John Boda Background

Born - Oak Park IL / Grew up - Riverside IL / High School - Kentwood Michigan (Grand Rapids)

College - Ohio Institute of Technology (Columbus)

Broadcasting Career

Started in the electronic side building a radio station and then shifted into on-air broadcasting in all aspects

1977 - 1992 Popular personality host / news / commercial writer / music director / program director

KDSA / KOEZ / KJRG / KLEO / WCFL / WJRC / WJTW 

Senior Care Career

After leaving broadcasting in 1992 started as entry level music therapy position evolving into Social Service Director

Dupage County Convalescent Center Wheaton IL / Rosewood Care Center Joliet IL

Music Performance Career

Began advancing on guitar - vocals during college years in Columbus Ohio 

First professional paid performance was June 26 1977 Wichita Kansas 

Afterwards was part of dozens of groups and bands and performed many various shows and events

Went full time on a national tour with a variety popular band summer 1986

Recorded several albums of original and cover songs 1980 - today

Since Feb 1995 thru today has been full time entertainer - singer - guitarist - speaker for the Chicago

area senior market performing an average of 500 performances per year

Since Dec 1997 has been the lead guitarist for the popular "Let It Be Christmas" Rock Opera Theatre Show

performed every year for 4-5 shows at Christmas time in Naperville IL featuring the 

Christmas Story told by ALL BEATLE SONGS

John Boda just celebrated his 45th year as a professional musician!

His first professional performance was while working in radio fresh out of college in Wichita Kansas, he was asked by long time professional jazz - pop pianist/educator Dr. Charles Bachman, to fill in as guitarist as substitute for long time jazz-pop legend Darrell McGee who had another engagement. It was for an event on local public T.V. and John Boda also met another long time legend that day - Jerry Hahn -who was considered one of the top three guitarists in the country by "Rolling Stone Magazine" and had been with world-wide known with jazz legends Gary Burton and more. They became friends and house room-mates later and John Boda would go on to be his number one fan and recording enthusiast of live shows collecting a series of incredible live recordings he would make between 1978 - 1986. many of those are now posted on YouTube. 

In addition to his solo music performances, John Boda has become highly sought after for his many multi-media presentations (all listed here). Many follow a series such as "Great Songwriters" "Legendary Singers" and involve great music performance within the show. Others are more historical such as both Chicago World's Fairs, Riverview, Titanic, and many more. 

Two in particular are noted: "The Eastland Disaster" - he covers the worst disaster in Chicago's history, and one of the worst in the country occurring July 24th, 1915, and it is very personal as his own grandmother was on it, and survived. 

Another is "The Great Chicago Fire" - John Boda has done extensive research on this event for many years and was contacted by national publishers - Arcadia Books - to co-author a major hard cover book on the subject! He joined forces with long time Chicago history man, and former police officer - Ray Johnson - and it was released October 2017 and available on Amazon and many other venues. John Boda has signed copies available for sale at all presentations.