Bonnie Bluhm

Event Description

Santa Fe Bandstand is a free summer music festival on the Santa Fe Plaza, produced by Outside In Productions and a crew that strives to present the city with a wide range of performers, who represent the diversity and wealth of musical talent in this region. Performances take place Monday to Thursday, through August 16, 2012. All shows are free and open to the public.

Bonnie Bluhm has been singing professionally for over forty years since her teenage years in New York’s Greenwich Village. Bonnie has lived and performed in the Northeast, Midwest, and on the West Coast but has made Albuquerque, New Mexico her home since 1973.  She has been writing songs since she was a kid and talked about having her own band since she was four years old. Bonnie’s first gigs in New Mexico included the old Thunderbird Bar in Placitas, opening for such acts as Asleep  at the Wheel.

In 1978 Bonnie and her brother, bass player Terry Bluhm created a country-rock band called Bonnie and the Boomerangs playing many a roadhouse and venue in New Mexico and southern Colorado, including the infamous Golden Inn, Okie’s, and The Annual Chile Ski Off in Chama, New Mexico. In 1987 The Boomerangs recorded their album Crazy Moon with Manny Rettinger at Ubik Sound in Albuquerque, which was nominated for Best Country Album of the Year at the New Mexico MIC Awards.  Manny, on the liner notes for that album says “{Bonnie} has a natural gift of songwriting and... immense vocal powers...”

Bonnie Bluhm’s songs have been recorded for film and video soundtracks, she has performed in theater, TV, radio, concerts, many benefits, festivals, clubs and celebrations of every kind, from Seattle to Nebraska to New York City to Santa Fe. She is proud of being a finalist in the legendary Kerrville Folk Festival in Texas in 1988.

Bonnie is a talented and original songwriter and a souful seasoned singer. She often performs with brother Terry on bass, and Claude Stephenson on mandolin. She has 4 albums out: Crazy Moon (newly remastered CD), Winterbird, Wheels Keep Rolling, and Wounded.

At present, besides her own gigs, Bonnie is the Entertainment Coordinator for OFFCenter Community Art Project in downtown Albuquerque, organizing coffeehouses and hiring and organizing music for the Annual OFFCenter Folk Fest. You can hear a track from Bonnie’s album Wounded on Youtube with a slide show Bonnie put together as a kind of history in pictures of her musical career in the following video: