Bonnie Koloc
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Bonnie Koloc (born in Waterloo, Iowa) is an American folk singer/songwriter, actress, and artist who was considered one of the three main Illinois-based folk singers in the 1970s, along with Steve Goodman and John Prine forming the "trinity of the Chicago folk scene.". Koloc was the least successful of the three, but her material did sell modestly.
Koloc was born to a working class family: "I guess you could say we were poor; we lived in a cement block house outside the city limits of Waterloo, Ia., and my dad worked in the John Deere factory. Money was very tight. I wore a lot of hand-me-downs, and I thought that people who had indoor johns must be rich. I had a really unstable childhood, because my parents were divorced when I was 12, and there was a lot of chaos. I spent a lot of time during my high school years trying to get myself together from my childhood."
The first of her family to attend college, she enrolled in the University of Northern Iowa, first majoring in drama, then art, paying her way by singing, but earning poor grades. She abandoned her studies to go to Chicago, where she became a fixture of the influential Earl of Old Town.
She had a minor hit with "Roll Me On the Water" from the 1974 album "You're Gonna Love Yourself in the Morning," but never achieved the national recognition many predicted for her.
In the 1980s, after the death of her long-time companion, she pursued a career as an actress, and performed in plays such as Joseph Papp's Broadway production of The Human Comedy, but by the late '80s, she focused on her art studies. She has resumed her musical career, and continues to tour bars and clubs.
Discography
- After All This Time, Ovation Records, 1971
- Hold On to Me, Ovation Records, 1972
- Bonnie Koloc, Ovation Records, 1973
- You’re Gonna Love Yourself in the Morning, Ovation Records, 1974
- At Her Best, Ovation Records, 1976
- Close-Up, Epic Records, 1976
- Wild and Recluse, Epic Records, 1978
- With You On My Side, Rounder Records, 1994
- Visual Voice, Naim Audio, 2000
- Timeless, self-released, 2004
- A Bestiary - Beasts of the Farm, self-released art book and CD, 2004
- Here to Sing, self-released, 2006
