part of the wildly (and inexplicably) popular Black Eyed Peas song. "My humps, my humps, my humps."
  
I sense a cringe coming when I realize the next line. But as he bobs up and down and tickles the synthesizer keys, "my lovely lady lumps" escapes his lips.
  
The young women in the crowd giggle in delight. They are now shifting their shoulders to the beat and singing along. He's hooked them.
  
A reporter once asked Diamond Dave, who takes on Usher, Nelly and 50 Cent with equal relish, if he sings these songs tongue in cheek.
  
"Not really," he replied.
  
Many of his musician friends consider themselves too much the artiste to play popular selections. But Diamond Dave considers himself foremost an entertainer. He plays what the crowd wants to hear. And he doesn't really care if they're laughing at or with him, so long as they're laughing.
  
This ego-less flexibility has made Hosley a Lafayette fixture. He has played at Petar's for 20 years, since he arrived in the Bay Area from Connecticut. As tastes changed, as local demographics shifted, so did his selections.
  
That, in turn, has helped keep Petar's fresh.
  
An indisputable institution now in its 47th year, Petar's dining room tilts toward stodginess. The family crests and hunting scene paintings stand in particularly sharp contrast to Chow, the modern, terra cotta restaurant across the street. As do the gray-haired weeknight customers working through continental fare, heavy on the beef and veal, when held up to Chow's mostly young families and couples.
  
Diamond Dave is the bridge, proving that Petar's has something for everyone. After all, two songs later, he did play "My Way."