It didn’t relate to what I was writing at the time. “But it’s not a song that did a lot for me as an artist. “We play it in the show, and it’s fun to perform,” she said of the song, brought to her by Glenn Frey while Bonoff was preparing her third album.
Ironically, Bonoff’s biggest chart hit was with someone else’s song: a cover of Jackie Moore’s “Personally” that went Top 20 in 1982. Covers of songs from her four studio albums were giants for Wynonna (“Tell Me Why”), Bonnie Raitt (“Home”), and Ronstadt (most notably “All My Life,” in duet with Aaron Neville). Ballads can be hit songs now.”īonoff has had her share of hits, as both singer and songwriter.
It had to be uptempo, with a simple chorus,” she reminded me. “Back then, there was such a formula for what a hit was. We talked about the new album she’s recording, how the industry has changed, and how major-label A&R guys used to pressure artists to make hit singles. “My label was surprised at how well that record did,” Bonoff told me during a phone interview a few weeks before her upcoming, sold-out Musical Instrument Museum concert. Anchored by “Lose Again,” a hopeful song about a lousy romance and one of three compositions from the LP famously covered by Linda Ronstadt on her Hasten Down the Wind album, Bonoff’s debut was a stunning surprise in an era that was scrambling - thanks to Ronstadt’s recent chart success - to sign folk-rock girl singers. My teen angst had an artful sound, and it was captured on this California girl’s new record. “And through the open window Laura can hear Joni Mitchell singing ‘Marcie’ and Carole King playing her piano.” “It’s like Laura Nyro moved into a cottage in Laurel Canyon,” I told my teenaged diary, in a review more gauche than my friend’s. These were intimate poems, mostly ballads starkly arranged around Bonoff’s voice and piano. I played the album, and my friend’s awkward appraisal made sense. I was sorry when people compared singers because they were, say, female or performed their own compositions or had Russ Kunkel as their drummer. “ New York Tendaberry, Song for a Seagull, suffering and pain, great writing, cool vocals.” “It’s all here,” he said, handing me the record. Some wise soul brought me Karla Bonoff’s debut album not long after it was released in 1977.
0 kommentar(er)
