Two-time GRAMMY® nominee Tracy Bonham is a classically trained violinist, pianist, and vocalist turned alt-rock singer-songwriter.
Bonham’s debut, The Burdens of Being Upright (Island Records), achieved Gold Record status in 1996 spawning the chart-topping hit “Mother Mother” which has remained a powerful anthem for disenfranchised youth all over the world.
Due to major shake-ups in the music industry Bonham’s second album, Down Here, was significantly delayed and released on Island-Def Jam in 2000. While continuing to tour the world including several dates with Lilith Fair (1997 and 1998) the industry’s landscape had become almost unrecognizable and had negative impacts on most strong female artists and their careers. It is worth mentioning that Mother Mother was to be the last #1 Alternative Music chart topping single released by a solo female artist until the artist Lord released her song Royals 17 years later. This change inspired Tracy to rethink how she approached her music and the music business. She asked Island-Def Jam Records to end her multi-record contract and with that newfound freedom, she relocated to Los Angeles to make her third album Blink the Brightest (Rounder / Zoé). This collection of songs became fan favorites with beautiful melodies and heartfelt messages of perseverance after tragedy, unrequited love, and broken dreams.
In 2003 and 2006 Bonham appeared as the featured vocalist and violinist in Blue Man Group’s arena tours (The Complex, How To Be A Megastar 2.0) in which she sold her self-released EPs (Bee EP and In The City & In The Woods) in rock arenas all over the United States. She sold over 12,000 CDs on her own (an unprecedented achievement for that time without record label, management, or radio play) and was able to self-fund her next album. In 2010, Bonham released Masts Of Manhatta (Engine Room Records) and continuedto procure a more mature audience while maintaining the quirky humor and edginess of her first escapades in songwriting. Bonham has released several more albums to wide critical acclaim, has appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno multiple times and has landed several songs in feature films and popular tv shows.
Bonham had hopes of starting a family so she decided to leave the world of tour buses and backstage dining with the Blue Man Group How To Be A Megastar tour. In 2012 Bonham and her then husband and editor of Rolling Stone Magazine, Jason Fine, adopted their son Selman who was born in Ethiopia in 2010. Mothering Selman became Tracy’s top priority yet she never ceased to create as she began writing songs in between diaper changes. In 2015 Bonham released Wax & Gold, a self released album co-produced with Kevin Salem in Woodstock, NY. This album is her homage to building a non-traditional family with radical honesty and all the love and care that any traditional family would have and more. Bonham was breaking down her own ideas of what a family looks and feels like and coming to terms of how she grew up in her own complicated family that never left her feeling unloved. Bonham even reaches out to Selman’s birthmother, whereabouts unknown, with empathy compassion and wonder.
In the time leading up to the 2016 elections, Bonham teamed up with friend John Wlaysewski of the band Late Cambrian to make a 20th anniversary album of The Burdens of Being Upright, Bonham’s hit debut. As the entire world reacted to what seemed like a complete slap in the face as the news of Donald Trump’s presidential win reverberated, both Bonham and Wlaysewski decided to switch gears and invite as many strong female voices as they could to join taking center stage with Bonham on an album that would aptly be called Modern Burdens. The album made Rolling Stone’s Top 50 albums of 2017, which they describe as “a lovingly penned postcard to Bonham’s past self, and a fascinating look at where she’s at right now.”
As Bonham began to tour again in 2018, she had new material to share as well as old repertoire rearranged and reimagined to fit her ever-expanding evolution as an artist. Some of her songs penned in 1998 and placed on her 2000 release, Down Here, were now reclaimed as personal empowerment songs now bridging the gap from when she faced misogyny in the music business to more current personal struggles with misogyny in life and as a reaction to the culture.
In early March 2020, Tracy showcased her new material on a West Coast tour with bassist Rene Hart with the plan of recording an album upon her return home to New York City. The last performance in Los Angeles at the Hotel Cafe on March 13, 2020 was to be the last show the venue would have until the world started to reopen years later. On the nearly empty plane home on March 15th, 2020, Bonham and Hart made the decision to shift gears knowing that it would be some time before another tour could take place due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Taking action during quarantine, Tracy uncovered the finished recordings for what would become an entirely new music education endeavor called Melodeon® pointing toward a younger audience who she lovingly calls her “young music enthusiasts”. This new enterprise combines her original material with original music education curriculums inspired by School House Rock, Electric Company, and Sesame Street. Tracy Bonham & Melodeon released their first album entitled Young Maestros Vol. 1 on April 16, 2021, on Melodeon Music House Records.
Tracy is currently residing in Brooklyn, NY with her 13 year old son. She is finding her way back to herself once again as a divorcé realizing that in order to really evolve as a human and artist, and to be the best mother possible, she must dig deeper to find self love, self respect, and look at her life with radical honesty.
Bonham continues to build and develop the exciting music education program called Melodeon® with Rene Hart in Windsor Terrace Brooklyn while teaching the material at the Brooklyn Preschool of Science, a new passion of Tracy’s.
New material for a new Tracy Bonham album will begin production in December, 2023 at Applehead Recording Studio in Woodstock, NY with the goal of having a new album to offer as she and her trio perform with the Eugene Ballet Company in April 2023.
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“Bonham, from the beginning and increasingly over time, is a riveting, complicated maker of pop music.” ~ PopMatters
(I know you can tell that I wrote this and frankly, I don’t care anymore. Gone are the days of hiding behind the shroud! :) I think I did an OKAY job) Lots of love! Tracy
