Karla Bonoff

Santa Monica to Bryndle

Karla Bonoff was born in Santa Monica on December 27, 1951. She began writing songs by fifteen, performed with her sister Lisa as the Daughters of Chester P, studied guitar with Frank Hamilton of the Weavers, and at sixteen recorded an eleven-song demo for Elektra with the engineer Bruce Botnick, with no contract resulting. In the mid-1970s she joined Bryndle with Kenny Edwards, Wendy Waldman and Andrew Gold. She told Songwriter's Universe she met Edwards at a transcendental meditation course in Squaw Valley. They signed to A&M, but the album was not released and the group split; Bonoff said the label did not know what to do with them, since it was unsure how to market a band with two male and two female singers.

She was a regular at the Troubadour's Monday open mic nights, recalling that looking back she realizes how amazing it was but at the time it just seemed like their life. Her influences, she has said, were Joni Mitchell, Carole King and Laura Nyro.

Ronstadt and the solo records

In March 1976 Linda Ronstadt recorded three Bonoff songs, "Lose Again", "If He's Ever Near" and "Someone to Lay Down Beside Me", at The Sound Factory in Hollywood for Hasten Down the Wind, which was produced by Peter Asher and released on August 9, 1976; it reached number 3 in the US. Bonoff has said she did not write them for Ronstadt but that Linda was a genius at finding songwriters and unknown songs, and called the exposure huge for a songwriter who had been struggling for ten years. She signed to Columbia in 1977, and Karla Bonoff came out about six months after Ronstadt's album. Restless Nights (1979) reached number 31 in the US and Wild Heart of the Young followed in 1982, with New World in 1988.

Her singles included "I Can't Hold On" (1978, number 76) and "Baby Don't Go" (1980, number 69), and "Personally" reached number 19 in 1982. "Somebody's Eyes" was on the Footloose soundtrack in 1984. Her "All My Life", a duet by Ronstadt and Aaron Neville on Cry Like a Rainstorm, Howl Like the Wind in 1989, won the Grammy for best pop performance by a duo or group with vocals in 1991. "Tell Me Why" was a country hit for Wynonna Judd in 1993, Lynn Anderson recorded "Isn't It Always Love" in 1979, and "Home" has been recorded by Bonnie Raitt, Trisha Yearwood and Eliza Gilkyson.

Bryndle reunited in the 1990s at Waldman's urging and, this time writing together, released Bryndle (1995) and House of Silence (2002). Carry Me Home came out in 2018 or 2019 (Wikipedia is inconsistent) and Silent Night in 2020. She has toured since about 2006 as a duo with the guitarist Nina Gerber.