Terence Boylan was born in the late 1940s and grew up in Buffalo, NY, where he started out in music before age 13 in the appropriately named band the PreTeens. They even made an appearance on local radio station WBNY, performing "Playing Hard to Get," a song that
Boylan had written at age 11. While in his early teens, he'd made it to New York City and Greenwich Village, and managed to cross paths with
Bob Dylan (before he was a recording star) and
Ramblin' Jack Elliot; with their encouragement, he pursued a solo music career in upstate New York and managed to attend the Newport Folk Festivals of 1963 and 1964.
Boylan later attended Bard College in New York, and formed a band called the Ginger Men with his brother
John. They managed to cross paths with
the Blues Project and
the Lovin' Spoonful during occasional gigs in Greenwich Village during the mid-'60s. By 1967, he'd attracted the attention of several New York-based record labels and signed with
Verve, where he and his brother
John cut an experimental music-and-comedy LP amalgam entitled Appletree Theatre, which became a kind of cult favorite, principally among other musicians (including
John Lennon).
John Boylan subsequently headed to California, where he established himself first as a session guitarist and later as a producer, while
Terence Boylan remained in New York. By 1968, he was back at Bard and became close friends with classmates
Walter Becker and
Donald Fagen (who had musical aspirations of their own, although in those days they sounded too much like
the Beatles for their own professional good) and played with them. With
Becker and
Fagen in tow, he cut his debut solo LP, Alias Boona (a reference to his nickname) for Verve Forecast, the jazz-spawned label's progressive/experimental rock imprint. The record was, like his earlier album, principally attracted the attention of other musicians, including
Bob Dylan (whose "Subterranean Homesick Blues" received a beautiful reinterpretation on the LP). Rather than pursue his career in New York, he headed to California, where his brother
John Boylan was working with
Linda Ronstadt. He worked for his brother's production company and established himself on the West Coast.
Boylan was later signed to Asylum Records and recorded his self-titled second album in 1977. It was more of a West Coast production, especially in sound and texture. It was well-received by the critics but was never more than a cult success. He did enjoy some success as a songwriter when
Ian Matthews turned
Boylan's song "Shake It" into a Top Five hit. He did a national tour behind the album with
Bonnie Raitt and
Little Feat, and returned to New York to do a third solo album -- actually, a third and fourth that were finally combined into one LP. The result was
Suzy, which was another critical success and commercial disappointment. In the years since,
Boylan has principally involved himself with songwriting and soundtrack work, and his own record label and publishing company, Spinnaker Records. ~ Bruce Eder