Bruce Randall Hornsby (born November 23, 1954) is an American singer-songwriter and pianist. His music draws from a wide range of traditions – folk, jazz, modern classical, bluegrass, rock, and jam band styles.
Hornsby has won three Grammy Awards: a 1987 Grammy Award for Best New Artist with Bruce Hornsby and the Range, a 1990 Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Recording, and a 1994 Grammy Award for Best Pop Instrumental Performance.
Hornsby has worked with his touring band Bruce Hornsby and the Noisemakers, his bluegrass project with Ricky Skaggs, and as a session and guest musician. He was a touring member of the Grateful Dead from September 1990 through March 1992, playing over 100 shows with the band.
Early life and education Bruce Randall Hornsby was born in Williamsburg, Virginia, to Robert Stanley Hornsby (1920–1998), an attorney, real-estate developer and former musician, and Lois Hornsby (née Saunier), a piano player and church community liaison who had a local middle school named after her. He has two brothers, Robert Saunier "Bobby" Hornsby, a realtor with Hornsby Realty and locally known musician, and John Hornsby, a lawyer, with whom he has collaborated in songwriting. They are cousins of actor David Hornsby. While raised in the church of Christian Science, Hornsby went to doctors and dentists as needed. He had a politically liberal upbringing.
Hornsby graduated from James Blair High School in Williamsburg in 1973, where he played on the basketball team and was chosen by his senior class as most likely to succeed.
Hornsby studied music at the University of Richmond for a year, at the Berklee College of Music for two semesters, and then at the University of Miami, where he graduated in 1977.
Career In 1974, Hornsby's older brother Bobby, who attended the University of Virginia, formed the band "Bobby Hi-Test and the Octane Kids" to play fraternity parties, featuring Bruce on Fender Rhodes and vocals. The band, which is listed in Skeleton Key: A Dictionary for Deadheads, performed covers of the Allman Brothers Band, the Band, and predominantly Grateful Dead songs.
Bobby Hornsby's son, Robert Saunier Hornsby, was a recurring guest-guitarist with Hornsby's band and periodically toured with his uncle and played on his records until his death on January 15, 2009, in a car accident near Crozet, Virginia at age 28.
Following his graduation from the University of Miami in 1977, Hornsby returned to his hometown of Williamsburg, and played in local clubs and hotel bars. In 1980, he and his younger brother and songwriting partner John Hornsby moved to Los Angeles, where they spent three years writing for 20th Century Fox. Before moving back to his native Hampton Roads, he also spent time in Los Angeles as a session musician. There, Hornsby became friends with members of Ambrosia and later he and Ambrosia bassist Joe Puerta performed as members of the touring band for Sheena Easton. In 1984, Hornsby appeared in the music video for Easton's singles "Strut" and “Sugar Walls".
Hornsby made a solo demo recording of “Mandolin Rain,” “The Way It Is,” and “The Red Plains” which led to him being signed by RCA in 1985.
The Range
In 1984, Hornsby formed Bruce Hornsby and the Range, who were signed to RCA Records in 1985. Besides Hornsby, Range members were David Mansfield (guitar, mandolin, violin), George Marinelli (guitars and backing vocals), former Ambrosia member Joe Puerta (bass guitar and backing vocals), and John Molo (drums).
Hornsby's recording career started with the biggest hit he has had to date, "The Way It Is". It reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in December 1986. The song described aspects of homelessness, the American civil rights movement and institutional racism. It has since been sampled by at least six rap artists, including Tupac Shakur, E-40, and Mase.
With the success of the single, the album The Way It Is received the RIAA certification of multi-platinum. It included "Mandolin Rain" (co-written, as many of Hornsby's early songs were, with his brother John), another top-five hit. "Every Little Kiss" peaked at number 14 on the Billboard Hot 100 in July 1987. Other tracks on the album helped establish what some labeled the "Virginia sound", a mixture of rock, jazz, and bluegrass. Bruce Hornsby and the Range won the Grammy Award for Best New Artist in 1987, defeating Glass Tiger, Nu Shooz, Simply Red, and Timbuk3.
Hornsby and the Range's sound was distinctive for its use of syncopation in Hornsby's piano solos, a bright piano sound and an extensive use of synthesizers as background for Hornsby's solos, and on all the hits, a Linn drum machine and Oberheim OB-X for bass. They are typical double-time beats, which allowed Hornsby and the rest of the band to do more with their solos.
Hornsby and the Range's second album, Scenes from the Southside (on which Peter Harris replaced Mansfield), was released in 1988. It included "Look Out Any Window" and "The Valley Road" which many critics noted for their "more spacious" musical arrangements, allowing for "more expressive" piano solos from Hornsby. It also included "Jacob's Ladder", which the Hornsby brothers wrote for musician friend Huey Lewis; Lewis's version became a number one hit from his album Fore!. Scenes offered further slices of "Americana" and "small-town nostalgia".
During the late 1980s and early 1990s, Hornsby worked extensively as a producer and sideman, producing a comeback album Anything Can Happen for Leon Russell. In 1987, Hornsby collaborated with Irish group Clannad, playing and lending vocals to their single "Something to Believe In". Hornsby also appears on the official music video release for the track. In 1989, Hornsby co-wrote and played piano on Don Henley's hit "The End of the Innocence". In 1991, he played piano on Bonnie Raitt's hit "I Can't Make You Love Me". He also appeared on albums by Bob Dylan, Robbie Robertson, Crosby Stills and Nash, Stevie Nicks and Squeeze.
Hornsby slowly began to introduce jazz and bluegrass elements into his music, first in live performance settings and later on studio work. In 1989, he first performed at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival. He also reworked his hit "The Valley Road" with the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band for their album Will the Circle Be Unbroken: Volume Two. In February 1990, the song won Best Bluegrass Recording at the 32nd Annual Grammy Awards.
In May 1990, Hornsby released A Night on the Town, on which he teamed up with jazz musicians Wayne Shorter (tenor saxophone) and Charlie Haden (double bass) as well as bluegrass pioneer Bela Fleck (banjo). A change in style became apparent as the album was much more rock and guitar driven, making use of Jerry Garcia's guitar work on several tracks, including prominently on the single "Across the River".
In concert, Hornsby and the Range began to stretch out their songs, incorporating more and more "freewheeling musical exchanges". Critics praised the album for its production, its political relevance, and Hornsby's gestures toward expanding out of a strictly pop sound by incorporating jazz and bluegrass. Ultimately, though, the core "rock band" sound of the Range limited Hornsby's aspirations, and after a final three-week tour in 1991, Hornsby disbanded the Range to enter a new phase of his career. Drummer John Molo continued to perform regularly with Hornsby for another few years, although other members pursued separate musical endeavors. Following Hornsby's and Molo's involvement with the Other Ones, Molo left Hornsby to become the primary drummer with bass guitarist Phil Lesh and Friends.
Grateful Dead
In 1988, Hornsby first appeared on stage with the Grateful Dead, a recurring collaboration that continued until the band's dissolution. Hornsby was a frequent guest before becoming a regular fixture in the touring lineup for the Grateful Dead a few years later.
From 1988 until Jerry Garcia's death in 1995, Hornsby played more than 100 shows with the Grateful Dead. At some shows in 1988 and 1989, he joined the band as a special guest and played accordion or synthesizer. Following the death of Grateful Dead keyboardist Brent Mydland in July 1990, Hornsby played piano (and frequently accordion) at many gigs. Mydland's place was filled in September 1990 by Vince Welnick, who became the sole keyboardist by March 1992, although Hornsby still sat in with the band on occasion.
Hornsby's own music evolved significantly during this time period. Critics have suggested that the Dead's tradition of melding folk music and the blues with psychedelic rock in "loose-knit expressions" and extended jamming "further pushed [Hornsby] outside the confines of mainstream pop". Critics have also commented upon the close musical connection formed between Hornsby and Jerry Garcia, suggesting that Hornsby's particular style of jazz-fueled improvisation added to the band's repertoire and helped to revitalize and refocus Garcia's guitar solos in the band's sound. Hornsby's friendship with Garcia continued, both inside and outside the band, as the two "challenged" each other to expand their musicianship through several other album and live collaborations. Above all, Hornsby's musical versatility and ability to slip in and out of extended free-form jams won over longtime Grateful Dead fans.
Since his first involvement with the Grateful Dead, Hornsby's live shows have drawn Deadheads and Hornsby has commented: "I've always liked the group of fans that we've drawn from the Grateful Dead time, because those fans are often adventurous music listeners." He has performed several of their songs at his concerts and as homages on studio and live albums, while Hornsby originals "The Valley Road" and "Stander on the Mountain" appeared several times in the Dead's setlists. Hornsby also co-performed the improvisation "Silver Apples of the Moon" for the Grateful Dead's Infrared Roses (1991).
Hornsby was the presenter when the Grateful Dead were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994 and in 2005 he participated in "Comes a Time", a tribute concert to Jerry Garcia. He continues to work with Dead-related projects, such as Bob Weir's Ratdog and Mickey Hart's solo projects. He performed as part of the Other Ones in 1998 and 2000, and on occasion sat in with the Dead. Hornsby continues to be involved in the Grateful Dead and Furthur community. He played at the All Good Music Festival in 2012 with Weir on rhythm guitar. In mid-2013, Hornsby performed with Grateful Dead-influenced bluegrass group Railroad Earth. Hornsby reunited with surviving members of the Grateful Dead along with Trey Anastasio from Phish and Jeff Chimenti at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, California, and later at Soldier Field in July 2015.
Solo
Hornsby released his first solo album, Harbor Lights, in 1993. The record showcased him in a more jazz-oriented setting and featured a lineup that included Pat Metheny, Branford Marsalis, Jerry Garcia, Phil Collins and Bonnie Raitt. Hornsby secured his third Grammy in 1993 for Best Pop Instrumental for "Barcelona Mona" (composed with Branford Marsalis for the Barcelona Olympics).
In 1995, Hot House was released, its cover art featuring an imagined jam session between bluegrass musician Bill Monroe and jazz saxophonist Charlie Parker. Hornsby expanded into the jazz sound from Harbor Lights, this time reintroducing elements of bluegrass from A Night on the Town and his earlier collaborations. "Walk in the Sun" reached number 54 on the Billboard Hot 100.