While it would be churlish to suggest that it’s the endorsement of Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon that has been the driving force behind Bruce Hornsby’s late-career renaissance, it certainly hasn’t done any harm.
Vernon has openly admitted that his 2011 song, Beth/Rest, was an attempt to capture the magic of some of Hornsby’s ‘80s pop-piano productions, and the pair have ended up collaborating on various projects over the past decade, both live and in the studio.
Now, in an interview with Uncut, Hornsby has been discussing how he first heard about Vernon’s band, and the first song of theirs that really gave him the feels.
“Around 2013 I started getting all these Google alerts about this group Bon Iver, because Justin Vernon was shouting me out in the press,” he says. “Of course, I was curious, so I checked out the music and it just floored me, it was so amazingly gorgeous. And what a singer!”
While Hornsby might be a fan of Bon Iver’s earlier work, it’s a track from 2016 album 22, A Million that he picks out for special praise.
“This one song, 8 (Circle), was transformative and transcendent. His layered vocals are crazy, all the harmonies that he puts together. It’s very special, and I was so fortunate to be drawn into that world.”
It is, indeed, a ‘choon’ – one that borrows some of Hornsby’s own harmonic sensibilities, we might suggest.
Fittingly, Hornsby would go on to perform the aforementioned Beth/Rest alongside Justin Vernon at the Bon Iver frontman’s Eaux Claires festival in 2016, and the two have also collaborated live on I Can’t Make You Love Me, the 1991 Bonnie Raitt hit that Hornsby played on and Vernon covered in 2011.
