Dan told me that of the countless greats he has booked to play his room, Bobby Cole exceeded any talent that he has ever heard or hired."
A Point of View was released through Concentric Records which was started by Cole's friend, noted album cover artist Jack Lonshein.
When Cole's A Point of View album was finally released on Concentric in 1967, it sold quite well in the New York City area, where he had earned a following mainly through his performances at Jilly's.
The album was a remarkable disc of original songs that was an underground sensation for its brash, jazzy up-tunes and some dark ballads including the somber closer, "I'm Growing Old".
At about this time, after hearing musician Jerry Jeff Walker play a yet-to-be recorded composition called "Mr. Bojangles", in a light, folk style at a Greenwich Village club, Cole decided to cover it as a contemplative ballad.
As both versions were slowly creeping up the charts in the summer of 1968, a frustrated Bob Shad, thinking he had missed out on an opportunity for a long-awaited hit, hypocritically chastised Lonshein for not releasing the single on Mainstream.
Lonshein left Mainstream as a result of this incident and took a job at an all-night record store, awaking early each morning to produce tapes with Cole.
His trademark was his strong, jangling piano style (Erroll Garner being an influence) and his unique, rasping delivery which was evidence of his cigarette habit and the nearly forty years spent in smoky nightclubs.
[2] Ruggedly attractive, possessing an imposing Brando-like set of wry frowns and challenging smiles, Bobby married a neighborhood sweetheart before joining the Army, but the pair divorced shortly after he was discharged and returned home.
Bobby continued to perform in New York City venues, including Cafe Versailles, the Ali Baba, aka "The Mecca of Jazz," with bassist Joel Reiff and drummer Steve Cutler, Ibis, Jimmy Weston's, Sibi, Eleonora's, The Grand Finale, the Big Apple Cafe, the Top Shelf in Pittsburgh, clubs in Atlantic City, and the Aratusa Supper Club, a floating restaurant/nightclub in New Jersey, with Reiff and Cutler.
When Bobby turned up in 1992 for what would be a four-year tenure at the Upper East Side trattoria Campagnola, the New York Times commented that he was the type of singer/pianist who could "create the kind of romantic aura generated in films like Casablanca".