Singer-songwriter Karla Bonoff has packed a lot into a career that started when she was a teenager: She’s been in a band; her songs have been recorded by the likes of Linda Ronstadt and Wynonna Judd; and she has had a successful solo career.
And she’s coming to Durango, playing at the Durango Arts Center on Oct. 16.
Q: You’ve been in music pretty much your whole life – since you were 15, 16 – have you ever thought of doing anything else?
A: Well, I never really had a chance because I fell into music so young, and I didn’t go to college, so I didn’t really explore anything else. And I was so absorbed in doing what I was doing. Obviously, I’m interested in other things, but whether they really would have come about, I don’t know.
Q: Do you have hobbies?
A: I’m an animal lover, so I might have ended up doing something like that. I’m a gardener, so I might have been interested in landscaping. I don’t know; I think I might have been a good therapist. But who knows?
Q: Are you happy that (music) was the path you chose?
A: Oh, yeah. I mean, I’m fortunate I was able to make a living solely playing music and not having to do anything else. As a songwriter, especially, I think if you look at the statistics, I was a lucky one.
Q: That goes into my next question: Do you think there are any current female singer-songwriters who will stand the test of time?
A: I don’t know. First of all, I’m not totally up on everybody who’s out there, so I’m not sure. I mean, somebody like Shawn Colvin came in a generation sort of after me, and she’s still working and doing great. I don’t think we’re ever going to have another Joni Mitchell ... I think the music of my generation was pretty special and there was a high concentration of a lot of great stuff.
Q: As a woman coming up during the time you did, was it hard do you think?
A: I don’t think it was any harder for me as a woman than it was for anybody else. It was hard to get good at your craft, and to find places to play and to compete; we didn’t have home studios or a way to make our own CDs, so we really had to get record deals to make records. You really had to play live and get good at what you’re doing and hope that someone from a record company would hear you. It was a different process, you couldn’t really get started without ... I think that’s why a lot of us, we had to really play and sing and be able to be really great from the get-go. It wasn’t like we could record our way through it and tune our vocals and make a record that sounded good and then not really be able to reproduce it. I think that was the good thing about those days was that it made us really get strong at our craft.
Q: You’ve worked with a bunch of really cool people. Who do you think your favorites are?
A: You know, having James Taylor play and sing on my second album on “The Water’s Wide” was pretty amazing for me because he’s such a hero of mine. Just to sort of hear him layering himself over some of my music was so exciting, and on that same track, we had Garth Hudson from The Band, and that was pretty amazing, too.
Q: What are your plans now?
A: Just continuing to tour and writing when I can and hopefully making another CD at some point, but I’m not sure when; just working on it when I can.
Q: I’ve read that you said that you’re at a point now where you’ve got a certain freedom because you’ve been around long enough, you don’t need to rely on record deals. Do you find that really liberating?
A: I think that I was lucky that I was in the music business during a time when you could actually make money doing it; buy a house and build your life.
I think it’s a lot harder to do that now because touring is really the only way to make money, but when records really sold, and we all made royalties and wrote songs, we were able to do really well. It’s different now for kids because the music business is such a different thing.
I think we were part of a generation where we could actually end up at this point and have our lives kind of in pretty good order. So, I’m fortunate for that.
Q: Looking back, what do you think your legacy will be?
A: Oh, I think as a songwriter. I mean, I think that I’ve written some songs that people really hold close to their heart, and you know, that people say my songs are the soundtrack to their life or “You got me through my divorce.”
The emotional connection for people who maybe can’t express themselves, when they hear songs, they identify with those feelings ... so I think probably, hopefully, my legacy will be having written some songs that were healing for people.
Q: That’s a pretty decent legacy to have.
A: I hope so.
katie@durangoherald.com
If you go
Who:
Singer-songwriter Karla Bonoff in a duo format with guitarist Nina Gerber
When:
7:30 p.m. Oct. 16
Where:
Durango Arts Center Theater, 802 East Second Ave.
How much:
$44 general admission
More information:
Go to http://durangoarts.tix.com/Event.aspx?EventCode=892296 or call 259-2606.
