12. NANCY FAUST: THE ONLY LIVE ACT THAT NIGHT
Steve and Garry’s backing band Teenage Radiation was scheduled to play a short set between games of the July 12, 1979 double-header, but the band was scrapped at the last minute due to logistics. It was up to the White Sox organist to serenade the lively audience.
White Sox organist Nancy Faust thought there might be trouble between games of the Disco Demolition double-header. The typed out White Sox “Responsibility Sheet” for between game banter read, in part:
“ . . . DAHL—AD LIB—GET READY FOR BLOW UP OF DISCO RECORDS. (LIGHT FUSE, ETC. FOR BLOWING UP OF DISCO RECORDS) (AFTER BLOWING UP DISCO RECORDS . . . STEVE AND LORELEI MOVE NEXT TO HOME PLATE AREA . . . ) (NANCY FAUST WILL PLAY “DO YA THINK I’M SEXY”) (STEVE WILL DO . . . “DO YOU THINK I’M DISCO”) (THANK YOUS AND CLEAR FIELD FOR SECOND GAME) . . .
The field was eventually cleared, but the second game was never played.
Dahl and Faust muddled through the parody song through the smoke and the mayhem. “I never received a script like this,” Faust said with a smile, looking at the 1979 pre-game sheet. We met up to chat before a Kane County Cougars game in Geneva, Illinois, where she plays organ for most Sunday home games. “Every promotion I just winged it. I remember the ethnic promotions. I had to learn the anthem for each country and that was a struggle. And the country promotions, where they would bring out cows. I probably played some disco songs before the game. I played what I thought was appropriate at the moment.”
Cue Bob Seger’s “The Fire Down Below.”
“Had we made it to a second game, I probably would have realized you don’t play disco,” she said.
When Faust debuted as the White Sox organist in 1970, she was playing tunes for one of the worst teams in White Sox history. The 1970 Sox finished 59 - 103. Faust played for the 2005 World Championships before closing out her White Sox career in October 2010.
Faust didn’t miss a game until 1983 when she had her son Eric.
“Bill Veeck did the unusual thing of placing the organ out with the people,” said Faust, who played Old Comiskey and U.S. Cellular Field more than 3,000 times. “Before that, the organ was hidden where it would stay out of the weather. Moving it outside was to my advantage.”
In 1973, Holcomb moved Faust from the center field bleachers to the upper deck, directly behind home plate. Veeck later moved her to her upper deck perch near section 234 along the third base line where she enjoyed even more interaction with thirsty White Sox fans. “One time [rock singer] Del Shannon sat next to me on the bench up there,” she said. “The ‘Vehicle Baby’ guy? [Jim Peterik], he came up there.”
Van McCoy’s 1975 hit “The Hustle” was the first disco song Faust ever played. She used it every time a White Sox player hustled along the base paths.
“After that, somebody taught me how to do the dance,” she said, pulling out a Chicago Tribune article with the headline “How To Hustle Without Hassle.” She continued, “I was excited because this article was in Arts and Entertainment, yet they recognized the song at a ballgame. It made me look like I was part of the ‘current scene.’ I thought the timing for Disco Demolition was good, because disco had run its course by 1979. I loved disco because it lent itself so well to playing. It sounded good. I had a basic drum machine that had a disco beat. I could assign 100 beats for the songs I played. In those days I was the music. That was before technology and a DJ who could push a button for any song. That’s why my drum machine was really progressive.”
Faust was known for her talent in pairing a song with a player: “Disco Inferno,” The Trammps’ 1976 hit, for pitcher Britt Burns; “He’s So Shy,” The Pointer Sisters’ 1980 disco-tinged hit, for the reserved outfielder Harold Baines; “Tragedy,” The Bee Gees’ 1979 hit, for a White Sox loss.
Faust didn’t see Disco Demolition coming.
“At first I saw little fires breaking out in the outfield,” she recalled. “Three nuns were sitting near me. They turned around and asked, ‘What is everybody chanting?’ In those days, ‘Disco sucks’ wasn’t a nice thing to say. My friend with the tickets told them, ‘They’re just going, ‘Let’s go Sox.’ But that was part of the promotion. Do you call it progressive?
“Of course when Harry [Caray] and Bill [Veeck] got on the P.A. and told people to take their seats, I stopped playing. We did try to play and sing ‘Take Me Out to the Ball Game’ to get people to organize in a respectful way. I realized this was getting out of hand. It was surreal. Later you analyze it and realize these weren’t all baseball fans. Steve Dahl had a mixed following, and this was a great venue for them to come out and have a good time.”
Faust’s family history is one of a homespun good time.
Her late mother Jackie was popular in the early 1940s as part of the Jenny, Joy, and Jean act on the WLS National Barn Dance. (Jackie Faust was renamed Jean for the act so she wouldn’t be confused with a male performer.) Jackie played accordion on the Barn Dance and wrote the melody. After that, Jackie took up the organ and played at county fairs throughout the Midwest. Her daughter would accompany her on road trips.
Faust married her husband Joe Jenkins in August 1980, but would drop into Division Street disco bars as a single woman. “Oh my goodness, I would go to a place called The Rookery,” she said. “I’d go there after games once in a while. That was my place to hear disco music. And I loved it. How can you not like that beat? Even that song today, ‘[Get] Lucky’ by Pharrell Williams, that is so disco. I found that the disco beat stayed the same but the instrumentation became different. There was more techno, but it was still dance music.
“I played all those disco songs. Everything was Top 40, unlike now where everything is categorized: adult contemporary, country, rap. I still play everything. I do songs from kid’s shows because there’s kids here. Last year Donna Summer died and I worked up a medley of her disco songs ‘Last Dance,’ and ‘Dim All The Lights.’ I liked disco. I never analyzed the music. Every time I learned a new song it was my favorite song.”
NANCY FAUST’S DISCO PLAYLIST
“More, More, More,” Andrea True Connection—for Junior Moore
“Whatcha Gonna Do,” Pablo Cruz—for Henry Cruz
“Ring My Bell,” Anita Ward—for Kevin Bell
“Fly Robin Fly,” Silver Convention—for Robin Ventura
“Do Ya Think I’m Sexy,” Rod Stewart—for Steve Sax