We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Tracy Bonham a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Tracy, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.
Recently, I had the honor and priveledge of performing my music with The Eugene Ballet Company in my hometown of Eugene, OR. It was set at the Hult Center For The Performing Arts, the same stage where I saw Sarah Vaughn perform when I was an aspiring teenage singer. As I walked down to the microphone, I held back tears as the bright spotlight prevented me from seeing family members and close childhood friends sitting before me in the audience. This special performance was a hometown show unlike anything I could have imagined.
The audience sat the in the same pale green upholstered seats I knew so well from when I rehearsed various musical theater productions or prepared for Youth Symphony performances. It was the same stage I had walked across to accept my high school diploma hugging the beloved and be-purpled South Eugene High School principal, Don Jackson, who never missed a day sporting the school color, purple cowboy hat and all. It was the same building where I had stood oustide warming up my voice and staring at one of the exterior walls thinking to myself “I am going to go to New York City and make it some day” burning that intention into the gray cement wall.
In 2021, I was asked to collaborate with Suzanne Haag, choreographer for the Eugene Ballet, in a performance set to my music spanning the last 30 years which included brand new and unreleased material. This collaboration couldn’t have come at a better time in my life and career, seeing as though my newer compositions are heavily influenced by my classical music foundations of when I was a serious music student growing up in Eugene. Even though I am considered an alternative singer-songwriter, best known for my hit song in the 1990s called Mother Mother, I grew up studying classical violin and piano and have always honored my classical studies even while thumbing my nose at all of it by writing three chord songs on a distorted guitar screaming my head off. When my music became popular around the world, I was exorcizing the ghosts of my youth and rebelling against the confines of my classical music training.
As Suzanne and I began to build the show, one conversation that kept coming up was how our experiences were similar growing up in the traditional worlds of classical ballet and classical music. We spoke about the systemic ideals of perfection and how we both like to challenge the idea in ways that still hold respect for the art form while pushing against the patriarchial expectations and conformity. As I stood on that stage, knowing that some of my old classical music teachers were in the audience, I played my electric guitar and screamed “everything’s fine!” from my hit song Mother Mother. The old me would have felt embarrrased or nervous that they may judge me for this departure. But keeping in touch with my past music community in Eugene has shown me otherwise, that I have their support. I had taken all of the years of my training to create something more personal and more expressive than what I could have ever done performing a piece by Bach or Beethoven and I believe they know this.
I played my newer material on the beautiful 9 foot Steinway grand piano and I let my fingers glide over the keys and, for the first time in my life, my fingers felt weightless and the piano keys had no resistance whatsoever. My incredible ensemble of musicians supported me musically and emotionally and I honestly felt as if I was in the clouds. I had practiced a lot and I knew I was prepared. This added to the moment and allowed me to relax, breathe and enjoy everything.
In my peripheral vision, I could see the beautiful balley dancers moving downstage to my right and my incredible band and ensemble of musicians on the risers to my left. There was a grand and empty darkness between the lights over my head and I imagined the dancers were colorful schools of fish under the surface of the ocean with the bright lights of discoverers above us. The band played as they moved effortlessly on and off stage. They were shimmering and flashing. They were floating and flying.
I will never forget the feeling of love and support from my hometown audience in this beautiful performance hall. I will always feel so much gratitude for Suzanne Haag and her desire to work with me and her abiilty to create emotionally powerful movement to my music.
Tracy, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
I am a GRAMMY nominated singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. My debut album, The Burdens of Being Upright (Island Records), was released in 1996 and received certified Gold Record status in many countries around the world. The album’s first single was called Mother Mother and it topped the Alternative Rock Charts at #1 for several weeks and my music video was nominated for an MTV video award. It featured my real mother and step-father playing oblivious parents as I screamed “everything’s fine!” from inside a living room TV set.
I grew up in Eugene, OR in a musical family with close family friends who were constantly in musical theater productions. I watched my mother and my friends’ mothers and fathers playing lead roles in stage productions and that was all it took for me to know that I would spend my life on stage, be it acting, singing, or playing an instrument. I started singing at age 5, studying calssical piano at age 7 and violin at age 9. I later received a full scholarship to study violin performance with Alice Schoenfeld at the conservatory at the University of Southern California only to transfer two years later to go to study vocal jazz at Berklee College of Music in Boston.
After one year of studying voice at Berklee, I dropped out of college to pursue a career in music while trying my hand at song-writing on the side. Three years later, my three song demo cassette had landed in the hands of a few music business people. Two years after that, I found myself in the middle of a recording industry bidding war where major recording labels were offering me big budget recording contracts. After my debut album topped the charts, I began to feel the pressure of a follow-up album. The music business was going through dramatic changes at this time and I ended up getting lost in the shuffle of corporate mergers and company take-overs. That said, my life as a singer-songwriter, performer and recording artist has never stopped. I have released eight albums total, each one better than the last, including one children’s music education album.
I played on the main stage at Lilith Fair in 1997 and 1998, I toured with Blue Man Group from 2002 to 2005, and I have played and recorded with Aerosmith, Page and Plant, Latin Playboys and Wayfaring Strangers. I have made several TV appearances on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Late Night with Conan O’Brien and Late Late Show with Craig Fergussen. My songs have been featured in many film and TV shows and, most recently, Mother Mother was featured in the hit Showtime series, Yellow Jackets.
I recently performed with the Eugene Ballet Company on a beautiful collaboration set to my music, featuring songs that span the thirty years of my career, including music yet to be released. The choreographer, Suzanne Haag, and I collaborated on this ballet for over two years on zoom and the occasional in-person meetup. People were so moved by the performances that several audience members came back for the second performance. The concept for the ballet plays with the theme of art and expression verses discipline and perfection. It casts a light on what it is to be a peformer, grappling with the highs and lows on stage and off.
The first single and title track on my upcoming album is called Damn The Sky (For Being Too Wide) and was released in March, 2024 and my second single, Whether You Fall, is set to be released on Friday June 21, 2024. The new album, Damn The Sky (For Being Too Wide), is slated to be released this fall. The album features two talented and renown jazz musicians; Rene Hart (James Hunter, David Amram) on bass and Alvester Garnett (Abbey Lincoln, Regina Carter) on drums. The new music shows my evolution as an artist and yet somehow I still found a way to blend the alternative rock songwriting style I am known for with the classical romantic music I grew up playing. As an artist, it is incredibly fulfilling to be able to blend all of my influences and aspects of who I am into one beautiful work of art.
Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?
I have come to realize that music and songwriting has been my way of overcoming challenges and helping others do the same. I write deeply personal songs that still have a way of connecting to others because I found a way to share my personal experiences in a relatable way.
For each incredibly challenging phase of life there is an album of music written about it. When I first moved to the East Coast in 1987, I was stuck in an abusive relationship unable to gain the courage to leave. I was a poor college drop out, abusing drugs, narrowly escaping the abuser’s grip while trying to make it as a musician in a misogynist music business. The only way I knew how to communicate and ask for help was through my music.
When I wrote songs it was like I was receiving messages from my wiser being telling me to confront, disrupt, and change the situation. If only I had known how to listen to this voice before putting myself through all of this pain. Part of my early process in making albums was writing as if I was watching a dramatic play where I was the main character in the story. The writer knows what the main character is supposed to do but the character is unable to act, much like dramatic irony, where I am both the writer and the character. Somehow this way of expressing myself helped me wake up and make the change, leave the abuser, quite the drugs, get a gig, and then write a hit album about it.
In 2001, my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer and I was dropped from my record label all in the span of three months. Soon after that, September 11 happened and I was living directly across the East River from the World Trade Buildings. The voice inside of me knew that I had to pick myself up and keep going. It was such a vulnerable time for all of us and the future was so unclear. The unknown frightened me. So I wrote songs about it and made an album and in retrospect, this is exactly how I overcame the negativity and the destructive fear of the unknown.
In 2010, I had finally accepted the fact that I could not get pregnant and so I had decided to adopt a baby. The adoption process was long and frustrating and incredibly heartbreaking. It ended up taking us a total of 5 years to bring a child home and during that time I went through a depression. The thing that kept me going through that excrutiatingly long wait was writing songs about it and making an album. I wrote songs like “Angel, Won’t You Come Down?” and it helped me come to terms with the arduous process of adoption.
Now, I find myself with a new album on the horizon full of self empowerment songs with themes of overcoming hardship once again. Many of these songs were written as I was going through an incredibly tough divorce. Some of the songs are reimagined tracks from my past repertoire, with new and beautiful textures and maturity. As timing would have it I was diagnosed with breast cancer as I was making this new album so the songs and their themes have an even deeper personal meaning for me. As I listen to the new songs, I am hearing the inner voice that was trying to tell me something and it is as if my mind and body had to catch up to it.
As I write this, I am happy to announce that I am on a path to recovery, physically, emotionally and spiritually. I am more able to use my voice and ask for what I want, not just hiding within my song lyrics but in my relatioinships and my daily life which has made me a much happier person in general. I have come to believe that the stress of holding onto so much anxiety, so much of it unexpressed feelings of anger, caused me to become ill. I am happy to report that I have manifested an incredibly beautiful and healthy relationship, and my 13 year old son is doing really well. When I look back to all the material I have written, like chapters in a book, I am thankful for the ability to express myself so well with my music. I am not sure where I would be without it.
Looking back, are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?
I wish I would have known more about meditation and Yoga when I was younger. Meditation helps quiets the mind so we can become more in tune and in touch with ourselves and who we truly are, our essence. I wish I could have had the tools to go within, where true acceptance lies, instead of looking externally for approval.
Yoga is a wonderful balance of mind, body and spirit and if I could have found this practice earlier in life I probably would have made decisions that were in alignment with who I truly am.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.tracybonham.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tracybonham/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TracyBonhamMusic
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tracybonham/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/tracy_bonham
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuw_ZoGhnVpwhVmmg5N9IEQ
Image Credits
Live photography by David Young, Ballet Photography by Antonio Anacan