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Bonnie Bishop grew up
in suburban Houston, Texas, the daughter of native Texans who raised
her to love any music with soul including artists such as Otis
Redding and Aretha Franklin, Bob Seger and James Taylor. She trained
in opera throughout high school and into college, but graduated from
UT Austin with a degree in sociology and a plan to somehow make a
living doing music her own way. With her influences ranging from
classic rock to Motown, it was a rocky road to developing her own
sound, but she began making her way across the state playing her
original tunes for anyone who would listen and anywhere that she was
able to get booked. Now with a couple years experience under her
belt, a more finely-tuned focus, and a second much-anticipated album
on the horizon, this young singer is poised to make a huge impact in
Texas and beyond.
In the three short years
that Bonnie has been on the Texas music scene, she has built a solid
reputation with her band by sharing bills with such artists as Jack
Ingram, Randy Rogers, and Ray Wylie Hubbard and frequenting top
venues and festivals in the state including Billy Bob’s Texas, Wolf
Dance, Midnight Rodeo, The Mucky Duck, and most recently Willie
Nelson’s 4th of July Picnic. In the last year, she has almost
tripled the number of dates she played, going from around 65 shows
in 2005 to a whopping 150 planned in 2006! She is one of very few
females to have been successful in the Texas country scene,
something that most promoters and club owners would attribute to the
fact that her full-band show is not only very
energetic but unique as it airs more on the bluesy side than the
rest of the bands. Furthermore, the band has their eyes set
on breaking other boundaries and is currently touring nationally in
the Midwest, Southwest, and Southeast regions with plans to continue
expanding their fan base across the U.S. in the same grass roots
tradition that they have in Texas: through heavy touring and
concentraion on radio. The diversity of Bonnie’s songwriting
enables her to play venues from dancehalls to rock rooms to dinner
theaters, but it is the sheer power of her vocals complimented by
the rich dynamics and harmonies of her band that has earned her the
most respect in the music community. The music ranges in style from
blues and rock to more rootsy country, and Bonnie can wail in true
Janis Joplin fashion just as effectively as she can deliver a ballad
with heartache and sensitivity. The band in turn reflects its lead
singer’s versatility, easily transitioning from the powerful
percussion-driven numbers to songs with a more ethereal
sound, always with a heavy emphasis on guitar. In addition to her
full band shows, Bonnie’s acoustic show is often fan’s favorites,
where the stripped down setting allows them to better appreciate the
dynamics of her voice.
In 2004 Bonnie’s first full length
album “Long Way Home” was released statewide and saw great success
with the hit singles "Send Me a Cowboy" and “Sweet on the Down Low,”
both of which remained on the Texas Music Chart’s Top 30 throughout
the year. Proving to be a dynamic and hard-working businesswoman,
Bonnie says she drove over 30,000 miles visiting radio stations
alone to personally promote her music and to better understand Texas
radio and its fans. The CD received strong reviews from regional
magazines and publications and was called “nothing short of great”
by long time radio personality Bob Cole of KVET. In November of
2006, her second album entitled “Soft to the Touch” hit stores as
part of Smith Music Group’s elite Texas artists and helped push her
to the next level in her career. Produced by Walt Wilkins and Tim
Lorsch, the latest CD features Bonnie’s band and showcases the more
blues and rock side of her music, with guest appearances by both
Wilkins and guitar legend David Grissom. The songwriting expands on
themes of love and longing with a frankness that is at times
heartbreaking and leaves the listener with a sense of transparency
between the singer’s life experience and her music. The album’s
greatest triumph is that most of the vocals were recorded live in
the studio with the band, which gives the record both a raw
emotional quality and a sense of genuine cohesiveness between singer
and musicians that is not often found on albums today.
Being a songwriter is a title
Bonnie says she values the most, as it allows her to be expressive
and honest her life and her beliefs. Her writing has developed
greatly over the past year as her co -writing credits have grown to
include such writers as Walt Wilkins, Tim Kreckle, Jim Lauderdale,
Ray Wylie Hubbard, David Grissom, and Richard Leigh. Furthermore and
perhaps most impressively, she picked up the guitar for the first
time in December of 2005 and taught herself to play in a matter of
months in order to better herself both as a writer and a performer.
She is now writing for her third album but as busy as she has become
over the last several months, she still gives the credit for her
music to God and believes her gifts to be not just a blessing but a
responsibility as well. “I love what I do and I want to be the very
best I can be at it, but I constantly have to remind myself that my
gifts don’t really belong to me - I have to be wise with what I’ve
been given if I really want to make the most of my career and my
life.” If wisdom means seeking out the most genuine and authentic
path, then Bonnie Bishop just might be on her way to becoming one of
the most successful artists of her generation. |
