In her living-room-turned-music-studio, Janice L. Smith studies lyrics, listens to tapes and practices routines.
"I am always working on a new show," she said.
Ms. Smith, 53, will gladly sing for a guest visiting her Eldersburg home or let the neighborhood children play karaoke to her tapes.
"They think they are movie stars," said Ms. Smith, as she adjusted the microphone to an 8-year-old's height.
"I like to come here and sing along," said Shannon Nelson, who came to the door with a cassette tape and her 5-year-old sister.
"I have a Dolly Parton Christmas tape," said her sister, Brittany Nelson. "But I like Miss Janice's singing better."
Ms. Smith, who has been taking her songs to area nursing homes for two years, finds music "a joy for the audience and for me."
Those audiences are often people with Alzheimer's disease or other memory-impairing illnesses, but she usually manages to evoke a memory.
"I think I was born a show personality, born to perform," she said. "And the people I work for are the most receptive, appreciative audiences. You may not see any expression on their faces, but you'll notice foot-tapping or hands keeping the beat."
Elderly people don't always remember the words, she said, but the melodies, sung in her soft soprano, usually generate sing-alongs.
"I am not shy," she said. "Something happens to me and I develop the confidence. I joke, play games with them and get them interested."
Ms. Smith mixes country songs and popular ballads, and she spices up each holiday show with traditional favorites from Christmas carols to Irish ditties and George M. Cohan show tunes. The big-band tunes from the 1940s are still the most popular with her audiences.
"For the 70- and 80-year-olds, the '40s were a powerful era," she said.
Sometimes her flamboyant costume draws attention and sometimes repartee with one person pulls everyone into the show.
Nothing surprises her or stops the show. "I have practiced enough and I don't lose a note. The show goes on."
She laughed as she recalled a heckler, an elderly woman, who yelled repeatedly, "Your legs are sure ugly."
"I just thanked her each time," she said. "After she told me for the fourth or fifth time, I answered that my legs must be getting uglier by the minute."
Music lifted Ms. Smith from the grips of her own depression a few years ago, when a failed marriage and a lack of direction sent her into a tailspin. She found singing to be both therapeutic and stimulating and wanted to share her talent.
"Music has made a world of difference in my life and given me a new meaning," she said. "Still, when I told my daughter I was investing in some music equipment, she thought I had really gone off."
She practiced and perfected routines. Then she called nursing homes offering her services for a song. Two took her up on the offer "and I knew there would be more."
She was "excited but not nervous" during her first performance at the Baptist Home of Maryland in Baltimore County.
She has been back several times. Now her show, "Have Music Will Travel," plays a dozen times a month. She is a regular at about 60 different places for audiences that range in size from 10 to 100.
Although she has had no formal voice training, she feels her voice has improved "200 percent" since she has taken to the stage. She commands $50 a show and occasionally donates her time. Away from her music, she works part time as a nurse's aid for a private agency. The rest of the week revolves around rehearsing and lining up shows.
She continually adds to her material and rehearses music, expressions and gestures. "It is a lot of work, even when I use music I know already," she said. "I implement new songs as I go along. Some work, others don't."
Audience participation plays a major role.
"I tap dance or waltz with a handsome man," she said. "People can sense when you care."
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