Tribute To Tim Boyle

February 16, 2020

By Larry Carlin

Good morning, family, friends and fans of a fascinating fellow, the late, and much beloved, Tim Boyle. This morning you will be hearing stories and songs to celebrate his life. There will be some tears of sadness, a little bit of laughter, and a lot of love shared. I have no doubt that when you leave here, you will have a more complete picture of a man who lived life to the fullest, and whose character and personality touched countless people. While he is physically gone from this world, his spirit and presence will be with us eternally. And if he were here today, he’d probably be back there at the soundboard messing with the dials, making sure that everyone on stage sounded the best that they could.

Back in the late 50’s, before there was a J-Lo, Keb’ Mo’, and a Tim Tebow, there was “Timbo” Boyle. I don’t know how the nickname got started, but it was a good one, and it was with him all his life. His email address, as most of you know, was even “iotimbo.” Other than his two sisters – Ellen Kay Boyle MacLeod and Nan Boyle Urban – who are with us today, along with their three cousins, I knew Tim longer than anyone else here. He was a first cousin of mine, and while I had 11 in total, he was always #1 in my book. His Dad, John Boyle Sr., was the local Chief of Police, and he died of a heart attack when young Timmy was only 13 years old. Tim was named after our grandfather, Timothy Vincent Carlin. His mother, Ann, was my father Jim’s sister, and those two were very close, both as siblings and geographically, as the Boyles lived about three miles away from us in the suburbs of Philadelphia. While I had three brothers and a sister, Tim was like a fourth brother to me, and in many ways he had more of an effect on my life than my siblings did. Six years my senior, he was a rebel of sorts when he was young, and to me he was an idol and inspiration. He was the first hippie that I ever knew. Even though, in 1967, his hair was only about as long as mine is now, he was pulled out of line by the principal at his high school graduation rehearsal and was told that, “You aren’t graduating unless you get your hair cut!” One of his favorite teachers, a Mrs. Cummings, gave the charismatic 18-year-old some money and the keys to her car so that he could go get a haircut and graduate. How many teachers do you know that would lend their car and some money to a teenager?

He got his guitar – a mid-50’s Gibson – back then, and it was the first acoustic guitar that I ever held in my hands. I can still remember the feeling I had, at 13-years-old, barely able to wrap my arms around it, thinking about how cool it would be to be able to play one someday. Shortly thereafter I got a guitar from my parents as a Christmas present, and I have been playing music ever since.

After a brief stint in the Navy, Tim started growing his hair long, he grew a beard and he rode a Honda motorcycle. When I graduated in 1972, I did the hair and beard thing, but I drew a line at the bike. He had a black light and some concert posters in his bedroom, and before long, so did I. He worked at a record store for a while, and I used to go visit him there. On one occasion, when I asked him if he could recommend something to me, he pulled out the Crosby, Stills & Nash debut album, and soon after my thoughts of playing raunchy rock and roll were forgotten. As a teen, Tim took me to my first concert, a Snaker Dave Ray show at the legendary Main Point in Bryn Mawr. I rode along with him for a midnight showing of “Don’t Look Back,” the Bob Dylan documentary, that was playing at the Theatre of the Living Arts in South Philly. In 1972 he took me to my first picking party, where 8-10 players were sitting around in a circle in his girlfriend Karen’s living room. In February of 1973, I met and played some songs with some folks at Tim and Karen’s wedding that I am still friends with today. He also told me about the Philadelphia Folk Festival – which is where he and Karen first met – and in 1974, it was the first music fest that I even went to. I’ve been to about 100 since, and picking parties and music festivals have been mainstays of my life because of him.  

Sometime in the early 70’s, Tim and Karen moved to San Francisco. For you younger folks here today, this is way before the Internet and cell phones. Tim and I exchanged old-fashioned letters via the US Mail, and occasionally I’d see him at family gatherings when he’d come back east to visit. California sounded like a paradise to me, and since Tim was having such a great time out there, I had to go check it out for myself. In December on 1977 I rode out west with a friend, and by that time Tim and Karen, with baby Lyndsay on board, had moved to LA. I wasn’t there but a day or two when he took me to a fundraiser for some politico, and who should I get to meet there but Jethro Bodine! How Californian was that? From LA I made a short trip up to San Francisco, was enthralled, and a year later I moved to the Bay Area, and I’ve never left.

Since I was lot then a lot closer to Timbo, I got to see him more often than when I was 3,000 miles away. When I’d go to LA to play some shows, he and Karen would often come to see the band perform. On my visits down here over the years, among the many memories, he took me to see the Kinks at Forum, I got to see how a spoiled rock band (The Knack) got to act wild and crazy at a restaurant, he pointed out Glenn Frey sitting alone at the bar at Dan Tana’s, I was in the control room at Paramount while he was recording the John Williams Orchestra laying down a sound track for a movie, and he gave me a cassette tape of the infamous expletive-filled rant by Dodgers manager Tommy LaSorda on the pitcher’s mound of Game Four of the 1977 World Series, which I still have. If you’ve never heard this, just Google it when you get home. It is priceless.

Over the last decade or so I would see Tim often in the Bay Area, when he’d go up to visit his daughter Briget. Sometimes I’d get a call from him saying, “Hey, man, I’m up here. I’m coming over to visit you in Mill Valley.” And this was the case last June, when he dropped by in his Honda CRZ, limping along with his new knee. He was supposed to rest and take things easy for a while, but you couldn’t keep him down for very long. He was constantly on the go. We had coffee in town, and we talked about family, music, the Phillies and Dodgers, his record label and artists, and countless other subjects. With a new knee and indomitable spirit, the future was looking good. I had someone take some photos of us, recreating some shots from decades before. Little did I know at that time that I would never see him again…

Losing someone that you were close to is hard at any time of the year. Losing someone on short notice and three days before Christmas really put a damper on this past holiday season. I got a call from Briget on Tuesday the 17th of December, and she told me of his recent diagnosis. There was talk of him ‘maybe having two months.’ I called Karen on that Wednesday, and as luck would have it, she was standing by his hospital bed, and she said, “Do you want to talk with Tim?” This was totally unexpected, as I had no idea that she would be where she was, but Tim and I had a good chat. We talked about his situation, the Philly Eagles and their playoff chances, and how he was going to make it for one more Super Bowl. He said that he would call me in a couple of days, when things “settled down,” and I told him that my partner Claudia and I would drive down from San Francisco on the weekend to see him. He closed by saying, “I love you, man.” I replied, “I love you too, and I look forward to seeing you.”

I felt so fortunate to have had that chance to talk with him. Because just four days later, he was gone. He didn’t make it to Christmas. He never made it to one more Super Bowl. I want to call him and talk about the Dodgers landing Mookie Betts and David Price. To make snarky remarks about the Oscars. To hear him tell me about the latest singer that he signed to his and Brigit’s Waxsimile record label. To chat about spring training…It wasn’t until his passing that, looking back, I realized what a significant and profound effect Tim had on my life. Without him out there blazing the trail for music and California ahead of me, there’s no telling where, or who, I’d be today. There’s now a huge void in the world, and a hole in my heart, but one thing I know for certain is that I owe Timbo a debt of gratitude because my life has been much fuller for having had him in it.

His passing was so sad, so fast, and so shocking. He was a friend to all, as you can tell by the hundreds of tributes on his Facebook page, and by the amount of people that are here today. He was an amazing father, grandfather, brother, uncle, cousin, engineer, and all around wonderful human being. His legacy lives on in his work, in his two loving daughters, Lyndsay Cavanagh and Briget Boyle, and grandsons Mika and Valentin Cavanagh. You will be forever missed, cousin Timbo. And, forever in our hearts.