Biography
Though unfamiliar to some listeners, the country/folk duo Bill & Bonnie Hearne have left their mark on a range of artists they mentored or performed alongside. In their formative Austin, TX, years an underage Nanci Griffith slipped into clubs to catch their sets, while a young Lyle Lovett once opened for the pair. Their 2000 release, Watching Life Through a Windshield, gathered still more high-profile guests: Emmylou Harris added harmonies to Guy Clark’s “L.A. Freeway,” Chris Hillman revisited Bob Dylan’s “You Ain’t Going Nowhere” (a song he first cut with the Byrds), and Buck Owens shared the microphone with Bill on “King of Fools.”
Bill and Bonnie Hearne, both sight impaired—she has been fully blind for most of her life and he has limited vision—first crossed paths at the University of Texas in the late ’60s. By the early ’70s they were established fixtures on the Austin club circuit just as the outlaw-country movement took hold. Late in that decade the couple relocated to northern New Mexico, where they issued six albums on independent labels through the early ’90s. A mid-’90s retrospective, Most Requested Plus, appeared on Poor David’s Records.
For years they maintained a standing Wednesday- and Thursday-night residency at Santa Fe’s historic La Fonda Hotel. During one of those 1999 performances producer John Wooler first encountered them, leading to their contribution to the I-40 Chronicles anthology alongside Willie Nelson and Joe Ely; the collection came out on Virgin’s Back Porch Records Americana imprint. Wooler later joined the duo as co-producer of Watching Life Through a Windshield.
Bill and Bonnie Hearne, both sight impaired—she has been fully blind for most of her life and he has limited vision—first crossed paths at the University of Texas in the late ’60s. By the early ’70s they were established fixtures on the Austin club circuit just as the outlaw-country movement took hold. Late in that decade the couple relocated to northern New Mexico, where they issued six albums on independent labels through the early ’90s. A mid-’90s retrospective, Most Requested Plus, appeared on Poor David’s Records.
For years they maintained a standing Wednesday- and Thursday-night residency at Santa Fe’s historic La Fonda Hotel. During one of those 1999 performances producer John Wooler first encountered them, leading to their contribution to the I-40 Chronicles anthology alongside Willie Nelson and Joe Ely; the collection came out on Virgin’s Back Porch Records Americana imprint. Wooler later joined the duo as co-producer of Watching Life Through a Windshield.
Albums
