I‘ll say this:
I never set out to be a folk star.
Bobby Angel sits down for an interview
Not that I’m a folk star yet (although I can play one on the internet). A singer/songwriter? Maybe. Or I would say definitely so. After twenty years of on-and-off playing, and really only showing up unpaid gigs, why and how I ended up putting together a pretty decent website is anyone’s guess. Stranger still: I’m not even halfway through recording the songs I’ve written and performed over the years. Way back when, when I first got my start, there was a coworker who was enthusiastic as he was adamant: “We have to get all your songs on CD.” That CD never happened, but 15 years later the website just might. What I love about the website is it makes me be a finisher. After I record a song I add in an interview, the lyrics and other tidbits. All the songs were of course farewells, written for people moving on the greener pastures of a new job or retirement. Since them I’ve written a range of other songs, too. My best? Ballad of a Florida Panther seems to be a fan favorite.
As for the Bobby Angel effect, and what it is? I think I noticed it on the first song I played in front of anybody, or at least at a farewell party. It was Marsha. After the song I turned to her and she was sobbing in tears, and not because my song was bad. They were tears of joy. In a song Bobby Angel could touch someone in a way I could never approach in work-a-day real life. And so the Bobby Angel effect was born. Over twenty years later I’m still trying to figure it out.
