E-Mail This Article to a Friend Operation DUMBO Tracy Bonham returns to Boston via Brooklyn BY MAC RANDALL
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On a sunny mid-spring afternoon in the cobblestoned Brooklyn neighborhood known as DUMBO (Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass), Tracy Bonham is sitting in a café near the waterfront. She loves the New York weather, but she’s got someplace else on her mind: Boston, the city where she lived for 11 years. "The reason I went there was to go to Berklee," she recalls. "I’d been studying classical violin at USC, but I wanted to be" — she lowers her voice to a mock-dramatic whisper — "a jazz singer. Then after a year I dropped out, got a job at the famous Atlantic Fish Company, and started singing in a wedding band."

Bonham’s singing, songwriting, and multi-instrumental skills (violin, piano, guitar) got her signed to Island, and her debut, 1996’s The Burdens of Being Upright, garnered two Grammy nominations. Although the native Oregonian eventually moved back to the West Coast (she’s now in LA), she retains her Boston connection. This Wednesday she’ll play a special concert at the Paradise Lounge: anyone who buys a copy of her new Blink the Brightest (Zoë/Rounder) at Newbury Comics gets a free ticket, first come, first served.

The album is Bonham’s first in half a decade. Like so many artists signed in the ’90s, she got caught in what she calls "the major-label meltdown." By 2002, she’d stockpiled new songs, but she had no management, no record-company support, and no money. When help finally came, it was from an unlikely source: a troupe of bald blue guys. "There’s a lot of people in the Blue Man Group band who are from Boston, people I had known. They were fans of mine, and they tracked me down and asked me to be on their album." That disc, 2003’s The Complex, was followed by an eight-month tour on which Bonham sang with the Blue Men and played her own music as the opener. She also sold a self-produced EP of new songs on the tour.

"It was an odd pairing. I went out with an acoustic trio, and some people didn’t even expect an opening band. But the audiences were warm and they listened, and then they’d buy my EP. I ended up selling 12,000 without any promotion." The Blue Man experience also financed Blink, which is on the Cambridge-based Zoë imprint. "I’ve been a fan of Tracy’s ever since ’95," says Rounder CEO John Virant. "After she was dropped by Island, we let her know that we wanted to work with her. That was at least three years ago — it’s one of the longest signing processes we’ve been through."

Blink eschews the jagged alt-rock Bonham favored 10 years ago, offering instead jaunty McCartney-esque pop hooks on "Dumbo Sun" (inspired by the Brooklyn locale) and tender ballads like "Shine." "And the World Has the Nerve to Keep Turning" could pass for a lost ’70s R&B nugget. "I thought maybe I should submit that song to a Macy Gray or an Alicia Keys. I didn’t feel it was for me because it was so soulful. But then I realized that I grew up listening to Stevie Wonder. I’d sing at the top of my lungs in my living room trying to sound like him. I stifled that on my first two records, but it’s a part of who I am."

Stylistic experimentation has become a big part of Bonham’s artistic life. Early this month at Symphony Hall, she performed with the Wayfaring Strangers, an eclectic folk group led by violinist Matt Glaser, who’s also chairman of Berklee’s string department. "It’s an honor to play with Matt. He was one of my favorite teachers at Berklee, and he got me the gig in 1995 playing violin for Jimmy Page and Robert Plant." Remembering it now, she can’t help giggling. "Matt was hired to be the contractor for Page and Plant’s string section, and he didn’t know who they were." But he knew who Tracy Bonham was.

Tracy Bonham | Paradise Lounge, 969 Comm Ave, Boston | June 29 | 617.562.8814