Project and content management for Contemporary Authors volumes
WORK TITLE: Your Song Changed My Life
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
eklyBSITE: http://www.bobboilen.info/
CITY: Washington
STATE: DC
COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY:
http://www.npr.org/people/2100252/bob-boilen * https://en.kikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Boilen * http://www.bobboilen.info/about1 * https://www.washingtonpost.com/a ifestyle/magazine/how-all-songs-considereds-bob-boilen-went-from-tiny-desk-to-tastemaker/2016/04/08/354beb44-e492-11e5-bc08-3e03a5b41910_story.html *
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born April 10, 1953; divorced; children: a son.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Radio host, writer, electronic music composer, performance artist, and photographer. Worked as a director of a record warehouse until 1979; then at Impossible Theater, Baltimore, MD, various roles, including composer, 1982-86; NPR: National Public Radio, Washington, DC, 1988–, All Things Considered, director, 1989-2007, then founder and host of the NPR podcasts All Songs Considered and Tiny Desk Concert. Also worked as a producer for Channel 50, and produced Science Live for the Discovery Channel, 1997. Played in the band Tiny Desk Unit, 1979, 1989; continues to play in a band called Danger Painters. Guest starred as himself in the season 27 episode of The Simpsons “Gal of Constant Sorrow.”
AWARDS:Grant from the Washington D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities, to work on electronic music and performance.
WRITINGS
Composed theme music for Talk of the Nation, National Public Radio.
SIDELIGHTS
Bob Boilen is an electronics music composer and performer and the former longtime director of the National Pubic Radio (NPR) show All Things Considered. In 1988 Boilen started showing up at NPR’s headquarters and eventually was hired to work for All Things Considered. He took over director duties a year later. He is also the creator and host of NPR’s All Songs Considered, an online music show, and creator of the Tiny Desk Concert Series podcast for NPR, which features various music acts which Boilen hosts from his desk. The Name of the series comes from a band that Boilen once performed for a two-year period.
In his first book, Your Song Changed My Life: From Jimmy Page to Sto Vincent, Smokey Robinson to Hozier, Thirty-Five Beloved Artists on Their Journey and the Music That Inspired It, Boilen provides an oral history of modern music. He does so via interviews with both well-established, iconic musicians and some who are on their way up in the music world. In the his interviews, Boilen asks artists such as Jimmy Page, who was the legendary guitar player in the band Led Zeppelin, the songs that influenced their lives the most. Although the artists he interviews are mostly mainstream within musical genres, Boilen also interviews an avant-garde composer and an Icelandic drone artist. “I tell stories of people whose lives were changed by a song, and often in those formative years, what some people call the reminiscence bump, where you’re more likely to be susceptible to something, with hormones raging, or the first time you ever like heard somebody go, yes, you know, like, those things are impactful because they’re firsts,” Boilen noted in an interview with Jeffrey Brown posted on the NPR: National Public Radio Web site.
In the book’s introduction, Boilen recounts the musical experiences that changed his life. These range from his love of the Beatles in the 1960s and his first listening to the Beatles’ album Sergeant Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band to his interest in Punk Musician the 1970s and his eventual gravitation to electronic music. “In his autobiographical introduction, Boilen recalls his teenage love for rock music (he remembers transistor radios!), sitting on his back porch in Queens one sad night in 1965 knowing, painfully, that The Beatles were performing at that moment at Shea Stadium,” wrote LA Weekly Online contributor Tony Mostrom. Writing for Library Journal, Brian Flota noted: “Throughout, the author colors many of the chapters with his own sensibilities and experiences as a semiprofessional musician.”
The musicians interviewed by Boilen cover a wide range of topics over many years in recounting their musical inspirations and their general experiences as musicians. For instance, Lucinda Williams, who composes and sings rock, folk, blues, and country music, recounts how she had conversations with her father, a poet, whether or not Bob Dylan should be considered primarily a songwriter or a poet. Lucinda told Boilen: “I tell you, as soon as I sat down with one of my dad’s poems and tried to turn it into a song, then I knew the difference.”
Nevertheless, all the artists reveal their early musical inspirations, such as Jimmy Page, who was awed by a rendition of “Rock Island Line” by British skiffle singer, songwriter, and musician Lonnie Donegan. Jenny Lewis, an American singer and songwriter, told Boilen in Your Song Changed My Life that the rap group Run-DMC “changed my life forever.” The lone avant grade artist in the book, Philip Glass, noted Yiddish comedy records and the big band leader Spike Jones, who specialized in satirical arrangements that included bells, whistles, and other sound effects. “Boilen’s warm, engaging voice pervades this treat for music aficionados,” wrote a Kirkus Reviews contributor. Another reviewer writing for Publishers Weekly felt that the best sections were “the opening memoir and those places where Boilen has a personal connection to the music.”
BIOCRIT
BOOKS
Boilen, Bob, Your Song Changed My Life: From Jimmy Page to Sto Vincent, Smokey Robinson to Hozier, Thirty-Five Beloved Artists on Their Journey and the Music That Inspired It, William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers (New York, NY), 2016.
PERIODICALS
Kirkus Reviews, March 15, 2016, , review of Your Song Changed My Life: From Jimmy Page to St. Vincent, Smokey Robinson to Hozier, Thirty-five Beloved Artists on Their Journey and the Music That Inspired It.
Library Journal April 1, 2016, Brian Flota, review of Your Song Changed My Life, p. 93.
Publishers Weekly, April 4, 2016, review of Your Song Changed My Life, p. 76.
ONLINE
Bob Boilen Home Page, http://www.bobboilen.info (February 17, 2017).
Entertainment Weekly Online, http://ew.com/ (August 15, 2016), Eric Renner Brown,”Your Song Changed My Life, by Bob Boilen: EW Review.
LA Weekly Online, http://www.laweekly.com/ (April 11, 2016) Tony Mostrom, “35 Musicians Nerd Out on Their Faofite Tunes in Your Song Changed My Life.
NPR: National Public Radio Web site, http://www.npr.org/ (February 17, 2017), “Bob Boilen: Host, All Songs Considered,” author profile.
PBS: Public Broadcasting Service Web site, http://www.pbs.org/ (May 20, 2016), Jeffrey Brown, “NPR’s ‘All Songs Considered’ Host Bob Boilen on the Songs That Changed Our Lives,” author interview.
Protect My Public Media Web site, http://protectmypublicmedia.org/ (October 21, 2014), “A Look behind the Scenes of All Songs Considered – An Interview with Bob Boilen.”
Washington Post Online, https://www.washingtonpost.com/ (March 14, 2016), Marcus J. Moore, “How ‘All Songs Considered’s’ Bob Boilen Went from Tiny Desk to Tastemaker.”*
NPR’s “All Songs Considered” host Bob Boilen on the songs that change our lives
May 20, 2016 at 6:20 PM EST
Bob Boilen is known for being the host and creator of NPR’s popular “All Songs Considered” podcast. But Boilen is also a former musician -- his band was the first ever act to play D.C.’s famous 9:30 Club. Boilen’s new book, “Your Song Changed My Life,” recounts the history of modern music through the voices he has encountered, and he joins Jeffrey Brown at the 9:30 Club to share a few of them.
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JUDY WOODRUFF: Finally tonight: Many of you may know Bob Boilen as the host and creator of NPR’s “All Songs Considered,” one of the most downloaded music podcasts.
At the popular 9:30 Club here in Washington, D.C., recently, Jeffrey Brown sat down with Boilen, whose own band was the first to play at that club 35 years ago.
His new book, “Your Song Changed My Life,” recounts the history of modern music through voices Boilen has encountered.
JEFFREY BROWN: Your book, “Your Song Changed My Life,” right, that’s true. I mean, a lot of people would say that, but why? Have you figured out what it is that — about music that has that impact?
BOB BOILEN, Author, “Your Song Changed My Life”: I think it’s so visceral.
Music is so different than everything else. It’s not tangible. You don’t see it. It hits you on a level that is deeper than what we do and see in everyday life. I think it’s pure emotion and tone, and a lyric. Somebody saying a lyric that repeats over and over can be a call to action for somebody.
I tell stories of people whose lives were changed by a song, and often in those formative years, what some people call the reminiscence bump, where you’re more likely to be susceptible to something, with hormones raging, or the first time you ever like heard somebody go, yes, you know, like, those things are impactful because they’re firsts. And…
JEFFREY BROWN: You were looking for those moments from people.
BOB BOILEN: Well, then it wasn’t hard to find, either because so many musicians — there are 35 in my book, from — you know, you get Jimmy Page or a new artist like Hozier or St. Vincent.
You get artists who became musicians because something like that happened to them, where they heard a song on the radio while they were 8 years old strapped to the back seat of a car.
Or, for Jimmy Page, he moved into a house that was empty and there was a guitar in that house, the only thing, right?
JEFFREY BROWN: Yes, with a page of Led Zeppelin.
BOB BOILEN: Led Zeppelin, yes.
But then sees a kid at school playing a guitar. And this is the ’50s. It’s not like today, where everybody’s got a guitar. This was a rare thing.
JEFFREY BROWN: It happens to all of us, as lovers of music, but it also happens to the musicians themselves. That’s what made them who they are.
BOB BOILEN: Yes.
And those musicians go on to spawn a whole crop of new ones. I see it all the time, like someone like Courtney Barnett, who is a musician from Australia that many people might not know. She’s 23 years old, one of the best musical poets of this generation, I think.
I think people who love Dylan could connect to Courtney Barnett, for example. She was influenced by, you know, a band in America that’s been a band for 20 years, Wilco. So, it’s interesting to see someone 23 being influenced by someone, say, in their 40s who has been making music since they were that age.
So, I just love those connections that happen.
JEFFREY BROWN: Did you see themes emerge when you’re talking to all these different musicians, anything that really stood out or surprised you?
BOB BOILEN: Well, I think one thing is that parents, listen, you have a large influence on what your kids are going to like.
And for my generation, I was rebelling against my parents’ music.
JEFFREY BROWN: Right.
BOB BOILEN: But that’s not true anymore. Most kids embrace their parents’ music. Most kids look back with some sense of, I want to know more.
I’m curious what’s going to happen in the land of playlists. Like, is your kid going to inherit your playlists? Not likely.
JEFFREY BROWN: What is going to happen? I mean, because we’re sitting here talking amid so many changes in the world of music, right, the industry, the way we take in music, how we listen to it.
BOB BOILEN: I think that we will still have the auditory experience.
We will still have that experience of sitting next to your mother or father, hearing a song, and — but you’re not going to get that physical thing that, for me, was really important. I mean, I miss the album. I miss the physical thing that I can hold and — while I listen.
But, that said, people today have the choice to listen to anything and everything. They can listen to Louis Armstrong, or they can listen to, you know, Alice Cooper, and they can do it all in the same three minutes of each other without having to purchase anything, without having to run to the local library or go to somebody’s cousin’s brother’s house.
So, I think that’s exceptional. And so the understanding of what music is and its history is much deeper than it will ever be.
JEFFREY BROWN: And you talk about people’s moments when they — moments of discovery. What about your own?
BOB BOILEN: Well, I grew up at the time when the Beatles came to be, and it may seem almost cliche for some, oh, the Beatles, you know?
Here’s a band that in 1964 were writing really cute, catchy songs, and then three, 3.5 years later, from ’64 to ’67, were writing unimaginable sounds, with a record like “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” lyrics that were no longer about how I love you and how I want to hold your hand.
It was much deeper life philosophy. And the orchestrations were just mind-boggling. And I love that progression in the music. I love what happens when a band can be one thing one time, and grow up and become something else. And I’m always looking for that group that wants to keep innovating.
I just find that fascinating, endlessly fascinating.
JEFFREY BROWN: Sometimes, cliches are true, right? The Beatles.
BOB BOILEN: Yes. Yes.
JEFFREY BROWN: All right, Bob Boilen, thanks so much.
BOB BOILEN: Yes. Pleasure.
A Look behind the Scenes of All Songs Considered – An Interview with Bob Boilen
Posted by Colleen
October 21, 2014
boilen
Bob Boilen. Photo Credit: NPR
Music in America would sound very different without public radio. Local public radio stations take creative risks, nurture new talent, and give emerging artists a chance to be heard.
Bob Boilen, host of All Songs Considered, sat down with me to provide Protect My Public Media listeners a behind the scenes look at one of our favorite programs. We had the opportunity to talk about a range of topics including the evolution of All Songs Considered over the years, his dream Tiny Desk concert performer, how he chooses artists to feature on the show and what his motivation is to keep playing the music all these years later.
At its core, public radio is about storytelling – and this is true in music, too. Public radio deepens our appreciation of music by sharing stories about the artists we love.
How long have you been at NPR?
I am about to start my 27th year.
Were you always at NPR Music?
I started at NPR News – I was with All Things Considered (ATC). For 18 of the 19 years, I was director of ATC. There wasn’t a music department at NPR – we created it. I had picked music for ATC, produced music stories, edited music stories as well as brought music commentators onto ATC. And coming out of that, I knew I wanted to start a music show for NPR. As it turned out, the internet was young and fresh and I thought it would be a good place to do a music show. At the end of 1999, I proposed a music show to NPR – they gave me $300 – and I did a mockup of a multimedia show called All Songs Considered (All Songs). The show launched in early 2000.
How many hats do you wear at NPR? I know that you are a host of All Songs Considered and a big force behind the Tiny Desk concerts but what does a normal day look like for you?
My day is sifting through a few hundred submissions of stuff from musicians in order to find music for All Songs, for music to premiere on the All Songs blog or for first watch videos for the All Songs blog. I also get pitches from bands who want to come and play the Tiny Desk. In addition, Robin Hilton and I do the weekly show of All Songs and I also look for people to interview.
Robin Hilton Photo Credit: NPR
Robin Hilton Photo Credit: NPR
This week, we just interviewed the producer, John Congelton (St Vincent, Modest Mouse). Also, I’m always searching venue calendars to see who is coming to town. I go see music most nights and try to find interesting talent to bring to the desk.
So you have to sift through hundreds of music submissions, how do you decide which ones you are going to listen to each day?
It used to be that I would listen to everything I got but those days are gone, there just isn’t enough time in a day to listen to everything I receive. I judge by album art, I judge by song titles, I look for things that are not cliché and I think about who is sending it to me. Is it someone who has sent me something good in the past? Or is it just someone doing their job and who has been hired to send it to me? I mean all publicists get paid by their clients to send their music to me but there is a difference between a publicist who is passionate about who they take on as a musician and who they pass on, and what they choose to pass on to me. Not everything a publicist gets should come to me if they know our show and our tastes.
I don’t read much music journalism. I don’t scour the web because I like to come to things on my own terms. And, that keeps me from being a follower. It allows me to be able to discover music without being biased by anyone.
How does the recording of All Songs Considered work?
Well, it is pretty much a live stream. First of all, the show’s evolved – there have been three phases. I started it as a multimedia show. I used to do multimedia theater before I came to NPR – I wrote music, composed music, helped program slides for a multimedia experimental music theater company so I have always been enamored with slides, music and text. So when I started All Songs, it was a one hour multimedia show with slides of artists, photographs of artists and their instruments, another window would have text and this is while their music played. Those were the days when everyone had dial-up and it would just kill their connection. It was way overly ambitious and way ahead of its time. I mean this was 2000, I don’t say that to pat myself on the back because in many ways it was a failure because people who didn’t have the bandwidth to play the show, the music quality would go way down but it would keep playing anyway, so it would sound awful. It didn’t really work but I thought it was a good idea.
So then the second phase started in 2002. I would pick six songs and we cut it down from an hour show to a half hour show. We also went from one show every three to four weeks to once a week since it wasn’t multimedia anymore. It was so much easier to do the show because we didn’t need to get photo rights and we didn’t need to put a slide show together.
So from about 2002 to 2011, I would write a script and be the only voice on the show. But two to three years ago, I started bringing Robin on as a co-host. The way that the show works now, we both pick roughly three songs. We walk in the studio, we often don’t know what the other is going to play, we open the mics and we just start talking so what you hear is basically a live stream. The only things that get cut out or added in are technical like if I mention that a certain song sounds like another song then I might go back in and add that song as a reference.
How do you pick your three songs?
We get offered a lot of premieres so it’s always cool to premiere a song on the show. So a premiere would be at the top of my list, if no one else has had it on the web, it is kind of nice to do that. If I get music in that I think I’ll be interested in, I will rip it into my iTunes put it in a playlist called ‘to be listened to’ and drive around with it all week so the stuff that floats to the top is the stuff that really hits me when Friday comes around to record the show. I think about what it was that week I really liked listening to and that usually will be one or two of my selections and then a premiere will be one.
As part of All Songs Considered, you often feature interviews. Do you have any favorites?
Producer, engineer and musician John Congleton.
Producer, engineer and musician John Congleton. Photo Credit: Jeaneen Lund
I recently interviewed John Congelton who is a producer – I mean this year alone he produced St. Vincent and Angel Olsen, which are two of my favorite albums this year. But outside those two, he has produced a gazillion great albums – it might be one of my favorite interviews I’ve ever done.
How do you manage to go to so many shows and manage to maintain a work-life balance?
My work is my life, my life is my work – it’s all the same.
How do you decide which artists will play the Tiny Desk? Do you have a preference between the ones that you have seen live or the artists that have pitched you?
I mostly never bring anyone to the Tiny Desk that I haven’t seen live. Even YouTube videos don’t quite do it. There are only a handful of artists that I have brought to the desk, sight unseen. There is a real difference between someone who can make a record and someone who can perform in an awkwardly intimate setting like the Tiny Desk. I usually feel like I can judge this when I see them live.
How many Tiny Desks have there been so far?
There have been about 350. We started them in May of 2008.
Where did it get the name ‘Tiny Desk’?
I had a band here in D.C. that I started with a friend in 1979 and it was his idea to name it the Tiny Desk Unit. It was a play on words because a lot of jazz bands back then went by things like The Cecil Taylor Unit and it’s because these concerts are small – they are only three songs. It’s also because they are played in a small and intimate space so the name kind of fits perfectly and it’s literally at my desk.
Who would your dream Tiny Desk performer be?
I have a few white whales – I think Neil Young would be my living white whale. If he sat down and played After the Gold Rush in its entirety, I would die happy. When you do things like this, you think about artists you love, think about things that are possible – that is within reach – or that hasn’t happened yet. It’s not about the fame or the name; it’s about what these people have meant to so many other people. And, to see them in a setting as intimate as one can possibly get – I just love that idea. And often, the musicians, someone like Tom Jones, who comes and does it and doesn’t need to do it, or Jackson Browne the other day – I mean – they really love it. There are two cool things that happen – one, we as an audience gets something out of it. And, they as performers do something they never usually do, and they get something out of it and I love that.
How do you balance the role of being a critic and a cheerleader of music that you love?
I never think of myself as a critic. My job is to find music that I am passionate about and pass it on to others. I don’t usually talk about things that I don’t care about. I don’t like spending time doing that. I am not a huge fan of music criticism. Given the things we want to spin our wheels on, we would rather spin our wheels on passing along something we find interesting and things we think our listeners would find interesting.
Is that element of discovery and sharing it your favorite part?
Discovery and surprise is exactly what our show is about. If you are listening to our show, you have just gotten the crème of the crop of what I have received that week.
So do you listen to All Songs Considered? If you answered “yes,” tell us the artists that you’ve discovered from the program in the comments below!
Bob Boilen
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Bob Boilen
Born 1950s
Brooklyn
Show All Songs Considered
Network NPR
Style Presenter
Country United States
Website www.bobboilen.info
Bob Boilen is the current host and the creator of NPR's online music show All Songs Considered. He is also the creator of the Tiny Desk Concert series for NPR Music, hosting intimate performances at his desk. The series curated by Boilen and the team of NPR Music was inspired by a comment made by NPR Music's Stephen Thompson when he jokingly invited musician Laura Gibson to perform at Bob's desk. The two of them went to see Gibson at a show at SXSW in 2008 and the loud crowd made it impossible to hear her. The name of the series is a play on the name Tiny Desk Unit, a band Boilen played in from 1979-1981. Bob Boilen was the director of the NPR show All Things Considered (1989–2007) and chose the music between the news stories for that show. Those musical snippets or "buttons" was the starting point for the creation of All Songs Considered.
Bob Boilen writes electronic music with friend Michael Barron;[1] both were founding members of the psychedelic dance band Tiny Desk Unit (1979–1981), for which Boilen played synthesizer. Boilen continues to write music with Michael Barron in a band called Danger Painters and also writes and releases solo music. Boilen also composed the original theme music for Talk of the Nation.[2] From 1982 to 1986 Boilen filled a variety of roles including composer with Baltimore's Impossible Theater. He has also worked as a producer for Channel 50, and produced Science Live for the Discovery Channel. He guest starred as himself in the Season 27 episode of The Simpsons "Gal of Constant Sorrow".[3]
Bob Boilen
Host, All Songs Considered
Twitter Instagram
In 1988, a determined Bob Boilen started showing up on NPR's doorstep every day, looking for a way to contribute his skills in music and broadcasting to the network. His persistence paid off, and within a few weeks he was hired, on a temporary basis, to work for All Things Considered. Less than a year later, Boilen was directing the show and continued to do so for the next 18 years.
Significant listener interest in the music being played on All Things Considered, along with his and NPR's vast music collections, gave Boilen the idea to start All Songs Considered. "It was obvious to me that listeners of NPR were also lovers of music, but what also became obvious by 1999 was that the web was going to be the place to discover new music and that we wanted to be the premiere site for music discovery." The show launched in 2000, with Boilen as its host.
Before coming to NPR, Boilen found many ways to share his passion for music. From 1982 to 1986 he worked for Baltimore's Impossible Theater, where he held many posts, including composer, technician, and recording engineer. Boilen became part of music history in 1983 with the Impossible Theater production Whiz Bang, a History of Sound. In it, Boilen became one of the first composers to use audio sampling — in this case, sounds from nature and the industrial revolution. He was interviewed about Whiz Bang by Susan Stamberg on All Things Considered.
In 1985, the Washington City Paper voted Boilen 'Performance Artist of the Year.' An electronic musician, he received a grant from the Washington D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities to work on electronic music and performance.
After Impossible Theater, Boilen worked as a producer for a television station in Washington, D.C. He produced several projects, including a music video show. In 1997, he started producing an online show called Science Live for the Discovery Channel. He also put out two albums with his psychedelic band, Tiny Desk Unit, during the late 1970s and early 1980s. Boilen still composes and performs music and posts it for free on his website BobBoilen.info. He performs contradance music and has a podcast of contradance music that he produces with his son Julian.
Boilen's first book, Your Song Changed My Life, will be published in April 2016 by HarperCollins.
Bob Boilen
MUSIC, BOOK, PHOTOGRAPHS AND MORE
I'm the creator and host of NPR's All Songs Considered and Tiny Desk Concerts.
I authored the book, "Your Song Changed My Life."
I'm also a musician, formerly of Tiny Desk Unit and these days recording with my band Danger Painters.
BOB BOILEN
In 1979 I quit my job running a record warehouse and bought an Arp Odyssey synthesizer. In a few months I was performing at dc space in Washington, D.C. with Tiny Desk Unit. I joined Impossible Theater in 1982, writing music for a handful of original multimedia productions with some incredibly talented artists from Baltimore. Some of my favorite music was written then and can be found on the cassette I released called Music For Unitards. In 1988 I quit my TV production job and went to NPR looking for work. I showed up every day hoping I could make radio. In about a year I was somehow directing All Things Considered. At the end of the last century I started NPR's online music show All Songs Considered. After 18 years of directing, I am now hosting All Songs Considered full time for NPR. I started an intimate series of concerts at my desk called Tiny Desk Concerts featuring both emerging artists and well known musicians.
These days I make music under the name Danger Painters with former Tiny Desk Unit guitarist and musical soulmate Michael Barron. We've made 8 albums and 2 EP's together. with I've been making music with electronics for about 37 years. Tiny Desk Unit reformed briefly in 2007. Michael, Susan Mumford and I wrote an album for the RPM Challenge (the make-an-album-in-a-month challenge) called Sputnik Fell on my Birthday in honor of the passing of our drummer Lorenzo "Pee Wee" Jones.
In 2016 I completed my first book, "Your Song Changed My Life." I asked 35 artists about a song that changed them forever and then wrote essays linking the artist with their inspirational song.
I've also become a concert photographer these days using Sony's mirrorless Alpha 6000 camera. I've enjoyed storytelling with images, some I'll post here but I'm most often posting on my Instagram account Tinydesk.
LC control no.: n 97846766
Descriptive conventions:
rda
Personal name heading:
Boilen, Bob
Birth date: 1953-04-10
Special note: Performance artist, electronic music composer.
Data contributed by the Dance Heritage Coalition for the
New York Public Library Dance Collection.
Found in: *MGZR Laser dance (Withers) [Clippings]
Your song changed my life, 2016: ECIP t.p. (Bob Boilen)
data view (birth date: 4/10/1953)
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Your Song Changed My Life: From Jimmy Page to St. Vincent, Smokey Robinson to Hozier, Thirty-Five Beloved Artists on Their Journey and the Music That Inspired It
Publishers Weekly. 263.14 (Apr. 4, 2016): p76.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
Your Song Changed My Life: From Jimmy Page to St. Vincent, Smokey Robinson to Hozier, Thirty-Five Beloved Artists on Their Journey and the Music That Inspired It Bob Boilen. Morrow, $25.95 (288p) ISBN 978-0-06-234444-1
Boilen, longtime host of NPR's All Songs Considered and Tiny Desk Concerts, pits musical artists against one another, asking the readers--and himself--which is better: Oasis or Blur? White Strips or Black Keys? Taylor Swift or Kanye West? Along the way, Boilen interweaves themes from his own life with intriguing stories of musicians such Jimmy Page, Smokey Robinson, Jeff Tweedy, and the artist formerly known as Cat Stevens, among others. For Page, one inspiration was Lonnie Donegan's cover of "Rock Island Line"; for Philip Glass, it was Spike Jones and Yiddish comedy records; and for Jenny Lewis, Run-DMC "completely changed my life forever." Boilen brings in a wide range of musicians from several countries, but hip-hop and heavy metal artists are noticeably absent. Boilen at times stumbles into platitude and cliche. Nevertheless, the book provides kaleidoscopic insights into the unlikely ways that music can seize and transform the young, including the remarkable story of Xavier Dphrepaulezz (aka Fantastic Negrito), who dropped out of the music business for 15 years after a car accident put him a coma and mangled his right arm. The strongest sections include the opening memoir and those places where Boilen has a personal connection to the music. (May)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Your Song Changed My Life: From Jimmy Page to St. Vincent, Smokey Robinson to Hozier, Thirty-Five Beloved Artists on Their Journey and the Music That Inspired It." Publishers Weekly, 4 Apr. 2016, p. 76. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA448902750&it=r&asid=95cf7e354e18e4e7a56d0f67df3b9083. Accessed 21 Jan. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A448902750
Boilen, Bob. Your Song Changed My Life: From Jimmy Page to St. Vincent, Smokey Robinson to Hozier, Thirty-five Beloved Artists on Their Journey and the Music That Inspired It
Brian Flota
Library Journal. 141.6 (Apr. 1, 2016): p93.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 Library Journals, LLC. A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
http://www.libraryjournal.com/
Full Text:
Boilen, Bob. Your Song Changed My Life: From Jimmy Page to St. Vincent, Smokey Robinson to Hozier, Thirty-five Beloved Artists on Their Journey and the Music That Inspired It. Morrow. Apr. 2016.262p. photos. ISBN 9780062344441. $25.99; ebk. ISBN 9780062344465. MUSIC
National Public Radio "Tiny Desk Concert" and "All Songs Considered" correspondent Boilen ditches the microphone for the printed word here. His book consists of 35 interviews with musicians about the song that changed their life. Interviewees range from the legendary (Smokey Robinson, Jimmy Page, Michael Stipe) to the hip (St. Vincent, Leon Bridges, Justin Vernon, Courtney Barnett). While many of the transformative pieces are far from surprising, such as former Minor Threat and Fugazi front man Ian MacKaye's selection of the still-shocking Sex Pistols cut "Bodies," or ex-R.E.M. lead singer Michael Stipe's affection for Patti Smith's nine-minute epic "Birdland," many bear little resemblance to the artist's own music. Notable examples include Leon Bridges's affection for a late-Seventies Crosby, Stills & Nash song, St. Vincent's fondness for the deep-cut Pearl Jam single "Oceans," or Phish front man Trey Anastasio's love for the West Side Story number "Somewhere." Throughout, the author colors many of the chapters with his own sensibilities and experiences as a semiprofessional musician. VERDICT In this light, fun read, Boilen interviews a wide-enough range of musicians that there should be something in here for any music lover.--Brian Flota, James Madison Univ., Harrisonburg, VA
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Flota, Brian. "Boilen, Bob. Your Song Changed My Life: From Jimmy Page to St. Vincent, Smokey Robinson to Hozier, Thirty-five Beloved Artists on Their Journey and the Music That Inspired It." Library Journal, 1 Apr. 2016, p. 93. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA447931692&it=r&asid=8590ab8bba0ddeab4e3a0fb6769452be. Accessed 21 Jan. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A447931692
Boilen, Bob: YOUR SONG CHANGED MY LIFE
Kirkus Reviews. (Mar. 15, 2016):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Boilen, Bob YOUR SONG CHANGED MY LIFE Morrow/HarperCollins (Adult Nonfiction) $25.99 4, 12 ISBN: 978-0-06-234444-1
Interviews with nearly three dozen musicians about the life-altering songs that inspired their musical careers. Since 2000, Boilen, creator and host of NPR's All Songs Considered, has featured new and established singers of all genres on his popular online music show and podcasts. In these winning profiles, he teases out the single moment when each artist heard a song he or she will never forget. (His own life "changed forever," he writes, when he first heard the Beatles' "A Day in the Life.") The song for these artists varies greatly: Motown star Smokey Robinson cites Jackie Wilson's "Lonely Teardrops," Irish-born Hozier recalls falling in love with Tom Waits' "Cold Cold Ground," and composer Philip Glass remembers his discovery at age 11 of Spike Jones' amusing version of Rossini's "William Tell Overture," played on pots and pans. In his fascinating explorations of these artists' lives and work, Boilen finds pivotal moments happen most often at early ages, especially the teens and 20s. But then Justin Vernon of indie folk band Bon Iver encountered The Staves' "No Me, No You, No More," and "felt like I was lifting off the ground," only recently, at age 33. Colin Meloy of the Decemberists remembers buying Husker Du's "beautiful, aching, gorgeous acoustic song" "Hardly Gotten Over It" and playing it on a boom box. Trey Anastasio of Phish first heard "Something's Coming," from Leonard Bernstein's West Side Story, among his mother's Broadway original cast albums. Jazz violinist Regina Carter, on the other hand, rejected her own mother's advice to join a symphony orchestra and went on to become a solo performer after hearing "Lovin' is Really My Game" by Brainstorm, a funk band. Other contributors include Cat Stevens, Jackson Browne, Chris Thile, Jeff Tweedy, Carrie Brownstein, David Byrne, Jenny Lewis, and Jimmy Page. Boilen's warm, engaging voice pervades this treat for music aficionados.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Boilen, Bob: YOUR SONG CHANGED MY LIFE." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Mar. 2016. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA446003822&it=r&asid=f979da333b298a7dd2a14fdfa8055e33. Accessed 21 Jan. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A446003822
'Your Song Changed My Life' by Bob Boilen: EW review
Eric Renner Brown@ericrennerbrown
Posted on April 15, 2016 at 1:24pm EST
Your Song Changed My Life: From Jimmy Page to St. Vincent, Smokey Robinson to Hozier, Thirty-Five Beloved Artists on Their Journey and the Music That Inspired It
type:
Book
Current Status:
In Season
author:
59560
publisher:
William Morrow
genre:
Nonfiction
We gave it an
A
In his debut—part memoir, part criticism, and part music history—the NPR music sage, who’s behind all those addictive Tiny Desk Concerts, takes readers on a wide-ranging journey. Diehard Boilen fans will love personal tidbits about his discovering the Beatles as a kid, performing in D.C.’s underground music scene in the ’80s, and meeting a young Ira Glass, but the real prizes here are his interviews with musicians, from Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page to rising electronic whiz James Blake, about what sparked their love of music. Whether he’s chatting with singer-songwriter Jenny Lewis about getting turned on to A Tribe Called Quest as a teenager or deconstructing the modern classical canon with composer Philip Glass, Boilen confirms with Your Song that he’s one of the most versatile—and most fascinating—music writers working today. A
35 Musicians Nerd Out on Their Favorite Tunes in Your Song Changed My Life
Monday, April 11, 2016 at 8:35 a.m.
By Tony Mostrom
Was Frank Zappa right when he said, “Most rock journalism is people who can’t write interviewing people who can’t talk for people who can’t read?” Well, let’s just say “more truth than poetry, perhaps.” A more generous observation, as quoted in NPR music host Bob Boilen’s new book, Your Song Changed My Life, was made by novelist William S. Burroughs: “The essential ingredient for any successful rock group is energy — the ability to give out energy, to receive energy from the audience and to give it back to the audience. A rock concert is in fact a rite involving the evocation and transmutation of energy.” As Boilen comments, “What a perfect way to describe rock & roll.”
Boilen, a veteran NPR music programmer and the host of All Songs Considered, clearly loves his job and loves musicians, and this good-naturedness comes through in the 35 interviews that make up Your Song Changed My Life. It’s a short geek-out of a music book that definitely hews toward the mainstream, the interviewees ranging from David Byrne (“while many of the punk bands of the day were angry or pugnacious, Talking Heads were whimsical”) and Dave Grohl (who as a kid would “set up pillows on his bed as if they were drums and pound them until...”) to a lot of folks with one name; the tally amounts to 33 rock stars and singer-songwriters, one avant-garde composer and one Icelandic drone artist (though the author admits to his own, private enthusiasm for artists such as Brian Eno and Anthony Braxton).
35 Musicians Nerd Out on Their Favorite Tunes in Your Song Changed My Life
In his autobiographical introduction, Boilen recalls his teenage love for rock music (he remembers transistor radios!), sitting on his back porch in Queens one sad night in 1965 knowing, painfully, that The Beatles were performing at that moment at Shea Stadium. Given the subject matter, the writing here is necessarily facile, though Boilen does aim for lyricism, as when he’s describing how enraptured he was upon first hearing The Beatles’ brand-new Sgt. Pepper album, as a kid in 1967. “Imagine,” he writes, “growing up in a city and walking into a forest for the first time — that’s what the experience of this album was like.” Following some intriguing late-’60s and early-’70s memories of avoiding the draft and his unfolding musical discoveries (besides loving Bowie, Jimi Hendrix and Roxy Music, he loathed The Eagles, which would seem to qualify as Music 101), the book then presents the at-times-insightful opinions, memories and nerd-outs of rockers and hip-hop artists, some of them actually interesting to non-fans, some not:
David Byrne, recalling his early days in folk clubs: “The folkies didn’t know rock & roll music … I’d do a Who song or a Kinks song … on acoustic guitar and it was kind of like, ‘That’s a really nice song. Where did that come from?'”
Jimmy Page, the first interviewee in the book, on Led Zeppelin’s Physical Graffiti album: “It’s like the mother of all double albums. Isn’t it? Really, let’s be honest,” and on William Burroughs: “He’d actually been to see Led Zeppelin. … He was connecting the essence of trance music, with riffs that repeat over and over, with what he had experienced … in Tangier … connecting this whole aspect of things with … what we were doing.”
Lucinda Williams’ discussions with her poet-father on whether Bob Dylan was a poet or a songwriter: “I tell you, as soon as I sat down with one of my dad’s poems and tried to turn it into a song, then I knew the difference.”
For me, the best part of this book is the surprise factor, those unlikely meetings of people and tastes you wouldn’t expect. Boilen recalls his surprise at hearing Jackson Browne singing a Nico song, “These Days,” on his second album; as it turns out, not only were Browne and Nico a couple back in ’67, but Browne wrote the song at age 16. Browne here recalls growing up in Highland Park with that ultimate rarity, a Cool Dad (“He took me to see Lightnin’ Hopkins!”).
Including a minimalist composer like Philip Glass in this book feels like a sop, but it’s a welcome one; the goofy story about Glass’ father’s radio repair shop selling, in Baltimore back in the 1940s, avant-garde 78s by Bartók and Stravinsky, is both strange and hilarious.
One would like to have seen Boilen include some of the more singular artists he’s had on his show, such as L.A.’s own Frank Fairfield (plucking a banjo and sounding like ol’ Gus Cannon from the 1920s reincarnated) and legendary singer Tom Jones, but then one can always gripe about someone else’s choices, especially when it comes to music.
10 Free L.A. Things to Do With Kids That Don't Suck for Grownups
Tony Mostrom
Artist, illustrator and writer TONY MOSTROM has written for the Weekly about Books, Los Angeles history and the Arts since the late 1980s. From 2010-12 he wrote the L.A. Times’ L.A. THEN & NOW column about vintage crimes, eccentrics and disasters. His 350+ illustrations adorn Jack White’s recent Grammy-winning musical Box-set opus, THE RISE & FALL OF PARAMOUNT RECORDS, 1917-1932.
How ‘All Songs Considered’s’ Bob Boilen went from Tiny Desk to tastemaker
By Marcus J. Moore April 14, 2016
Bob Boilen, host of the Tiny Desk concert series, during a sound check for artist Monika at his desk at NPR in Northeast Washington. (April Greer/For The Washington Post)
The snippets of music were almost an afterthought. They were meant to be brief interludes between segments on NPR’s signature news program, “All Things Considered.” For years, the show’s director, Bob Boilen, filled the pockets of dead air with songs he loved. His tastes veered toward the quirky and the obscure. What was that song? listeners began to ask. So he started an online show called “All Songs Considered,” a place where he could share his musical finds. “I felt the responsibility, with all this music I was getting, to get the word out,” he says.
That was 16 years ago. “All Songs” still airs mostly online, but it’s no longer second fiddle to NPR’s marquee news shows. The “All Songs” podcast is consistently parked at or near the top of the iTunes and Stitcher music podcast charts, averaging more than 2.3 million downloads a month. Not far down the list is the “Tiny Desk Concerts” podcast, featuring intimate, unplugged performances that take place at Boilen’s desk. “All Songs” and “Tiny Desk” are big reasons R.E.M. manager Bertis Downs has said a plug on NPR is as good as a Rolling Stone cover or a gig on “Saturday Night Live.”
Music industry insiders have long known how influential Boilen is as a tastemaker. But this year, he cemented that status further with a cameo on “The Simpsons” and his first book, “Your Song Changed My Life,” due out this month, in which he asks the likes of Philip Glass, Hozier and Lucinda Williams what song has had the biggest impact on them.
What changed in the past 16 years? Not Boilen, who just turned 63. He still tries to see 10 concerts a week, does not dance and records an album once a year with the same guy he has played with since the ’80s. What changed was everything else: the decline of college radio, the rise of music-streaming services and a podcasting renaissance fueled by the rapid proliferation of smartphones. The more consumers feel overwhelmed by choices, the more his endorsements mean. Now when he ducks into clubs to see bands nobody has heard of, it’s as if millions of people are tagging along.
NPR Music via YouTube
Shortly before 1:30 p.m. on a Friday in early January, Boilen kneeled down on the floor by his desk at NPR headquarters in Northeast Washington. He had on a faded black shirt, black jeans and black boots. Off to the side was a couple dozen NPR employees, waiting to hear a Tiny Desk concert by El Vy. The duo is pianist Brent Knopf and Matt Berninger, lead singer of indie band the National. Berninger, a tall, thin guy with straggly blond hair and a beard, told the crowd to move closer, “because I sing like a mouse.”
Tiny Desk had its 500th concert a few days earlier. In videos of the shows, Boilen often introduces the acts, and his quirky sensibility infuses everything. The detritus on his desk that day included a James Brown doll the size of a small newborn, a copy of music writer Greil Marcus’s “Mystery Train” and an Emmy Award (which he and NPR Music won in 2011 for a video about Moby) that doubles as a hat stand for his signature brown fedora. (He suffers from face blindness and once said he wears it whenever he goes out “in sympathy” for others like him who have trouble remembering faces but can recognize a hat.)
As he has become better known, more people have started coming up to him. He obliges with a smile, a handshake and some brief conversation. But in some ways, he’s still getting used to the higher profile. With journalists, he’s generous with his time, as long as the questions don’t stray too far from work. Divorced with a 23-year-old son, he was less eager to have a reporter hang out with him at his Silver Spring, Md., home.
The parts of himself he shares more freely start with memories of discovering the Beatles and the Doors as a kid growing up in Queens, N.Y., and later in Bethesda, Md. In the introduction to “Your Song Changed My Life,” he recounts how he started listening to records because he was a “failure” at playing the guitar.
As a teenager, he worked at Waxie Maxie’s record shop in Rockville, Md. He made $1.75 an hour and worked 48 hours per week — which at the time was enough to pay his tuition at Montgomery College. He later transferred to the University of Maryland at College Park to be a business major but hated it and dropped out. “I could never connect what I loved with what I did in college,” he says.
Soon after, he and a friend got an apartment on Wisconsin Avenue in the District. It was 1978, and Boilen threw himself into the punk-rock scene, where he finally found an instrument he could play: the synthesizer. He formed a band named Tiny Desk Unit with guitarist Michael Barron, singer Susan Mumford and instrumentalists Joe Menacher and Chris Thompson.
They were the first act to play the old 9:30 Club on F Street NW. Their esoteric mix of dance music earned them regular gigs. But Boilen says the group, aided by alcohol, heroin and other street drugs, “self-destructed.”
He still had a day job at a local TV station, where he had taught himself how to use the production equipment. But radio was his first love, so he quit and went to see an “All Things Considered” producer he’d met before named Ira Glass. When he told Glass he wanted to work there, Glass gave him interview tape to cut. Boilen started coming every day to help out. Within a year, he was directing the show.
He started “All Songs” in 2000. He had ideas for segments, too, and he would bombard co-host Robin Hilton with them. (“Sole of a Band,” a series of photos of performers’ shoes, comes to mind.) It got to the point that Hilton wouldn’t sit next to him at work.
“A lot of it was great,” Hilton says. “It was just overwhelming.”
In 2008, the inspiration for Tiny Desk concerts came from seeing folk singer Laura Gibson perform at a bar during the South by Southwest festival in Austin. Boilen and NPR Music editor Stephen Thompson could barely hear her over the crowd. Thompson quipped that Gibson should just play at Boilen’s desk. A month later, Gibson was in his office, when Boilen announced over a loudspeaker that there would be a concert at his desk in five minutes. Boilen’s co-workers looked around in disbelief, Gibson says. The singer was just grateful for the endorsement: “I really think it’s the initial embrace that’s stuck with me for the past eight years.”
NPR Music via YouTube
On a relentlessly cold night, five days after El Vy’s visit, Boilen was backstage at the 9:30 Club watching folk singer Sharon Van Etten strum a guitar and hum sweet campfire songs before a few hundred people. Mist billowed as her voice echoed in cavernous waves. Behind her, bright orange and yellow lights spelled out “All Songs” and “16” in honor of the show’s anniversary.
When the song was over, Van Etten joked about wishing she had written happier songs for the occasion. It was, after all, supposed to be a party. She and a string of musicians were there to pay homage to Boilen and Hilton for helping to push their careers to the next level.
“It really makes me happy when people come up to me and say, ‘I wouldn’t be here if it were not for you,’ ” Boilen says. “There’s nothing more satisfying than that.”
If he likes an act, he’ll gush about it. And if he doesn’t, he just doesn’t mention it. He sees himself as a music fan, not a critic, first. The most contrarian he gets is a general resistance to “mainstream music.”
“I’m one of the people who didn’t care for Michael Jackson,” he says. “Talented, yeah, but there are so many other people that will never get their voices heard, and it’s so cool to be able to find the ones you connect with. I just try to find music that makes me think, ‘This needs a champion.’ ”
Many of the acts he loves, such as the Low Anthem and Taken by Trees, fall into the category of indie rock. And he’s been criticized more than once for his indifference to country and hip-hop in particular. Frannie Kelley, co-host of NPR’s “Microphone Check” podcast with rap icon Ali Shaheed Muhammad, was asked to create an “All Songs Considered” for rap music, but she declined. “We said we didn’t think hip-hop needed that, nor was recommending new rap music something that took advantage of either of our skills and assets,” Kelley says. “We said we would make something where we spoke with people in the culture.”
Boilen invited Kelley to his show a handful of times, before and after “Microphone Check” existed, but not to talk about the show. He wanted them to recommend new rap music to his listeners, “songs that he approved,” she says. “I couldn’t do the work I wanted to do within the context of his show. ... You can’t challenge Bob on his show. Ali and I had to create our own show to make NPR Music great.”
Boilen has acknowledged that he tends to play “music that speaks to me,” and his “lack of love for hip-hop, country, classical and metal stand out as big holes in our coverage.” He’s tried to fill them by inviting people with eclectic tastes such as Kyp Malone from TV on the Radio to play DJ. When Kelley suggested the NPR Music team invite hip-hop artist T-Pain to do a Tiny Desk show, Boilen was open to it. T-Pain’s October 2014 appearance is still the most-watched Tiny Desk performance, with nearly 9 million views on YouTube.
But Boilen doesn’t apologize for his tastes. In response to an email from a listener with the subject line “All Indie Rock Considered?,” he once wrote, “I won’t fake what I do when I host the show.”
Boilen checks email quickly at a show. He tries to go to about 10 concerts a week. (April Greer/For the Washington Post)
Boilen says he has no plans to retire or slow down. He’s never really had a plan. In his book, he says he owes his career to people like Glass who were willing to take a chance on him, a college dropout with no radio or journalism experience. “In life,” he writes, “certain people see things in us that we don’t see in ourselves.”
He describes his relationship to musicians much the same way. “I’m always hoping to get knocked out and surprised,” he said in a 2015 Reddit chat. “I’m not sure why I don’t burn out.”
A few weeks ago, he flew to Austin for South by Southwest. Within hours of landing he was at a small bridge overlooking a creek to see the band Lucius perform an acoustic lullaby. (He recorded it for a segment called “South X Lullaby.”) From there, he walked to another club where rapper Open Mike Eagle was giving a rousing performance. Boilen darted past him to an outdoor patio where he was delighted to see a band called Mothers in the middle of its ear-splitting set. (He’d been going on about them for weeks.) He stayed until the set was over, then he pulled out his phone to find his next show.
Marcus J. Moore is a music critic and journalist based in Hyattsville, Md.
To comment on this story, email wpmagazine@washpost.com or visit washingtonpost.com/magazine.