City to the Country

 

 That’s me interviewing singer-songwriter Tracy Bonham at the Beacon Riverfest a couple of weekends ago, for this profile in Arts & Leisure. I think it’s the only image of its kind that I’ve seen. (I didn’t know we were even being watched until Tony Cenicola, the excellent New York Times photographer assigned to the piece, sent me a copy.)

A big part of the story here involves life after the majors. Bonham had a monster radio hit in 1996, which sent her debut into gold-album territory (and resulted in “a lot of baseball caps in the crowd” at her concerts). These days she’s running the equivalent of a shoestring operation -- or a sustainable organic farm, if you want to flog a metaphor more suitable to her Hudson Valley homestead. Here she is talking about the adjustment; as a bonus, the clip ends with a Metro-North train whistle (and the voice of the aforementioned Tony):

Tracy Bonham on DIY

The notion of a self-directed, self-motivated career has some obvious parallels in jazz. Beyond that, Bonham -- a longtime fan of jazz-radio obsessive Phil Schaap -- noted that her return to performing was partly inspired by jazz musicians, and the perceived lack of inhibition in their work (Bob Dylan cites a similar idea in Chronicles): 

Tracy Bonham on Jazz

And speaking of musicians one or two steps away from jazz, this piece gave me a reason to speak with Smokey Hormel, who got the A&L treatment himself a few years back. 

 “I was really struck by Tracy the first time I saw her,” he told me. “First of all she was playing the coolest guitar I had ever seen. Now I have three of them. She was totally rocking and playing these amazing songs, and then she turns around and plays violin.”

He also took note of her guitar playing, as he and Bonham both attest. “She didn’t play like someone who had studied guitar,” he said. “She played like someone who knew music and was just using the guitar to make the music. It wasn’t like... a lot of guitar players, they’re more guitar players than musicians. With her it was sort of the opposite. She did what it took to get the message through, to get the music across. And on top of all that she had this beautiful tone. I think she was playing through a very simple setup but her tone was really great. Especially back then, a lot of bands were using a lot of effects. The sound of her guitar was rich and simple and satisfying.”

Hormel was in Europe on tour with Norah Jones when we spoke, which is why he doesn’t turn up in this clip from Beacon Riverfest. (Actually, he’s never been a regular part of Bonham’s band, which is playing an album-release gig on Tuesday at Joe’s Pub.) The song is “In the Moonlight” -- not among my top tracks from the new album, but a pretty good illustration of its personal dimensions. At the end of the clip, Bonham makes a crack about the band’s “country tuning.” Take a gander and you’ll understand what she means.