Bobby Goldsboro was one of the most influential singer-songwriters of our time. After hitting it big in the 1960s with his first song, “See the Funny Little Clown,” Bobby went on to score 16 Top 40 hits, but he also kept trying new things and going in new directions.
And now, as he prepares to turn 70, Bobby says he can’t remember a better time in his life than right now.
Bobby’s musical career was launched when he was just an 18-year-old freshman at Auburn University. The great Roy Orbison was coming to town and quickly needed a new back-up band after firing his own. Bobby and three friends crammed to learn Roy’s songs, and after playing four shows together, Roy invited the young men to join him on the road as the Roy Orbison Band.
Bobby shares with the Growing Bolder Radio Show what it was like to share a tour with the newly popular Beatles in England in the early ’60s, and why it was so great to be an emerging artist in the 1960s.
He also reveals an amazing fact about his biggest selling song ever, “Honey.”
Bobby kept pushing himself to try new things, and he eventually wrote 10 best-selling children’s books and created a TV series. But there was something he always wanted to try — painting. For 35 years, he was a huge fan of art and he’d always wanted to try oil painting.
Finally, on his 65th birthday, he went out and bought canvases, paints and learned through trial and error how to be a painter.
Now, he gets to paint in his bathrobe every day. In the four years since he started painting, Bobby says he’s done more 70 paintings and sold 37 originals and more than 120 prints.
He shares with us his new project — a series of paintings based on his songs and explains why his wife’s illness has sparked a passion to help others through his artwork.
If you want to learn more about Bobby’s art, click here to visit his website.
Click on the Related Media tab above to watch our story about Bobby’s big night at an art gallery and to listen to our previous interview with this talented artist.