“Let me grab a smoke, I’ll be right back,” says Carolyn Wonderland in her mellow East Texas accent.
About a minute later, she is back on the line, focused and ready to talk about her 30-year career as a soulful blues troubadour from Houston. Born in 1972 as Carolyn Bradford, the daughter of a practical, yet independent ex-military father and a creative, loving mother, she began writing and playing guitar at the tender age of 8.
June 10 | 9 p.m. | $18 advance, $20 at the door
Crystal Bay Casino | Crystal Bay, Nev.
“There’s always been one at the house,” she says. “I got super into it by the time I was 12 and haven’t stopped since. My mom played a lot of classics by country songwriters like Jerry Jeff Walker and Townes Van Zandt. I don’t know why I love it so much, except I guess it’s the only thing that ever held my attention.”
At the age of 17, Bradford dropped out of Langham Creek High School to pursue her musical ambitions.
“I suppose it’s the freedom in [the blues]. It’s a form to invite people in you haven’t met and say, ‘What are we going do?’ ” -Carolyn Wonderland
“I was expelled from the district,” she says. “I just kept getting invited to leave, so I did. There was a religious takeover of the school board, basically the same thing folks are fighting now — not letting people graduate for length of their hair and stuff like that. I’d be getting in trouble for sit-ins and different things.”
So rather than fight for her right to a public education, Bradford changed her name to Wonderland and learned to balance the scales of another institution in the legendary blues clubs of Houston.
“When I was getting thrown out of school, that’s where I’d go,” she says. “They rarely carded.”
Wonderland played her first professional show at the age of 14 and was hitting the road in earnest by 19 or 20.
“My parents were supportive,” she says. “They were of course concerned. But I come by that honestly since my dad got thrown out of military school. He sat me down, said, ‘You got a plan? That’s good.’ Then, ‘You got a job? Cause you better have.’”
After a decade on the road following her only true passion, Wonderland settled down in Austin, Texas, where she has lived ever since.
“I like the camaraderie,” she says of the Texas music capital. “For the amount of musicians you have in this town, there is not a lot of competition. People are either in each other’s bands or cheering each other on. There’s a lot of freedom in that. You could see the same guy in the bluegrass band on Monday playing in a punk band on Tuesday. It’s also the land of free guitar lessons.”
At this point in her career, Wonderland has been touring through Lake Tahoe for more than 20 years.
She is anticipating her return to Crystal Bay Club where she put down roots back when things were first getting going with longtime CBC sound engineer and Beer Gardeners guitarist Blake Beeman.
“I dig coming up y’all’s spot,” she says. “Blake was one of the first guys who booked me in the area. I’m looking forward to playing and paying remembrance at the tree.”
Wonderland will be performing with her famed “Texas Trio” of Bobby Perkins on bass and Kevin Lance on drums. Old friend Shelley King will also join as a special guest singing and playing acoustic guitar.
“Shelley Cox is our tour manager so we call it stereo Shelleys,” Wonderland says. “It’s her birthday so all bets are off. We’ll go late that night, I’m sure.”
The group will be performing songs from their new album, “Moon Goes Missing,” set for release on June 9, the day before their concert in Lake Tahoe. The album includes a duet with Ty Taylor of Los Angeles R&B jammers Vintage Trouble and a cover of Bob Dylan’s “Leopard Skin Pill-Box Hat” with Austin blues singer Guy Forsyth.
“We added some new verses going back and forth,” says Wonderland. “It’s pretty groovy.”
After 30 years on the road, Wonderland sounds as if she still loves connecting with old friends, sharing a beer, swapping a story and playing some blues.
“I suppose it’s the freedom in it,” she says of her native genre. “It’s a form to invite people in you haven’t met and say, ‘What are we going do?’ It’s nice to have a base to start from and who knows where it is going to go. Most things come from it anyway. I play other genres, but I keep coming back to it. It’s good to go back to the headwaters, I suppose.”
To purchase tickets, visit crystalbaycasino.com.
