Biography
Joni Bishop channels her creativity through two distinct avenues. As a folk singer and songwriter, she captured first place in a contest spotlighting emerging talent at the Kerrville Folk Festival in 1987. In parallel, she produces visual art marked by vivid color choices, generating portraits of seminal blues, jazz, and gospel performers such as Louis Armstrong, Mahalia Jackson, Mississippi John Hurt, and Billie Holiday.
Under her birth name Ilze Platais, Bishop has issued four albums. Bonneville Worldwide Entertainment released the holiday collection Endless Christmas, a joint project with Electra Reed that presents seasonal material in Latvian and English. The recording first appeared in 1993 and returned five years afterward. The Salt Lake City label also issued her 1997 album Threads.
Bishop’s touring schedule has spanned North America, the Far East, and the United Kingdom, along with festival dates in Latvia, Ireland, England, and the Netherlands. Her connection to music began in adolescence when she picked up the guitar and explored her brother’s record collection, which featured Peter, Paul & Mary, Odetta, Mississippi John Hurt, and Joan Baez—the last of whom later drew stylistic comparisons from certain critics. The faces on those album covers soon led her to start sketching.
Under her birth name Ilze Platais, Bishop has issued four albums. Bonneville Worldwide Entertainment released the holiday collection Endless Christmas, a joint project with Electra Reed that presents seasonal material in Latvian and English. The recording first appeared in 1993 and returned five years afterward. The Salt Lake City label also issued her 1997 album Threads.
Bishop’s touring schedule has spanned North America, the Far East, and the United Kingdom, along with festival dates in Latvia, Ireland, England, and the Netherlands. Her connection to music began in adolescence when she picked up the guitar and explored her brother’s record collection, which featured Peter, Paul & Mary, Odetta, Mississippi John Hurt, and Joan Baez—the last of whom later drew stylistic comparisons from certain critics. The faces on those album covers soon led her to start sketching.