Greenbrae octogenarian couple serenade residents of Marin assisted living facilities
It’s far from quiet at Doug and Beth Slye’s house in Greenbrae. When they’re not listening to music or singing to each other, they’re practicing the nostalgic duets they perform at assisted living facilities in Marin. Donning everything from cowboy hats to berets to scarves, the octogenarian couple of 57 years ham it up while singing tunes the residents typically know, from “Hey, Good Lookin'” to “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” to “When I’m 94,” their playful take on the Beatles’ “When I’m Sixty-Four.”
While the retired duo started performing to Marin assisted living facilities a few years ago, they’re happy to be back at it after a pandemic pause.
Q How did you get into music?
Beth: As a junior in high school, I joined the glee club and wound up in two lead roles. I liked singing, but it just added to my love of singing to be with an amazing director.
Doug: I started out in high school in Evanston, Illinois. We had a glee club at the all-boys school, and we won championships in Chicago. That was my first exposure to singing and music, and I loved it.
Q After raising two kids and retiring, how’d you get back into it?
Beth: Around 2015, I joined the Wings of Song, a women’s chorus, for awhile and I enjoyed that for several years. I got a chance to join Mayflower Chorus. That has been just wonderful fun, and ended up in a breakout group called Fourth Street Beat, which has about 12 singers. We, along with a couple other breakout groups, do our own special song or songs in Mayflower shows. Very fun, very rewarding. We also sing at assisted living homes, and yearly have also sung at Christmas time in the Fairmont Hotel lobby.
Doug: I was with the Marin Men’s Chorus for awhile, and I had a chance to do some small solos with them. I got the bug about singing solos in China. We were on a tour on the Yangtze River with other tour companies and each was supposed to put somebody up to sing karaoke to represent their tour company. I was picked for our tour company and when it came to go out on the stage there was nobody except me. I got up there in front of 200-some people and I sang and I loved it. It was really fun, and that was instrumental.
Q How’d the group begin?
Doug: Beth and I were performing at assisted living facilities with the choruses that we were in. There was a musical couple, Steve and Eydie, who was really popular for many years and I started to grab some of their songs and I said to Beth, “I think we could do this,” and we did. I was really encouraged by the fact that a lot of people aren’t doing this type of music like this.
Q Having this enrichment seems even more important now in COVID times.
Beth: We really noticed that with the reaction of people. We’re all wanting it, something that is upbeat, fun, interesting and shared with others. It opens them up, sometimes they’re quiet or shy but once we’ve sung, several of them will come up and chat with us.
Doug: We are of the same age of the people that we are singing to. They tell us their stories. Some people used to be singers. At AlmaVia in San Rafael, I had a woman come up to me. She was 88 and had sung at different venues, including one in France. Really cute, and very rewarding stuff. One time we sung “Slow Boat to China,” the comedic version by Bette Midler and Barry Manilow, and this guy is applauding and screaming and he said, “That was our song at high school.”
Beth: Memory is always an issue when you get older, and so that’s partly why we choose things that we think they will know, and that they are engaged.
Q Where else do you like to sing?
Doug: We go to Belrose sometimes — they have open mics on Thursdays nights — and test out songs for them. And Marin Joe’s has a piano bar and sometimes we will meet friends and sing there. We are always looking for opportunities
Q What do you love about singing together?
Beth: It’s fun. Doing the harmony, sharing the music together with those who are in the room with us, it just fits.
Doug: I think just a real good camaraderie develops when you sing together. You connect at another level.