The Fabulous Fox Theater

Music is the soundtrack to the movie of our life.

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“The Quiet Storm”

Growing up on the East Coast in the 1970s and early 80s I listened mostly to Top-40 music but was also a passing fan of WHUR’s evening radio program “The Quiet Storm,” which played an assortment of jazz instrumentals and R&B ballads. There I was introduced to the sweet, smoky voice of Angela Bofill, best identified with her signature songs “This Time I’ll Be Sweeter” and “I Try,” the latter including extended saxophone solos. I bought at least three of her albums.

“Lights Out San Diego”

While stationed on the West Coast In the late 1980s the adult contemporary station KIFM had a popular evening program called “Lights Out San Diego” which played a mix of smooth jazz artists like Sade, George Benson, and Kenny G. I shared this musical interest with my fellow East Coast friend Sandra Roberts

A Move to Atlanta

I had recently been discharged from active duty and debated going back to school. Two music business programs interested me, one in Orlando and one in Atlanta. Sandra had been re-assigned to Naval Air Station Atlanta a few months previously, and my high school friend Peter Gillis and his wife lived there. Two of my seven siblings conveniently lived in Georgia as well. In February 1989 my sister Julie flew out to California to share in a 6-day cross-country adventure, including stops at Grand Canyon, Albuquerque, and Dallas.

A Providential Move, A Mini-Reunion

Our sister Teresa was then attending the University of Georgia in Athens, while our soldier brother Rob was simultaneously stationed at Ft. Benning in Columbus. The four of us enjoyed a number of get-togethers before Julie flew back home and I acclimated myself to Atlanta to where, unknown to me, a young Catholic girl from Indiana had just moved as well.

The Fabulous Fox

The Fox Theater, an ornate mosque-like structure in Midtown Atlanta, was built in 1929 to house the Atlanta Shriners, a fraternal offshoot of freemasonry with a Middle-Eastern theme that stresses fun and fellowship. “Bursting with soaring domes, minarets and sweeping archways, the exterior of the building gave way to stunning gold leaf details, sumptuous textiles and exquisite trompe l’oeil art (an art technique that uses realistic imagery to create optical illusions) inside,” states the theater website. It continues, “Shortly before its completion, [due to financial difficulties] the Shriners leased their beautiful auditorium to William Fox, a movie mogul who had launched his empire by building theatres across the country…. [T]hese aptly-named “movie palaces” were an integral part of nearly every community in the country, each one more gilded and exquisite than the next.“¹

“Big Enough for a Circus,” boasted a 1952 feature article promoting the Metropolitan Opera’s production of “Aida.” “Fabulous Fox has room to spare for the ‘Met’ … [which despite] its tremendous stage settings and its great casts of hundreds will utilize only a small part of the great theater’s potential.” ² The article also bragged about seating for 4,500, the massive theater organ nicknamed “Mighty Mo,” the adjacent performance spaces where multiple events could take place simultaneously, and the grand ceiling of the theater which simulated twinkling stars in the night sky as if being viewed from a Bedouin tent in the desert.

The Concert

My friend Sandra knew Angela Bofill was a favorite, so when she saw she was in concert at the Fox Theater shortly after my arrival she purchased tickets for us to attend together. It was promoted as the “More Than Friends” tour after headliner Jonathan Butler‘s most recent album, but I assumed that it also bespoke the relationship among the three artists appearing – Najee, a talented jazz saxophonist with whom I was then unacquainted, Angela Bofill, a few years beyond her best-known work by then, and Butler, a proficient left-handed jazz guitarist and talented vocalist and scat singer who had a significant crossover hit the year before in “Lies.”

Angela Bofill opened with a few of her better-known songs including “I Try,” a rendition implausibly missing the central accompanying saxophone. I remember remarking to Sandra that there was a saxophonist backstage! “More than friends” indeed. It was a disappointment, as was her short and rather bare set. Najee gave a high-energy performance, including strolling up and down the aisles and even up into the balcony while playing his instrument, surely an early example of wireless microphone technology. Jonathan Butler also gave an energetic show, though somewhat lower key than Najee. I remember the beautiful theater interior and ceiling, but not the outside architecture. It was the only concert I ever attended at the Fox.

REM, “Cats,” Elvis Costello, and “The Phantom”

“I love the Fox, lots of memories there,” Teresa recently told me. “A scalper at an REM concert convinced me that SRO stood for “special reserve orchestra” seating. I took [husband] Michael to see “Cats” and it’s the closest he ever came to regretting dating me! It’s awful! And endless!”

I met Jean, the young Catholic girl who moved to Atlanta a couple of weeks before I did, when I took a night job at same upscale hotel at which she was the evening desk clerk. It was the Autumn of 1989, and my music business classes were just beginning. Jean attended an Elvis Costello concert at the Fox in August 1989, and a performance of Andrew Lloyd Weber’s “The Phantom of the Opera” in November 1991, an extravagant musical and visual event that was perfectly suited to the opulent Fox Theater. Jean and I have now been married for 27 years. We have since attended events at a number of theaters, but surely none as historic and ostentatious as the Fabulous Fox in Atlanta.

¹ https://www.foxtheatre.org/about/fox-historystory

² “Fabulous Fox Has Room To Spare for the ‘Met'”, Atlanta Journal and Constitution, Sunday April 13, 1952 page 1C

Feature image by Daniel Mayer via Wikimedia Commons.