Growing up in the San Fernando Valley in the 1970s, I had three best friends — Keith, Mike and Charlie. I met them when I was around 12 years old, after my family moved from Burbank to North Hollywood. We would often spend time at each other’s homes and sometimes had sleepovers on weekends. I remember my friends’ mothers as being the nicest, kindest people I knew. Each had her own unique style and personality. Sheila was the glamorous beauty who had men chasing after her wherever she went. Joan was the carefree hippie, once married to Hollywood actor Charles Dierkop. Bobbi was the all-American mom with the kind face and caring eyes. All were divorced, single mothers. Mike was Bobbi’s only child. He never talked much about what his mother did for a living, or who his father was. I don’t think the subject ever came up. Thinking back, it was odd that we never asked him about his father. We knew his mom was a singer, known as Bobbi Boyle, and that she performed at nightclubs in the Valley. She was said to be the voice of a jingle for a department store commercial.
In fact, Bobbi Boyle released two full-length jazz/pop albums in the late 1960s, A Day in the Life (yes, she covered Beatles songs) and Bobbi Boyle Sings. Both were produced by Bill Messano and released by Encino Records, and featured covers of popular songs and standards from the era. Her first album featured Ron Anthony on guitar, Chris Clark on bass and Chuck Piscitello on drums. The second featured Jimmy Stewart on guitar and Chris Clark on bass, with Bobbi handling piano and vocals, as well as vibraphone. The liner notes for the first album were written by local disc jockey Larry Van Nuys, who referred to her music as a “happy groove.” During her long career, Bobbi also recorded with The Vagabonds, The Pied Pipers (aka The Sunnysiders), Ray Conniff and Bobby Vinton.
My mom would go see Bobbi sing and play piano, either at the Money Tree in Toluca Lake, Chadney’s in Burbank or the Smoke House in Encino. Sometimes she would stay after the show to chat with Bobbi, and when she returned home she would tell me about the performance and how great Bobbi was. Bobbi also performed with a jazz trio that included bassist Frank De la Rosa, guitarist Ron Anthony and percussionist Chuck Piscitello. They were known as Bobbi Boyle and the Trio.
Mike’s mom eventually remarried, and the family moved to a small house in Burbank. The man Bobbi married was an engineer/inventor who had an office in an industrial park in North Hollywood, which I visited once with Mike. After he moved, I didn’t see much of Mike and our group of friends disbanded, as we had all moved to different places, attending different schools and making new friends, as often happens in young lives.
I often used to wonder about Mike and what had become of him. Searching for him on the internet was like looking for a John Smith, with innumerable options and pictures appearing that may or may not have been my old friend.
Bobbi Boyle doesn’t have a big presence on the internet. Her albums are sold on eBay and Discogs, and she is occasionally mentioned in social media postings. Recently, I was surprised to come across a post about Bobbi on Facebook by a man named Dick Sheridan, a professional jazz drummer who played with legendary cabaret singer Bobby Short. He also once played with Bobbi Boyle in a group called the Johnnie McCormick Quintet.
The band name piqued my interest, because Bobbi’s son, Mike, went by Mike McCormick, not Mike Boyle. I concluded that Johnnie McCormick must’ve been Mike’s father. I contacted Dick Sheridan and asked him about this, and he confirmed it: Dick had attended Johnnie and Bobbi’s wedding in Las Vegas in 1958. He even had a photograph of their wedding ceremony. Dick offered to send me his autobiography and continued to share stories about his time with Bobbi and Johnnie. He played with the Johnnie McCormick Quintet for several years in Colorado Springs, Las Vegas and Reno. He eventually joined another jazz group and headed back to New York, where he was originally from.
This additional information really fueled my quest to learn more about the life of Bobbi Boyle and to see if I could locate her son, Mike.
A Career in Music
A longtime resident of Burbank, Bobbi Boyle was born on January 13, 1931, and passed away on July 23, 2009. She was born in Boston, although her family lived in New Jersey. Both of her parents were musicians. She studied classical violin at Juilliard for six years and also attended Oberlin College in Ohio.
Bobbi’s first professional gigs were as a singer in New York in the mid-1950s, joining big bands led by well-known names like Les Elgart, Ray Eberle, Ralph Flanagan and Tommy Dorsey. She was working the local club scene when she met jazz trumpeter Johnnie McCormick and eventually joined his quintet. The group played together for several years. After her divorce from McCormick in the early 1960s, Bobbi joined a popular variety group called The Vagabonds, adding musical accompaniment between their musical-comedy routines. This gig lasted about three years and was considered one of her best musical experiences. In newspaper articles I found from the 1970s, a few mentioned that Bobbi had appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show several times.
In later years, Bobbi joined a well-established musical group, The Pied Pipers, performing at venues around the country. Around 1993, their shows featured actor/singer Gary Crosby on the bill. The son of legendary singer, actor and Toluca Lake resident Bing Crosby, Gary had recorded several hit songs with his father when he was a teenager. He had overcome his past struggles with alcohol, and Bobbi encouraged him to sing and perform again. She taught him to find his voice, helping him to develop a nice floating baritone sound that he had never used before. She provided the confidence he needed to get back into performing live shows again. Gary and Bobbi became close and were eventually engaged to be married. But on August 24, 1995, Gary suddenly passed away from cancer. Bobbi was devastated. After this tragedy, she returned to performing at local clubs in the Valley until she retired.
In 2017 a Japanese record company, Muzak, Inc., released a CD of Bobbi Boyle’s music titled No Love Song: Forgotten Session Tapes. The music was recovered from old reel-to-reel tapes that had been sitting in storage for decades. The liner notes were written by her son and my friend, Mike McCormick. Elaborating more on their history, Mike wrote about how when he was a child, he and his mother drove from Las Vegas to Los Angeles in 1965 to make a new home. There was no mention of his father, Johnnie.
Down Memory Lane
My own memories of Bobbi Boyle are couched in her role as Mike’s mom. She was a friendly young woman who cared deeply about her son and tried to give him everything he wanted. Being an only child has its benefits, and within our friend group Mike was the one who seemed the most privileged. He had his own guitar, and generally better toys and nicer clothes than the rest of us. Mike’s mom drove a 1968 olive-green Mustang coupe and had a Schnauzer dog named Suzi. Suzi was charismatic and a true member of the family. She went everywhere with them. I remember how Suzi enjoyed riding in that Mustang as much as Mike and his mom did, and you’d see her head happily sticking out of the window as they zoomed around town. We all felt that Mike’s mom was the proverbial “cool” mom.
It’s funny when you look back on your childhood and think about your friends’ parents. You never really paid much attention to them or what they did for a living. I don’t remember Bobbi ever singing around the house, playing piano or listening to music. I wasn’t that aware of her career or the artistic impression she made on the music of the time. We were kids in our own world and didn’t think about a parent being successful or famous.
The last time I saw Mike in person was around 1980, when I was working at a Mayfair Market as a grocery bagger. He happened to run into the store to grab a few things and quickly said hello when he recognized me, promising to come back later so we could talk more. But Mike never came back. I quit my job that summer and moved to Valencia to attend CalArts for the next four years.
A few years ago, I found myself feeling nostalgic about those days and the friendships I had, and that’s when I started researching and appreciating the music of Bobbi Boyle and resolved to learn more about her life and work. I found some vinyl records and CDs on eBay and began to collect all the music she had produced during her career. I even found an old publicity photo. I also found one record released by Johnnie McCormick & His Quintet on Tiara Records. It’s a 45 with two tracks: “Tumble in Down” and “Pink Lady.” Both are instrumentals, perhaps recorded before Bobbi joined the band. It was released in 1959 but may have been recorded earlier.
I enjoy listening to Bobbi Boyle’s records. Her music is exciting, fun and invigorating. Her smooth vocal range takes you up, up and away and brings you back with her moving words and unique phrasing. It is clear to the listener that she loved to sing. I can imagine being in the audience at one of her shows, swinging along to the cool jazzy beat and smiling when she hits certain notes or looks out on the crowd. She truly was a great talent.
Research and Reconnection
Recently, I reread the liner notes of one of Bobbi Boyle’s CD rereleases. The name of the writer caught my attention, as we were both named Chris. I searched out his profile on Facebook and sent him a message. A few days later I received a reply saying he would be happy to talk with me about Bobbi’s music. He wondered what my interest was and how I found his name. I told him that I knew her son, Mike, when I was growing up. He said he knew Mike (although he hadn’t talked to him in several years) and sent me his email address. I sent off a note to Mike, who replied shortly afterward. He did indeed remember me and my family, and was happy to talk with me.
When we were kids, Mike was always interested in music. He played the guitar and would often strum the intro to several popular rock tunes from the 1970s, like “Stairway to Heaven.” But I don’t remember him ever playing an entire song, just the intros. He told us he was serious about music, but we never thought it was more than a hobby for him. It turns out that Mike was indeed serious and is a highly trained classical guitarist and musician, having received degrees in music from USC. He lived in Paris for six years, performing in cities and towns throughout France, and has spent considerable time and effort bringing his mother’s “lost” music back to life. He is proud of No Love Song: Forgotten Session Tapes. “The music is much better than the other two albums she released,” he told me. The sound, the quality, the arrangements — it is truly the best representation of her life in music.
It’s been great catching up with Mike again, learning more about his life and that of his mother. Although we live several hundred miles away from each other, we plan on getting together in the future.
One of the stories that Mike shared with me was that the piano bar at the Smoke House restaurant in Toluca Lake was built for his mother. Sometimes she performed there five nights a week. She was a dedicated musician with a beautiful voice who loved to entertain. Mike also talked about his mom’s performance on the vibraphone, saying she really ripped it up.
Bobbi Boyle’s music lives on. If you never heard her sing or haven’t since her long-ago performing days in the Valley, do yourself a favor and pick up one of her CDs or the original vinyl records. You will step into a time and place of true musicianship and will find yourself immersed in her “happy groove”!