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p J must perform. Maybe it all started with my desire to be different," says Bobby looking back
REHEARSING with Jimmy Durante for a TV appearance, Bobby can't suppress his mirth. A born performer, he thrives in the spotlight.
"I didn't get along too well with them, but it didn't matter," he shrugged. "Mom had said, 'Watch people, but don't get involved with them 'til you know what you want." So I became an observer — a pretty active one — and learned to be an 'adapter.' That's what I call myself because I'll go the temporary route of whatever situation I'm in.
"Mom also used to tell me I was a man and simply because of that I could be a boss. So that's how it was. I got to be a leader, but only in my faction. I couldn't have cared less about being an overall leader. I never wanted to get tied up with the general picture, because, I suppose, I always preferred to identify myself with the minority.
"Partly, at least, that was because I couldn't play ball or take part in any sports on account of the rheumatic fever I'd had as a child. This turned out to be an advantage. By being an observer I could see the whole game, not only my part in it, a3 would be the case if I were playing."
It was the same story for Bobby with every phase of life in which he played his role of spectator and active observer rather than participant in the fullest sense.
Songwriter and arranger, when the time came, he wrote his own hit tunes — "Dream Lover" and "Splish Splash" among others. Observer though he may be, essentially Bobby is also
a born performer. He thrives his natural best in the spotlight the fans have focused on him.
"I have yet to find any place I belong except on a stage." is the way he put it. "I must, perform. Maybe it all started with my desire to be different. The problem there was that I had no means — no money, that is — to carry out my desire.
"I couldn't buy anything that would make me stand out and be different from anybody else. That left it up to me to do something the others couldn't do.
"The way I did it was to start out as a drummer in school. I actually faked my way into starting a band with that drum. It wasn't too hard because I was the only drummer in the school — and you can't have a band without a drum. Anyhow. I got a job playing the summer circuit at 15. It was a start — a first — and you know how I feel about firsts.
"Another thing I always wanted to do was to play die piano. We had none in our house, of course, but there was one in the school lunch room. I remember how I used to onefinger it — and dream."
The piano-playing dream came true with all the rest. Guitar, vibes and bass are other instruments Bobby added to his early musical accomplishments that led him not onlv to a performer's career, but to creating distinctive, bright arrange
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