Terence Boylan: the forgotten songwriter who recorded with Steely Dan
The glittering career that led Terence Boylan to work with the likes of Linda Ronstadt and Steely Dan started when he was only 12 years old. He and his band, naturally called The PreTeens, performed on WBNY’s Buffalo Bob Radio Show, singing a track Boylan had written that year. It was the first step towards a decades-long career as a songwriter that wound up producing hits like ‘Shake It’ and ‘Don’t Hang Up Those Dancing Shoes’.
Even in high school, it was abundantly clear he was destined to be a songwriter, and in 1962, a chance meeting with Bob Dylan confirmed it. Boylan was visiting Greenwich Village and somehow ended up sitting across from his hero, going on to spend an evening alongside him and Ramblin’ Jack Elliot playing songs. When he returned home to Buffalo, Dylan’s encouragement willed him on to start performing them around popular coffeehouses.
As he wrapped up his high school studies, Boylan felt a nagging sense that something bigger was in store for him. He described it as a kind of “excited confinement” as he waited for his break in the music business. Boylan was constantly surrounded by excellent artists, hitching to both Newport Folk Festivals in 1963 and 1964 to perform in The New Songwriters Concert, where he once again met up with Dylan, as well as rubbing shoulders with John Hurt and John Lee Hooker.
In New York’s Bard College in 1968, Boylan joined forces with his peers and soon-to-be Steely Dan members, Donald Fagen and Walter Becker. He recalled that at the time, they were both heavily invested in the con-conformist beatnik lifestyle. “They never came out of their room; they stayed up all night,” he said. “They looked like ghosts -black turtlenecks and skin so white that it looked like yoghurt. Absolutely no activity, chain-smoking Lucky Strikes and dope.”
Boylan soon got to work on his debut album, Alias Boona and asked Fagen and Becker to come to New York’s Hit Factory studio to play on it. He composed 11 of the 12 tracks on there, with the backing of Becker and Fagen on bass and keys. In an ode to Dylan, Boylan opened the album with his take on ‘Subterranean Homesick Blues’, soon gaining a reputation as one of the most talented songwriters on the scene. Just as he had with Steely Dan, Boylan started working for another band on the precipice of fame.
He had assembled a new backing band for Linda Ronstadt and spent time rehearsing with them in Los Angeles. That backing band went on to become the Eagles, arguably one of the most successful rock bands of all time. While he was working with them, old collaborators Steely Dan were also in town, recording Can’t Buy a Thrill. Although Boylan never reached the level of notoriety as the bands he helped along the way, their willingness to learn from him spoke to his abilities as a songwriter and creative force behind the scenes.
