The Soul of It All

by Michael Bolton

  My parents seemed to get along fine until I was about eight or nine years old. I wasn’t aware of any conflicts until then. My favorite childhood memories are moving into our big house at 1592 Boulevard with its huge backyard, where all the neighborhood kids came to play baseball, basketball, and football. In the winter freeze, we’d turn on the hose spigot and create a skating rink. Orrin, Sandra, and I regard those as our happiest times, but then things changed.

  Lacking the counseling resources and marital guides of today, the marriage of George and Helen (née Gubin) began to disintegrate before our young eyes. Both of my parents were beloved by nearly everyone who knew them, but they couldn’t seem to get along with each other.

  Dad was a big bellows of a guy; tough as a steel-belted radial tire but one of the most tender, kind, and accepting men I’ve ever known. My father was big in local politics, a behind-the-scenes guy mostly. He was the longtime Democratic chairman of the Twenty-Fourth Ward and property manager of the never-ending redevelopment project in New Haven’s downtown. Dad enjoyed doing things for people in our community, where he was well known and respected.

  Mom has always been an unfettered free spirit, a live-and-let-live, creative, artsy, and generous soul, who my buddies thought was the coolest mother in the ’hood.

  I don’t take the blame for my parents’ divorce, but I do carry some of the inevitable scars. They verbally flailed at each other in the marital ring of fire for a couple years, but we never expected them to divorce, especially at a time when most couples still stayed together for life.

  Most of us, if we are lucky, spend our childhoods in a protective bubble insulated from the struggles of our parents. We are free to focus on issues important to us, such as the condition of our baseball gloves and who will pick us up from band practice.

  Only later did we see that Mom and Dad were growing apart and struggling with the day-to-day challenges and demands of middle-class parents. To some extent we are all sold a story that our lives will have happy endings. The prince and princess ride off into the sunset and the credits roll, but the movies rarely mention that the next day the fairy tale turns from something like Disney into something more Grimm.

  I did have a happier marriage model in the family, thanks to the fifty-year union of my mother’s parents, Rose and Isadore “Izzy” Gubin. They, too, railed at each other, mostly in Yiddish, yet their jabs were always followed by laughter and long hugs. They would throw the barbs without scorn, giggle, hug each other, and then explain to us in English that Grandpa had just called her “an old cow” and Grandma had just called him “an old horse.”

  We all thought this was hilarious, of course.

  Grandpa Izzy was a plumber, a proud Mason and Shriner. He smoked big cigars that smelled like burning gym socks. He never really retired as the neighborhood handyman, and, I’m fairly certain, he helped financially support my mother and the rest of us after the divorce.

  We assumed they would just continue their warfare while we went about the business of growing up. We were stunned to learn that Dad had packed up and moved out. He was long gone when Mom sat us down and said our father was no longer in residence. I was confused and deeply disturbed.

  Later, I began spending many days in solitude, holed up with my guitar, playing for hours upon hours. I found particular comfort in my bedroom closet. Door closed. Lights out. I worked on my guitar chords and I wrote songs. I’m a loner by nature, which has served me well on long train rides, flights, and many nights in hotel rooms on the road. I still seek out my own quiet, private spaces when I want to create something. When I was writing songs as the kid in the closet, I didn’t have any inkling of what I was doing. I barely knew what chord changes were. I was at the very beginning of my music life. Maybe I felt safe and secure in there, and free to express myself singing and playing without worrying what others would think or say. I can’t recall many of the lyrics I wrote in those early “closet” days, but I’m sure they expressed my hurt and fears over the divorce and the changes it forced upon my life.

  RELATIONSHIP ISSUES

  Both of my parents assured me in separate conversations that Dad would still be there for me in the stands for Little League, giving the umpires a hard time if he thought I’d been robbed on a call. As I look back, I recall that one of the lingering memories of that time was how much I missed sitting around the television to watch The Ed Sullivan Show as a family.

  Our parents retreated to separate corners and separate lives, bruised, battered, and never to marry again, not to each other or to anyone else. They simply grew apart and lost feelings for each other, like so many couples, but they were ahead of the wave, which didn’t help us in dealing with the family breakup. Divorce was not yet the so-what shame-free norm. I didn’t have a big circle of buddies dividing up their weeks between Mom’s apartment and Dad’s place. I didn’t know another kid in my school whose parents were divorced.

  I felt the burden of something I was far too young to comprehend. Years later, in therapy, I’d realize that the tension between my parents created a deep impression and planted fears and angst that I would grapple with as I struggled in my own relationships. My mind unconsciously stored snapshots and scenes from their hostilities at the kitchen table, complete with the harsh tones and tensions. Just recently I was somewhere in the world far from my own bed, numb with exhaustion after a concert and trying to sleep, when some memory cell more than fifty years old opened up and invited me in. I saw my mother storming into a room where Orrin and I were, yelling and carrying on. Maybe we were up past our bedtimes or just being typical brothers. I had this very clear and close vision of her face, and I could sense her exhaustion and distress. My mother, who’d wanted to sing and write songs and live as an artist and performer, clearly was not experiencing the life she’d wanted or expected.

  She filed for divorce, and I certainly understood her reasons, but from that point on my young brain was imprinted with the fear that a woman could walk away from a relationship at any time. That perception didn’t serve me well as a teen or as an adult. In my teen romances I tended to be highly possessive. Securing a lasting and loving relationship has always been important to me, as it is with most of us. It’s interesting that my career as a performer flourished when I began singing more about seeking love (“Soul Provider”), finding love (“When a Man Loves a Woman”), understanding love (“How Can We Be Lovers If We Can’t Be Friends”), losing love (“How Am I Supposed to Live Without You”), and never giving up on love (“That’s What Love Is All About”).

  I’m also very big on making home a safe place to be for everyone. Although most of my charitable work has been aimed at protecting women and children from physical abuse, there was none of that in my family. My father didn’t drink, and he was very much about remaining in control. He often lectured Orrin and me about this, saying that men who physically abused women were shameful and unmanly. Still, my mother and father did not shy away from taking verbal shots at each other before and after the marriage.

  Orrin, Sandra, and I tried to ignore or laugh off the insults and animosity they aimed at each other. But we had sympathy for both. Today, there are all sorts of guides to conflict resolution and “healthy divorces,” but my parents didn’t have them. By the time I went through my own marital split twenty-five years later, the Divorce Universe was vast. Couples decoupling were common and well schooled on not disparaging each other in front of the kids, because children translate “Your mother is bad” or “Your father is bad” to “I’m bad.”

  My parents did not agree on much, but they had one thing in common. They both loved us dearly—of that we had no doubts. Mom was given primary care of us, but Dad was still a strong presence, though probably not strong enough as far as our mother was concerned. She took on a load. Mom became the head of the household as well as a single parent who worked a full-time job as a secretary and somehow managed to put up with and love her rebellious children.

  I may have cost her many
hours of sleep, but my mom was my hero because she made sure we felt protected and loved, even as we snarled and ran from her. She worked hard to give us a home, which we even visited now and then. After the divorce, the four of us moved into a town house on Whalley Avenue. Orrin and I tended to roam at will.

  Mom never had much of a chance to establish control. Mostly, she surrendered. She was, and remains, a beautiful, loving, always fashionable, and free-spirited woman. When she and my father were still together, the only way Mom could rein us in was the six-word stopper: “Wait until your father comes home!” When Dad was no longer home, she had no leverage over the bold Bolotin brothers. Orrin and I immediately crossed every boundary and pushed every button.

  Sandra, the well-mannered and high-achieving child in our family, obeyed Mom, finished high school, and went off to Berkeley University for her master’s in psychology. My sister has the sweet personality of our grandmother Rose. Sandra also has a generous heart and never says an unkind word about anyone. She has done an incredible job raising her son, Adam, a talented musician who is determined to make a difference in his community.

  Mom stressed out a lot, for good reason. One night while she was ranting at her wilding sons to clean up our acts, she stopped midsentence and fainted, dropping to the floor at our feet. If she didn’t have our full attention before—and she didn’t—she won it then. It was a frightening moment, but she was fine about ten minutes later. Within a few hours Orrin and I were back to our defiant ways.

  THE FATHER-SON GAME

  My dad was a rugged, chain-smoking man’s man. Hard-nosed, barrel-chested, and jut-jawed, he was a handsome and imposing guy with many friends of all races and income levels, and, despite the gruff exterior, he was a loving and affectionate father. In my younger days, he’d grab my face with his huge paws and kiss me over and over until I managed to squirm away. Sometimes I didn’t try all that hard to break free. I loved my dad.

  He was a devoted liberal, but no softie. His job as the property manager for the New Haven Redevelopment Agency meant he had the keys to the city, or at least to every downtown building. He’d played some small-college football, where he earned the nickname “Bullet Bolotin” for his tenacity and toughness, which served him well in his work and in politics. Part of his job was to collect overdue rent from the tenants of city-owned buildings in New Haven. He wasn’t popular with those who fell behind in their payments, which is why a patrol car was often parked outside our house. I think.

  After the divorce, Dad stayed in touch with Orrin and me mostly through politics and sports, his twin passions. He knew all the Democrat and Republican players, big and small, across Connecticut. Many of the future leaders of the Democratic Party found their way to our front door. Orrin and I were their foot soldiers. We’d walk door-to-door or ride our bikes around town distributing campaign flyers for candidates, setting up chairs and tables for events.

  Years later, after I came to know politicians like Dick Gephardt and Bill Clinton, they’d sometimes comment on how comfortable I seemed in their world, and they were right. Before the family upheaval, our home was a gathering place for local pols. The two-story house on Boulevard in New Haven’s working-class Beaver Hills neighborhood—just a mile and a half from the Yale University campus—had big porches on both levels, and there were often nights when they sagged under the heft of Connecticut Democrats plotting domination of the Nutmeg State. Many a morning I’d have to dig out my homework and schoolbooks from under their residue of cigar ash, coffee cups, and liquor bottles.

  I have many great memories of playing catch with my father in the front yard of the Boulevard house. Those were happy times. I practiced pitching to my dad. He always reminded me to follow through to increase velocity and accuracy.

  “Finish the throw,” he’d say.

  Sometimes, my adrenaline would kick in and I’d throw it over his head, which meant I had to run down the block to retrieve the ball. Having to chase my own bad throws was a major incentive to improve my accuracy and deliver the ball to his glove.

  Many years later, I thought of those games of father-son catch after one of our Bolton’s Bombers celebrity softball games, when former New York Yankee Clete Boyer, a childhood hero of mine, asked, “Where’d you get that arm?”

  “From my father,” I said without pause.

  The house was not huge, but the backyard seemed to stretch forever. It served as our own sports triplex, with a baseball and football field and a basketball half-court at the far end. All the neighborhood kids seemed to regard it as their playground, too, and the games ran from morning to dusk in my memories of those idyllic times.

  Politics aside, sports provided our biggest connection to our father. Dad was present at a lot of our baseball and basketball games. Orrin and I were both good athletes, and Dad cheered us on. No fan of the longhair trend, he still rose to my defense when my sixth grade teacher said I couldn’t play softball with the class during recess if I didn’t cut my shoulder-length locks. I was captain of our sixth grade team, but the teacher said I was a danger to myself and others because my hair was always in my eyes.

  Dad had a talk with the principal, demanding that I be allowed to play while I wore my hair as long as I wanted. Dad won. The principal was no fool. He was aware that my father knew people who knew people. Dad, who was not shy about betting a hundred dollars on a bowling match, was intensely competitive, a trait his sons inherited. I used to race Yale students on their green for lunch money, and my friends always bet on me to leave the Yalies in the dust. I was my father’s son, and he advocated the “Winning is everything” philosophy, especially if the victory was sealed with a grand-slam home run, a slam dunk, or a knockout punch.

  Dad liked big wins, but when we lost he always encouraged us, saying, “Keep your chin up, you’ll get ’em next week.” He sent us off to each game or match with sports metaphors ringing in our ears, exhorting us to conquer and vanquish. He was of the Knute Rockne, Vince Lombardi, and Woody Hayes old school. He also believed practice made perfect, and he drove my brother and me to practice our sports religiously.

  Well, maybe religious is not the right word, since I was booted out of our temple’s Hebrew school for not taking my faith seriously enough. Neither Dad nor Mom practiced their Jewish faith, even though they sent us off to give it a try. Maybe I should say we practiced our sports as if they were more important than religion.

  Even though we were born Yankees fans, my father used to speak highly of iconic athletes that our beloved Yankees competed with, like Rocky Colavito of the Cleveland Indians or Al Kaline of the Detroit Tigers. Then there was the unforgettable team that shut us down in the 1963 World Series: the Los Angeles Dodgers, with Don Drysdale and Sandy Koufax both pitching as well as any team or true fan of the game could ever witness. And what could you ever say about the great Ted Williams, even when he was batting against the Yanks? Was he not worthy of our highest praise? What I came to believe at a young age was that there are people who achieve a level of true championship—like our rival Red Sox, one of the greatest teams I’ve ever seen. There wasn’t one moment, even with a solid Yankee lead, that I didn’t have huge respect for that Boston lineup, and I never counted them out. Sometimes your team is going to get beat because the other side rises to a level of excellence when it really counts. All my life (long before free agency) getting past the Yankees in the postseason meant you deserved to be there. My respect for players and champions in all sports who perform at such a heightened level allows me to enjoy sports more. So I’ve never understood and never will understand the mentality of the haters who appear from time to time in a baseball stadium, in the stands, or courtside. That’s not what sports are about. Honoring the game means recognizing the athleticism and the spirit that it takes to be a champion, no matter what team you’re on. To me, great performance earns and deserves due respect. That’s part of the soul of it all.

  One of the things Dad drilled into Orrin and me early on was that the most e
ffective way to break out of a tackle while playing football was to keep your legs moving, because the big leg muscles are the most powerful in the body. “Just keep your head down and keep your legs moving and they will have a hard time stopping you boys,” he’d say.

  My football was limited to neighborhood games, since I never played in the local leagues, but I took that philosophy and ran with it. My approach to challenges typically has been to put my head down and bull ahead, refusing to surrender. I didn’t become the star athlete that my father had hoped for, but as much as I may have rebelled in other ways, I did adopt his strategy and apply it to the greatest force in nature—passion. In my case, it was a passion for singing and performing.

  No one will ever accuse me of holding back, either in my live performances or in the recording studio. For me singing is about expressing passion. Female fans, especially, seem to respond to this aspect of my performances and, oddly enough, so have several big-name male athletes, including some I know, such as Barry Bonds, Joe Carter, and Andre Agassi. They’ve said that they can relate to the intensity of my voice when I sing certain notes because it reminds them of the same explosiveness they strive for in swinging the baseball bat or tennis racket. Maybe it’s just the Bullet Bolotin in me, always pushing for the “out of the park and onto the railroad tracks” grand slam, trying to get a cheer from my dad in the stands.

  OUR MOTHER’S PASSION

  Orrin’s theory is that he and I played sports mostly to please our father, and we embraced music with even more enthusiasm because it was our mother’s greatest passion. Mom played the keyboards, and she wrote many songs in hopes of making a career in music. We often joked that her best songs had titles like “You Kids Are Killin’ Me!” and “I Hope You Have Kids as Bad as You Someday!”