page_title: Bruce Hornsby
section_title: The Noisemakers
hierarchical_section_title: Bruce Hornsby / The Noisemakers
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context_page_description: Bruce Randall Hornsby is an American singer-songwriter and pianist. He draws frequently from classical, jazz, bluegrass, folk, Motown, gospel, rock, blues, and jam band musical traditions.
  Hornsby's recordings have been recognized on a number of occasions with industry awards, including the 1987 Grammy Award for Best New Artist with Bruce Hornsby and the Range, the 1990 Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album, and the 1994 Grammy Award for Best Pop Instrumental Performance.
  Hornsby has worked with his touring band Bruce Hornsby and the Noisemakers and his bluegrass project with Ricky Skaggs and has worked as a session and guest musician. He was a touring member of the Grateful Dead from September 1990 to March 1992, playing over 100 shows during that period.
  His 21st album, Absolute Zero, was released in April 2019 and features collaborations with Justin Vernon and Sean Carey of Bon Iver, Jack DeJohnette, Blake Mills, yMusic, The Staves, and Brad Cook.
context_section_description: Hornsby's touring band lineup underwent extensive changes between 1998 and 2000 as well, with longtime drummer John Molo joining former Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh in his band Phil Lesh & Friends.  A set of twenty consecutive shows performed by Hornsby and his band at Yoshi's Jazz Club in Oakland, California marked a particularly innovative period of evolution for his live shows; there Hornsby and his band were "able to explore songs in a completely spontaneous fashion". Since that time Hornsby has avoided even planning set lists for his shows, preferring to choose songs on the spot based mainly on audience requests. As Hornsby experimented with a different sound, ushering in frequent collaborations with such musicians as Steve Kimock on guitar and Bobby Read on heavily effects-driven electronic woodwinds, a new band, dubbed the Noisemakers, took shape. In 2000, Hornsby chronicled this journey with a compilation live album entitled Here Come The Noise Makers, and did extensive touring with his new band featuring John "J.T." Thomas (keyboards, organ), Bobby Read (saxophones, woodwinds, flute), J.V. Collier (bass), Doug Derryberry (guitar, mandolin), and several different drummers before Sonny Emory took over full-time.
  His next studio album of new material was not until 2002: Big Swing Face. The album was Hornsby's most experimental effort to date; Big Swing Face, the only album on which Hornsby barely plays any piano, relied heavily on post-electronica beats, drum loops, Pro Tools editing, and dense synthesizer arrangements. The album also boasts a "stream-of-consciousness wordplay" of lyrics that are in many ways more eccentric and humorous than previous work. Big Swing Face received mixed reviews, ranging from "a new and improved Bruce Hornsby" to being called one of the "strangest records of 2002".
  In 2004, after 19 successful years on RCA Records, Hornsby returned to a more acoustic, piano-driven sound on his Columbia Records debut Halcyon Days, which reviewers described as "pure Hornsby". Guests included Sting, Elton John and Eric Clapton.
  Throughout tours following the album's release, both with the Noisemakers and in solo performances, Hornsby continued to demonstrate his desire to "grow" as a singer and performer and to expand the instrumental possibilities of the piano in various genres. He also began to offer CD sets and digital downloads of digitally-mastered soundboard recordings of live concerts via the Bruce Hornsby Live website; selected concerts have been offered since 2002.
  In July 2006, Hornsby released a four-CD/DVD box set titled Intersections (1985–2005). The discs are thematically broken into three categories: "Top 90 Time", "Solo Piano, Tribute Records, Country-Bluegrass, Movie Scores", and "By Request (Favorites and Best Songs)". A full third of the music is previously unreleased; many familiar tracks are presented as unreleased live versions rather than the original studio recordings, and the majority of the remaining tracks are from single B-sides, collaborations or tribute albums, and movie soundtracks.  One song, "Song H", a new composition, was nominated for Best Pop Instrumental at the 2007 Grammy Awards.
  In 2007 Hornsby began more regularly playing classical music: at a concert in Saint Louis, Missouri, during Hornsby's improvisational session in "The Way It Is", he began playing J.S. Bach's Goldberg Variations along with the drums. In a different city, he played five straight Goldberg Variations over the drum intro of "Gonna Be Some Changes Made".
  On September 15, 2009, Bruce Hornsby and the Noisemakers released their fourth album, Levitate, to mixed reviews; it included new solo material with several songs co-written with Chip DiMatteo for the Broadway play SCKBSTD. May 2011 saw the release of the band's latest live album, Bride of the Noisemakers.
caption: Hornsby performing a solo piano show June 21, 2005 in North Bethesda, Maryland, audience requests visible across keyboard
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