John Patrick Boylan (born March 21, 1941) is an American record producer, musician, songwriter, music publisher and A&R executive.
[2] In the mid-1950s, the family lived for two years in Cambridge, England, and Boylan attended The Leys School there, which he credits for further broadening his musical horizons.
While on staff there, the brothers recorded a concept album for Verve/Forecast called Playback by the Appletree Theatre,[5] a collection of songs interspersed with social commentary.
With Ronstadt and Boylan's help, they recruited Randy Meisner from the Stone Canyon Band and Bernie Leadon from the Flying Burrito Brothers.
[12] In 1974, Boylan reactivated his publishing company, Great Eastern Music, to administer his own material, and went back to fulltime record production as an independent.
In the mid-1970s, he worked on projects by Brewer & Shipley, Pure Prairie League, Danny O’Keefe, and Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen.
In the late 1980s, CBS sold its two record companies, Columbia and Epic, to the Sony Corporation[18] and Boylan became an independent producer and publisher again.
In 2010, Ronstadt retired from singing for health reasons, and Boylan continued working with her on catalog releases and other projects, including a memoir, Simple Dreams, that was sold to Simon & Schuster and became a New York Times best-seller.
[19] In 2019, working with directors Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman, and producer James Keach, Boylan did the music supervision for the acclaimed documentary Linda Ronstadt – The Sound of My Voice, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and was broadcast by CNN.
In 2022, Boylan partnered with James Keach to produce an authorized biographical feature film about the life and career of Linda Ronstadt, based on her memoir.
[citation needed] He also produced albums by the Chipmunks, The Muppets, and a project for Sesame Workshop called Elmopalooza, which starred Jon Stewart and musical guests.
[citation needed] Upon his return to Los Angeles in 2003, he began guest lectures at Citrus College and in 2005 he joined the Adjunct Faculty, teaching three courses: in the Recording Arts Department, he taught REC 145 (Critical Listening for Audio Engineers), and REC 245 (Careers in the Music Industry for Audio Engineers), and in the Music Department, he taught MUS 254, a Songwriter's Workshop.