Wayne Faust has spent a lot of his life on the road, about 44 years
touring the United States and four foreign countries, enchanting audiences with
his clever and funny songs. He traces it to an effort he and a sixth-grade
friend from Norwood Park made to compose songs. They’d write one and call people
on the phone to see if they were any good. His parents were dubious but got him
guitar lessons and eventually a guitar.
At Taft his interests seem to have focused on sports, except for
freshman chorus, but he kept playing. He had planned a career as a lawyer and
studied history at Carthage College, but it was an era of garage bands and teen
night clubs and college coffee houses and he would get on the evening play list
and wait for hours to try his luck with audiences.
One high school group they organized was three guitars but no bass.
For their recital at guitar school the audience was half asleep after several
hours of simple pieces when Wayne hit the opening chords for “Gloria” and a man
perked up and grinned. That and “Louie Louie” and “The House of the Rising Sun”
were the only songs they played well, but they figured girls would be attracted
by them, he says.
An English assignment at Taft after reading “The Hobbit” inspired a challenge to
write an original novel. His “The Great Germ Conspiracy” about germs invading a
hospital earned him an A from Miss Cleary and encouraged his creativity.
Faust gained notice with “Bald Guys,” and a video airing on NBC
gave him a national following. Now he invites any audience members who qualify
to sing along at his concerts.
Locally, a memoir narrative called “Norwood Park” has been linked from You Tube,
and he read the piece for the audience as the ceremonies concluded: dreams of
fall leaves burning, walking out after dark, playing ball and seeing spring
flowers reappear and remembering being “back in Norwood Park.”