The Fox And The Newshound
Composer Premieres Tell-all Musical in Fort Lauderdale

By Kevin Johnson

Your music firm has contracts with some of the major networks, including a theme attached to a high profile, esteemed newscaster. Then, when the revered anchor resigns from their post, gone is the theme song that has followed them; therefore the royalties that you’ve been enjoying for the past decade or so come to a screeching halt. What do you do?

If you’re Neal Fox, you write a show about it.

Neal Fox, after CBS stopped using his evening news theme song

Now you’re probably asking who is this famous anchor that the show revolves around. It is none other than Dan Rather. Fox, who co-wrote the theme to the CBS Evening News when Rather was at the helm, will reveal all when his one man show, aptly titled Thank You, Dan Rather, gets its world premiere at Sixth Star Studios in downtown Fort Lauderdale.

Fox says he needed to write a piece due to his current financial situation after the theme was dropped.

“It's a mixture of social commentary and comedy that will make you think and laugh at the same time,” Fox says.  “I’m singing, playing piano, there'll be monologues plus Destiny's Child will be reuniting as my back-up singers…only they'll be cardboard cut-ups instead.”

Fox has come a long way since starting music at the young age of 14. This Brooklyn native by way of San Diego has a degree in music from NYU, but gibes that it was useless, a ploy just to keep him from getting drafted to Vietnam. After leaving NYU, Fox moved to the West Coast to compose small jingles. He also started a music production company with two others, therefore attracting large clientele, which included NBC and CBS.

Even though they had some contracts, including some short-lived series featuring Bryant Gumbel and Connie Chung, the firm’s main focus was composing a theme for the CBS Evening News with Dan Rather. Fox co-wrote the theme song with his partners.  The royalties rolled in, providing a decent living for 15 years.

“Airplay checks would be sent from BMI (Broadcast Music Incorporated), every time the song was played,” Fox says, “We’d get a payment every three months. And even though we had songs with other shows, the Rather theme was our biggest moneymaker.”

When the ratings went down later in Rather’s tenure, things got uneasy for Fox’s company: “Since the theme was a major portion of our income, we didn’t have to do any more work. We just let the money roll in.”

The final outcome came in 2004 during George W. Bush’s reelection for president, when Rather publicly called Bush’s service in the Texas National Guard into question. After receiving some documents stating that Bush was unfit to fly after examination, Rather broadcasted those files on air. When the press challenged the documents’ authenticity, and his own sources being dubious at best, Rather had to retract his story, leading to his resignation six months later.

CBS continued to use the theme song when Bob Schiffer took over for Rather.  But when  Katie Couric was hired anchor the evening news, the network dropped the song, thus dropping Neal Fox into a world of uncertainty.

With his gravy train at an end, Fox took a look at his options and heard the stage beckon.

“When you’re in your 50s, you’re not going to be picked up by radio so fast,” Fox says.  “I didn’t want to play bars again, so I felt that theatre would be a good route to take since I wanted to perform again”.

Thank You, Dan Rather chronicles Fox’s beginnings as a musician up to his time in San Diego. From being signed to three major record labels to producing and composing music for television and movies, Fox weaves one man’s journey playing guitar and singing, mixing humor with reality through four decades of music experience.

Neal Fox, during his CBS gravy train years

But why choose Florida to premiere the show?

“My parents were getting up in age and my brother was living in Miami, so instead of visiting them once a year, it was time to reconnect,” says Fox.

After encouragement from his longtime manager, Stuart Wiener (who is producing Thank You Dan Rather), Fox and his “anchor” of 37 years, Naomi, left their comfortable life in San Diego to be closer to his family. After Thank You, Dan Rather opens, Fox and Wiener plan to entice investors and their goal is to present Dan Rather off-Broadway. But before the major goal is fulfilled, Fox has other irons in the fire that he wants to strike.

Before creating Dan Rather, Fox sired his first one-man show called Pigeonholes, about his experience with the record labels trying to set him into one genre.

“We added some multi-media, so it’s me onstage with a screen in the background and I am using animation.”

Fox has also written two book musicals and has recorded five albums on his own independent imprint, Wireduck, that is available online at wireduck.com.

Not too shabby for a Brooklyn dodger with a useless degree, but Fox hopes that Thank You, Dan Rather will make a good impression on this Southeast Florida theatre scene, projecting him into other things on the horizon.

Since funding is coming from both Wiener and Fox, they’ve used Rather’s media comments to boost the publicity of the show. When Rather criticized CBS’s use of Katie Couric, Fox put out his YouTube promoting the show stating that “every time Dan opens his mouth, it’s good for me”.