Maven of S.F. causes finds voice at HSB
Nancy Bechtle — sister of festival founder Hellman — sings out herself
Nancy Hellman Bechtle has been either at the head or behind the scenes of seemingly everything in San Francisco and beyond. At 79, she sits in her Presidio Heights home on a Wednesday morning, carving out time from overseeing, well, just about everything still.
Bechtle, warm and agreeable, enters a new decade later this year, but it doesn’t show. Nor is she fond of it.
“I hate that,” she says. “I hate getting older. I don’t feel it at all.”
It’s easy to believe her. While Bechtle’s accomplishments as a decades-long executive, philanthropist and civic figure extend endlessly, she again begins anew. On Friday, Oct. 6, as this year’s Hardly Strictly Bluegrass music festival kicks off, Bechtle releases her first-ever original song, “Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff.” Her band, Nancy & the Lambchops, with Bechtle on vocals, will perform the song the following day at Hardly Strictly. Her late brother, Warren Hellman, founded and funded the annual, admission-free music festival starting in 2001, and left an endowment that continues to fund it.
“I don’t even know what a release is . ... Maybe I’m going to be a one-hit wonder. Or maybe it’s not even going to be a hit.” Nancy Hellman Bechtle, about her song “Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff ”
The track counts as Bechtle’s official music debut — an unusual and belated distinction for the vice president of the War Memorial Board of Trustees, former president and CEO of the San Francisco Symphony (where she is still involved), and vice chair emeritus of the National Park Foundation, among numerous other positions.
A hummable uplifter (“Somebody said to me, ‘It’s like the 2017 version or answer to ‘Don’t Worry, Be Happy’ ”) aimed at daily frustrations, “Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff ” was written by Bechtle, with help from legendary singer-songwriter and Hardly Strictly veteran Steve Earle, as a necessary mantra for her persistently chaotic life. But Bechtle hadn’t considered officially recording it until its debut performance at last year’s Hardly Strictly, after which a radio producer asked for a copy.
“He said, ‘It would be so perfect for the people who listen to the radio, to my station at 6 in the morning, when they’re going to work,’ ” Bechtle recalls.
As for Bechtle’s mornings? “I hike for usually 4 to 5 miles every morning or do an exercise class, and talk on the phone while I’m out there so I’m not wasting time,” she says, before bemoaning the control that emails have over her life.
For her indefatigable work ethic, Bechtle credits her upbringing, where values of hard work were instilled in her and brother Warren, the billionaire investor, in spite of the family empire they were born into. Her great-grandfather was a successful banker and cofounded the University of Southern California. Bechtle’s parents both served in World War II, and her mother was awarded a Congressional Medal of Honor for her role as one of the Women Airforce Service Pilots.
“My father had said to me at one point, ‘You can get whatever grades you want, but if you want to go to a good college, it’s up to you,’ ” Bechtle says. “There was no entitlement in our family. You were never entitled to anything.”
Instead, in the historically philanthropic Hellman family, the idea is that what you did have should in part go to others. Bechtle has continued that tradition — in a storied life, she credits her most meaningful accomplishment to the “Hearts in SF” art installation campaign she helped spearhead, which raised $3 million for San Francisco General Hospital. The proceeds from “Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff ” sales will go entirely toward fighting the genetic disease PraderWilli syndrome.
Bechtle has little to say about her can-do attitude or giving spirit. She bears neither lofty sanctimony nor false humility, but acknowledges it all with more of a shrug. Perhaps it’s simply a matter of the Hellman bloodstream, Bechtle suggests.
“It was always there. It was expected that you would do something. I don’t know. It’s better to give than to receive,” Bechtle says, offering an old maxim as a placeholder reason to explain something she can’t herself.
It’s that inexplicably industrious spirit that spurred her to take a go at music when the opportunity arose, in her late 70s and without any experience in music performance. In 2015, a small request for Bechtle to join in the Hellman Family Band’s annual set at Hardly Strictly turned into a separate performance slot all her own. This year’s set, one with and one without the Hellmans, will be her third straight show.
“It’s like that song, ‘I’m Just a (Girl) Who Can’t Say No,’ ” Bechtle says.
Bechtle is, of course, not entirely unaccustomed to big spotlights. She was thrust under national scrutiny as the chair of the Presidio Trust Board of Directors (she finished the allotted two-term stint in 2015 and is still deeply involved), especially while leading the opposition to George Lucas’ proposed museum in the park, which garnered backlash from select politicians and close friends.
It’s clear that Bechtle, who is more baffled than bitter about political catfights — “I didn’t quite understand the whole Lucas thing,” she says — is fonder of a new sort of stage with the music, even if she’s somewhat unaware of what to expect.
“I don’t even know what a release is,” she says. The song will be released on iTunes and Amazon to coincide with the start of Hardly Strictly, which, Bechtle notes, calls for greater awareness and sensitivity following the “heartbreaking” tragedy Sunday night at Las Vegas’ Route 91 Harvest Festival, a “sister festival.”
Bechtle is working on another song, “What the Hell,” but her work for San Francisco will remain her priority. Bechtle is co-chairing a fundraising campaign for the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
“Maybe I’m going to be a one-hit wonder,” Bechtle says, with a laugh. “Or maybe it’s not even going to be a hit.”
Music is there for the fun, she says, acknowledging that she’ll “never be a great musician.” But for Bechtle, there’s never a reason not to start. She mentions Grandma Moses, the famous American folk artist who began her painting career in her late 70s.
“I liken myself to her, somebody who starts late,” Bechtle says. “It’s never too late.”