• Nancy Dolin is a Rock 'n' Grandma

  • Jul 19 2024
  • Length: 3 mins
  • Podcast

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Nancy Dolin is a Rock 'n' Grandma

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  • And Beacon's champion band-camper Nancy Dolin has three grandchildren, stands 4-foot-8 and often adds streaks of blue and purple to her hair. She is also the queen of rock 'n' roll fantasy bands. "I belong in rock 'n' roll," says Dolin, 74. "It's part of me." On July 27, the Newburgh resident will play bass for the Van Halen boot camp graduation concert at the Beacon Music Factory at 333 Fishkill Ave. The free show begins at 6 p.m. Groups playing songs by The Police and The Killers will also perform. It will be Dolin's 41st rock-camp concert, the most of any performer since Beacon Music Factory launched the popular program in 2011, says Stephen Clair, who owns the school. Dolin is such a prolific performer that in April, Clair renamed one of the practice rooms from Tonic (a reference to a now-defunct avant-garde music venue on the Lower East Side) to Nancy. A rock camp pairs a band with a professional. It typically focuses on a group or theme, meets eight to 10 times over two months, costs $650 and concludes with a performance. Beacon Music Factory offers as many as 18 per year; Rocky Horror Picture Show, Warren Zevon and Dolly Parton camps begin in September. Clair says the camps started slow but "caught fire" in 2012 when he offered one focused on David Bowie's 1972 album, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. Dolin was in those first groups and has since done camps based on the music of Queen, Jimi Hendrix, Fleetwood Mac, Aerosmith, the Beatles, Buddy Holly and Prince's Purple Rain. Her basement is a shrine to her rock career, with posters from performances and electric basses. "It gives me deep satisfaction to play the music that I've loved all these years," says Dolin, who has attended countless live concerts, including the two recent Rolling Stones shows at MetLife Stadium. Dolin took up the guitar at age 60 but switched to the bass at 63 because it was easier on her wrist. She wishes she had started sooner. "If I had started when I was 15, by the time I was 26, I would have been world-famous," she says. She is making up for lost time and tries to sing at least one song in every performance. "I pay my money, I want to sing," says Dolin, who is also a taekwondo black belt. "No one wants to hear me sing, but I get to sing. If I had a good voice, I'd be a frontman." In addition to being heard, Dolin strives to be seen. During a performance in 2016 of songs by The Cars, she stood on an amp so that she wouldn't be lost amid seven bandmates crowding the stage at Quinn's. The point, she says, is "to be a rock star. If I could be anything, that's what I would be." One of Dolin's regular bandmates is John Allison, 67, a Cold Spring resident who has participated in at least 25 camps. Allison started playing guitar as a young man and once tried playing with friends from work. But keeping a garage band together is hard, he says. The Beacon Music Factory camps are easier. "It's just plug-and-play," he says. He's been part of camps on Elvis Costello, The Strokes, Blondie and the Beatles' Abbey Road. Dave Hyatt, from Hopewell Junction, will play drums for the Van Halen performance. He has done about 30 camps, including the Sex Pistols and Black Sabbath. He played congas in the Billy Joel show. Hyatt says that, before he retired, the camps were a nice stress release from managing technological systems for Pepsico. He loves the applause, he says. "You get that adrenaline rush."
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