Folk Singer Becomes Hot Act on Nursing Home Circuit

Thirty-four-year-old Laurie Ellen Neustadt--guitarist, folk singer and occupational therapist--has become a popular attraction on the local nursing home and senior center circuit with an unusual and moving repertoire of songs about aging.

Ironically, Neustadt’s ballads are not all upbeat. Many are sad and powerful accounts of life in nursing homes and the loneliness of growing old.

“I try to entertain older adults without being overprotective,” Neustadt explains. “We tend too often to treat the old and ailing like juveniles, and this is defeating and belittling.

“Older adults have a right to be challenged, to use their minds, to be concerned about each other and what’s going on in the world.

“I search for songs that touch people, like ‘What You Do With What You’ve Got,’ ‘Rocking Myself to Sleep,’ ‘Grandma’s Battle Cry.’

“Music can just lull older people to sleep, or it can evoke thoughts and memories and jolt them into sharing their feelings about loneliness, illness and death. Older people, I’ve found, can often handle painful memories better than youngsters.”

By day, Neustadt works full time as activities director at St. Marys Day Health Care Center for Older Adults in Madison. Several nights a week and on many weekends, she plays and sings for modest fees in nursing homes and other institutions. In her “spare time,” she is finishing her degree in arts therapy at Edgewood College in Madison.

Neustadt began working with older adults in 1977, after moving to Madison from her home in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. Earlier, she studied fine arts and music for three years at City University of New York (CUNY), played guitar at peace rallies, worked with youth groups, and played professionally in several New York nightclubs.

“But I didn’t find my niche until I got a job as an aide at a Madison nursing home,” she says. “At first, it was a jolt to see older people with a limb missing, or with a severe case of arthritis.

“But I soon began to see them as individuals and to realize that older people have a lifetime of wit and wisdom to share with us.”

Neustadt received a degree in occupational therapy from Madison Area Technical College while working as an activities aide in several nursing homes. Meanwhile, she began to sing and play guitar in nursing homes and senior and retirement centers, often for as little as $25 for one engagement.

She often worked with another guitarist and songwriter, Stuart Stotts.

“We would go into a home and listen to old people talk about their lives, and Stuart would put their stories into song. He wrote one song after an elderly lady walked up to him and said, ‘You know, there was music in my mother’s house.’

“Another lady came up after one of our performances and said, ‘We just go on our way remembering.’ This became the theme of another song.”

Neustadt has recorded some of her songs about aging on two cassettes, “Good Friends” and “Harvestime,” produced by Bi-Folkal Productions in Madison, a nonprofit company that promotes “creative program materials for older adults.”

Neustadt has been activities director at the St. Marys Day Health Care Center since 1982 and, with others on the staff, has built a model day-care facility where some 33 adults, age 30 to 91, receive health care, therapy and warm meals, and participate in a very busy cultural and social agenda.

One of Neustadt’s jobs is to recruit volunteers.

“I’m happy to say we have 120, and that more than 50% of them are over 65.” Daily activities include a variety of poetry, writing, music and painting classes, and intergenerational programs with school and preschool children.

“Sometimes we bring in pets. Sometimes I bring in professional musicians, friends who perform for nominal fees,” says Neustadt.

“I’ve seen many examples of how quality art programs can bring joy, as well as mental and physical benefits, to older people. We had a 77-year-old man, a former author and schoolteacher, who suffered a series of strokes and was just lethargic until he got into our poetry class. Now he is participating intellectually in these group poetry-writing sessions.

“I’ve seen people who were partially paralyzed respond to music by just moving a pinky or reaching out to touch a friend.”

Neustadt’s goal is to establish a nonprofit corporation, funded by private sources, that will bring top-notch cultural programs, “not just gimmicky, mechanical activities,” into more and more senior centers.

“We desperately need more innovative and challenging programs for older adults who otherwise have no accessibility to the arts.

“And artists deserve to be paid a reasonable amount for working with these seniors.

“Personally, I don’t want to make it big in folk music. But I want to make a living combining my love of music with my love for work with older adults.”