Popular and country singer, best known for her 1970 hit "For the Love of Him." Born Barbara Ann Martin, to Virginia Chaney and an unknown father. When Bobbi was 5, her mother married Allen C. Paulson. Bobbi appeared frequently on television, including "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson," "The Ed Sullivan Show," "The Merv Griffin Show."
A CATCH IN HER THROAT; A SONG IN HER HEART
Mike Levine, Times Herald-Record, Middletown, N.Y.
Sunday, January 8, 1989
The drummer wanted the Coney Island baby who worked the Steeplechase. He got her. In the amusement park swirl of their affair, Virginia became pregnant.
Are we going to get married, she asked the drummer?
Sure enough, sweetie.
He got a friend in the band to dress up as a preacher. He pronounced them man and wife.
Virginia believed it, too, until one night in the club, she heard them laughing about the joke they played on Al Ellsworth's girl. The drummer caught her shame and anger. He said, c'mon, honey, let's get married for real.
She said fat chance.
A few months later, Barbara Martin was born, as hungry for love as ever a child is.
She felt some love from her mom, who raised her until momma joined the Army. She felt some from her grandmother whom she lived with in Baltimore.
But mostly she felt love when she opened her mouth in song. God, that girl can sing beautiful, said momma, said grandma, said her friends who would crowd around her at parties. She sang for them.
When Barbara was old enough to ask about her daddy, her mother just said: He's dead.
The little girl believed it for a while, but then she found herself singing for her lost father, too.
When she was 15, she showed up at a little club in Baltimore and sang for a man named Kahn. She worked there every weekend at $10 a night, all night long.
It was a child's dream and she worked hard at it. If she could only get famous enough from her singing, everyone would love her and maybe her father would appear.
She knew she couldn't get famous shuttling back and forth between Baltimore and Minnesota, where she lived with her mother. Go. Chase your dream, said her mother. Just remember you can always come home.
Bobbi Martin, 17-year-old singer, moved to New York City. She moved in with a Baltimore girl and got a job working for a union. On lunch hour, she'd cross 8th Avenue and sing over at a veterans function for a few bucks.
Soon, she got a good manager, a recording contract. She even had a minor hit in 1965. Whatever town she played in, she checked the phone book for Ellsworths. None of them was her father.
In '69, she wrote a mid-tempo ballad with plaintive, almost childlike, words:
''For the love of him,
Make him your reason for living,
Give all the love you can give him,
All the love you can.''
She recorded it, just like so many other songs. Then lightning struck.
Bobbi Martin had a major worldwide hit. She did the Ed Sullivan show. She did Carson 10 times. A near regular on Dean Martin. The Christmas show in Vietnam with Bob Hope. She sang from Australia to Vegas but nobody called to say he was her father.
She was playing Harrah's in Reno in 1970 when her mother showed up. She was grinning from ear to ear. Told everyone she was Bobbi Martin's mother.
Popular woman, that Bobbi. She got married a year later. After the wedding, she had some time to kill before she went on the road. She visited her momma's home in Minnesota.
Her mother was lying on a couch saying she didn't feel so well. Her mother had never told her she had cancer.
A week later, the nurse said come quick, your mother is slipping fast. I love you, said the daughter.
Her mother winked and then she was gone.
Bobbi Martin lost her singing voice. The doctors called it a swelling of her vocal chords. Here's what it was:
She had no one's love to sing for.
She did have a daughter to raise, born in 1975. She tended to family life in Dallas, loved the girl, brooded about her mother's death and her father's absence.
In 1981, her marriage fell apart. She lived off the remnants of ''For The Love of Him'' royalties.
She knew she needed a fresh start. She worked painstaking hours with a vocal coach. Gradually, her singing voice returned.
She called her New York City music connections. What's close to the city and a good place to raise the girl? Last year, she settled in New Windsor.
First thing she did, out of habit, is check the phone books for Ellsworths. She figures he's dead.
But she has a life to live, a daughter to love, music to make. She has a job she likes, selling real estate.
Last month, she sang in public for the first time in years. She was the entertainment at a dinner for Korean- Americans at the Middletown Holiday Inn. She sounded great, her voice rich and strong. The audience was appreciative but they didn't know her, never heard of her hit song, and they had some socializing to do.
The singer didn't seem to mind. All life long, she had always sung to please someone. Her father, her mother, her daughter.
Bobbi Martin knows it's time she learned how to sing for herself.
A CATCH IN HER THROAT; A SONG IN HER HEART
Mike Levine, Times Herald-Record, Middletown, N.Y.
Sunday, January 8, 1989
The drummer wanted the Coney Island baby who worked the Steeplechase. He got her. In the amusement park swirl of their affair, Virginia became pregnant.
Are we going to get married, she asked the drummer?
Sure enough, sweetie.
He got a friend in the band to dress up as a preacher. He pronounced them man and wife.
Virginia believed it, too, until one night in the club, she heard them laughing about the joke they played on Al Ellsworth's girl. The drummer caught her shame and anger. He said, c'mon, honey, let's get married for real.
She said fat chance.
A few months later, Barbara Martin was born, as hungry for love as ever a child is.
She felt some love from her mom, who raised her until momma joined the Army. She felt some from her grandmother whom she lived with in Baltimore.
But mostly she felt love when she opened her mouth in song. God, that girl can sing beautiful, said momma, said grandma, said her friends who would crowd around her at parties. She sang for them.
When Barbara was old enough to ask about her daddy, her mother just said: He's dead.
The little girl believed it for a while, but then she found herself singing for her lost father, too.
When she was 15, she showed up at a little club in Baltimore and sang for a man named Kahn. She worked there every weekend at $10 a night, all night long.
It was a child's dream and she worked hard at it. If she could only get famous enough from her singing, everyone would love her and maybe her father would appear.
She knew she couldn't get famous shuttling back and forth between Baltimore and Minnesota, where she lived with her mother. Go. Chase your dream, said her mother. Just remember you can always come home.
Bobbi Martin, 17-year-old singer, moved to New York City. She moved in with a Baltimore girl and got a job working for a union. On lunch hour, she'd cross 8th Avenue and sing over at a veterans function for a few bucks.
Soon, she got a good manager, a recording contract. She even had a minor hit in 1965. Whatever town she played in, she checked the phone book for Ellsworths. None of them was her father.
In '69, she wrote a mid-tempo ballad with plaintive, almost childlike, words:
''For the love of him,
Make him your reason for living,
Give all the love you can give him,
All the love you can.''
She recorded it, just like so many other songs. Then lightning struck.
Bobbi Martin had a major worldwide hit. She did the Ed Sullivan show. She did Carson 10 times. A near regular on Dean Martin. The Christmas show in Vietnam with Bob Hope. She sang from Australia to Vegas but nobody called to say he was her father.
She was playing Harrah's in Reno in 1970 when her mother showed up. She was grinning from ear to ear. Told everyone she was Bobbi Martin's mother.
Popular woman, that Bobbi. She got married a year later. After the wedding, she had some time to kill before she went on the road. She visited her momma's home in Minnesota.
Her mother was lying on a couch saying she didn't feel so well. Her mother had never told her she had cancer.
A week later, the nurse said come quick, your mother is slipping fast. I love you, said the daughter.
Her mother winked and then she was gone.
Bobbi Martin lost her singing voice. The doctors called it a swelling of her vocal chords. Here's what it was:
She had no one's love to sing for.
She did have a daughter to raise, born in 1975. She tended to family life in Dallas, loved the girl, brooded about her mother's death and her father's absence.
In 1981, her marriage fell apart. She lived off the remnants of ''For The Love of Him'' royalties.
She knew she needed a fresh start. She worked painstaking hours with a vocal coach. Gradually, her singing voice returned.
She called her New York City music connections. What's close to the city and a good place to raise the girl? Last year, she settled in New Windsor.
First thing she did, out of habit, is check the phone books for Ellsworths. She figures he's dead.
But she has a life to live, a daughter to love, music to make. She has a job she likes, selling real estate.
Last month, she sang in public for the first time in years. She was the entertainment at a dinner for Korean- Americans at the Middletown Holiday Inn. She sounded great, her voice rich and strong. The audience was appreciative but they didn't know her, never heard of her hit song, and they had some socializing to do.
The singer didn't seem to mind. All life long, she had always sung to please someone. Her father, her mother, her daughter.
Bobbi Martin knows it's time she learned how to sing for herself.
Popular and country singer, best known for her 1970 hit "For the Love of Him." Born Barbara Ann Martin, to Virginia Chaney and an unknown father. When Bobbi was 5, her mother married Allen C. Paulson. Bobbi appeared frequently on television, including "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson," "The Ed Sullivan Show," "The Merv Griffin Show."
A CATCH IN HER THROAT; A SONG IN HER HEART
Mike Levine, Times Herald-Record, Middletown, N.Y.
Sunday, January 8, 1989
The drummer wanted the Coney Island baby who worked the Steeplechase. He got her. In the amusement park swirl of their affair, Virginia became pregnant.
Are we going to get married, she asked the drummer?
Sure enough, sweetie.
He got a friend in the band to dress up as a preacher. He pronounced them man and wife.
Virginia believed it, too, until one night in the club, she heard them laughing about the joke they played on Al Ellsworth's girl. The drummer caught her shame and anger. He said, c'mon, honey, let's get married for real.
She said fat chance.
A few months later, Barbara Martin was born, as hungry for love as ever a child is.
She felt some love from her mom, who raised her until momma joined the Army. She felt some from her grandmother whom she lived with in Baltimore.
But mostly she felt love when she opened her mouth in song. God, that girl can sing beautiful, said momma, said grandma, said her friends who would crowd around her at parties. She sang for them.
When Barbara was old enough to ask about her daddy, her mother just said: He's dead.
The little girl believed it for a while, but then she found herself singing for her lost father, too.
When she was 15, she showed up at a little club in Baltimore and sang for a man named Kahn. She worked there every weekend at $10 a night, all night long.
It was a child's dream and she worked hard at it. If she could only get famous enough from her singing, everyone would love her and maybe her father would appear.
She knew she couldn't get famous shuttling back and forth between Baltimore and Minnesota, where she lived with her mother. Go. Chase your dream, said her mother. Just remember you can always come home.
Bobbi Martin, 17-year-old singer, moved to New York City. She moved in with a Baltimore girl and got a job working for a union. On lunch hour, she'd cross 8th Avenue and sing over at a veterans function for a few bucks.
Soon, she got a good manager, a recording contract. She even had a minor hit in 1965. Whatever town she played in, she checked the phone book for Ellsworths. None of them was her father.
In '69, she wrote a mid-tempo ballad with plaintive, almost childlike, words:
''For the love of him,
Make him your reason for living,
Give all the love you can give him,
All the love you can.''
She recorded it, just like so many other songs. Then lightning struck.
Bobbi Martin had a major worldwide hit. She did the Ed Sullivan show. She did Carson 10 times. A near regular on Dean Martin. The Christmas show in Vietnam with Bob Hope. She sang from Australia to Vegas but nobody called to say he was her father.
She was playing Harrah's in Reno in 1970 when her mother showed up. She was grinning from ear to ear. Told everyone she was Bobbi Martin's mother.
Popular woman, that Bobbi. She got married a year later. After the wedding, she had some time to kill before she went on the road. She visited her momma's home in Minnesota.
Her mother was lying on a couch saying she didn't feel so well. Her mother had never told her she had cancer.
A week later, the nurse said come quick, your mother is slipping fast. I love you, said the daughter.
Her mother winked and then she was gone.
Bobbi Martin lost her singing voice. The doctors called it a swelling of her vocal chords. Here's what it was:
She had no one's love to sing for.
She did have a daughter to raise, born in 1975. She tended to family life in Dallas, loved the girl, brooded about her mother's death and her father's absence.
In 1981, her marriage fell apart. She lived off the remnants of ''For The Love of Him'' royalties.
She knew she needed a fresh start. She worked painstaking hours with a vocal coach. Gradually, her singing voice returned.
She called her New York City music connections. What's close to the city and a good place to raise the girl? Last year, she settled in New Windsor.
First thing she did, out of habit, is check the phone books for Ellsworths. She figures he's dead.
But she has a life to live, a daughter to love, music to make. She has a job she likes, selling real estate.
Last month, she sang in public for the first time in years. She was the entertainment at a dinner for Korean- Americans at the Middletown Holiday Inn. She sounded great, her voice rich and strong. The audience was appreciative but they didn't know her, never heard of her hit song, and they had some socializing to do.
The singer didn't seem to mind. All life long, she had always sung to please someone. Her father, her mother, her daughter.
Bobbi Martin knows it's time she learned how to sing for herself.
A CATCH IN HER THROAT; A SONG IN HER HEART
Mike Levine, Times Herald-Record, Middletown, N.Y.
Sunday, January 8, 1989
The drummer wanted the Coney Island baby who worked the Steeplechase. He got her. In the amusement park swirl of their affair, Virginia became pregnant.
Are we going to get married, she asked the drummer?
Sure enough, sweetie.
He got a friend in the band to dress up as a preacher. He pronounced them man and wife.
Virginia believed it, too, until one night in the club, she heard them laughing about the joke they played on Al Ellsworth's girl. The drummer caught her shame and anger. He said, c'mon, honey, let's get married for real.
She said fat chance.
A few months later, Barbara Martin was born, as hungry for love as ever a child is.
She felt some love from her mom, who raised her until momma joined the Army. She felt some from her grandmother whom she lived with in Baltimore.
But mostly she felt love when she opened her mouth in song. God, that girl can sing beautiful, said momma, said grandma, said her friends who would crowd around her at parties. She sang for them.
When Barbara was old enough to ask about her daddy, her mother just said: He's dead.
The little girl believed it for a while, but then she found herself singing for her lost father, too.
When she was 15, she showed up at a little club in Baltimore and sang for a man named Kahn. She worked there every weekend at $10 a night, all night long.
It was a child's dream and she worked hard at it. If she could only get famous enough from her singing, everyone would love her and maybe her father would appear.
She knew she couldn't get famous shuttling back and forth between Baltimore and Minnesota, where she lived with her mother. Go. Chase your dream, said her mother. Just remember you can always come home.
Bobbi Martin, 17-year-old singer, moved to New York City. She moved in with a Baltimore girl and got a job working for a union. On lunch hour, she'd cross 8th Avenue and sing over at a veterans function for a few bucks.
Soon, she got a good manager, a recording contract. She even had a minor hit in 1965. Whatever town she played in, she checked the phone book for Ellsworths. None of them was her father.
In '69, she wrote a mid-tempo ballad with plaintive, almost childlike, words:
''For the love of him,
Make him your reason for living,
Give all the love you can give him,
All the love you can.''
She recorded it, just like so many other songs. Then lightning struck.
Bobbi Martin had a major worldwide hit. She did the Ed Sullivan show. She did Carson 10 times. A near regular on Dean Martin. The Christmas show in Vietnam with Bob Hope. She sang from Australia to Vegas but nobody called to say he was her father.
She was playing Harrah's in Reno in 1970 when her mother showed up. She was grinning from ear to ear. Told everyone she was Bobbi Martin's mother.
Popular woman, that Bobbi. She got married a year later. After the wedding, she had some time to kill before she went on the road. She visited her momma's home in Minnesota.
Her mother was lying on a couch saying she didn't feel so well. Her mother had never told her she had cancer.
A week later, the nurse said come quick, your mother is slipping fast. I love you, said the daughter.
Her mother winked and then she was gone.
Bobbi Martin lost her singing voice. The doctors called it a swelling of her vocal chords. Here's what it was:
She had no one's love to sing for.
She did have a daughter to raise, born in 1975. She tended to family life in Dallas, loved the girl, brooded about her mother's death and her father's absence.
In 1981, her marriage fell apart. She lived off the remnants of ''For The Love of Him'' royalties.
She knew she needed a fresh start. She worked painstaking hours with a vocal coach. Gradually, her singing voice returned.
She called her New York City music connections. What's close to the city and a good place to raise the girl? Last year, she settled in New Windsor.
First thing she did, out of habit, is check the phone books for Ellsworths. She figures he's dead.
But she has a life to live, a daughter to love, music to make. She has a job she likes, selling real estate.
Last month, she sang in public for the first time in years. She was the entertainment at a dinner for Korean- Americans at the Middletown Holiday Inn. She sounded great, her voice rich and strong. The audience was appreciative but they didn't know her, never heard of her hit song, and they had some socializing to do.
The singer didn't seem to mind. All life long, she had always sung to please someone. Her father, her mother, her daughter.
Bobbi Martin knows it's time she learned how to sing for herself.
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