“Let the arthritis stay away from my hands,” says Nancy Fox, 73, piano player and self-proclaimed “spokalist,” who performs about 15 high-tempo shows a month for seniors at retirement homes and other facilities in Marin.
She plays hits from 20th-century musicals on the piano, but doesn’t claim to be a singer in the traditional sense. “I say the words and certainly can speak with a lot of expression,” she says.
Sometimes the crowd sings along with her. Fox often provides rhythm instruments for seniors to play and instructs them about the varieties of rhythm in their hearts and in the music. Her repertoire includes thousands of songs and she loves to take requests at the end of her shows.
Her upbeat performances from times gone by often allow audience members to access long-buried memories and emotions. “There are elderly people who just live in the moment, but music is one of the most important ways of accessing their memories,” says the longtime San Anselmo resident. “I love to share the power of music with others, watch them as their heads nod and fingers and toes tap and smiles pop on their faces.”
While she’s always been a performer (she used to do shows for kids, using life-size puppets that she made herself), and she grew up with many musical family members (her great-grandfather conducted the Russian symphony), Fox began her senior-focused performances when her mother entered a Jewish day care facility in Detroit due to Alzheimer’s disease. Though her mother was not able to form any new memories, and forgot her daughter’s concerts the moment the piano went silent, Fox could see that the music was tapping into something profound.
“Mom would start to sing camp songs from her childhood when she was 90. I knew that the music triggered her long-term memory,” she says.
It was her mother who first ignited Fox’s passion for music, taking her to see the jazz pianist Phineas Newborn in 1948, and then subscribing to the annual musical theater in town. Fox particularly liked Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals such as “South Pacific,” “Carousel,” “Oklahoma” and “The Sound of Music.”
During her performances now — especially when she does shows at area JCCs or synagogues — Fox focuses on famous American Jewish composers and performers. When she highlights Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein, for example, Fox likes to tell stories about how they consciously inserted progressive political views into their work.
After playing their famous song against prejudice, “You’ve Gotta Be Carefully Taught,” from “South Pacific,” she’ll explain how the lyrics, “You’ve got to be taught to hate and fear, You’ve got to be taught from year to year, It’s got to be drummed In your dear little ear, You’ve got to be carefully taught,” caused so much controversy that the Georgia state assembly introduced a bill outlawing such communist entertainment.
“They [the legislators] said that a song justifying interracial marriage was a threat to American life,” Fox notes.
Despite the outrage over the show’s liberal theme, Fox said that Rodgers and Hammerstein threatened to pull out of the production if anything was changed to appease public opinion. The show went on.
Fox frequently points out the Jewish angles of music history — telling stories of early jazz singers, composers and performers, such as Al Jolson, Jerome Kern, Eddie Cantor and Fanny Brice — many of whom appeared in the lavish Broadway productions known as the Ziegfeld Follies. “I love to research how this music and my Jewish background come together,” she adds.
For her show next month at the JCC of San Francisco, Fox is researching the lively character of Dorothy Fields, who Fox says was a feminist who could “hang with the boys” in the days of Cole Porter, Irving Berlin and George Gershwin.
Melody Horowitz, Shabbat lunch coordinator at the Osher Marin JCC, has seen many of Fox’s shows at the San Rafael institution. Horowitz loves the mix of commentary with the musical numbers. “You come away from her performance feeling like you not only had a great time,” she says, “but you also learned something.”
Nancy Fox performs “Getting to Know You: The Music of Rodgers & Hammerstein” from 12:30 to 2 p.m. May 10 at the JCC of San Francisco, 3200 California St., S.F. Free.