Bruce Hornsby

Pouring his heart out in catchy jazz-pop piano ballads, Bruce Hornsby's sophisticated, sentimental songwriting made him the thinking man's crooner on the late 1980s, and led to album sales of over 10 million. Born on November 23, 1954, in Williamsburg, Virginia, he started out playing Allman Brothers covers with his elder bother at college, before teaming up with his younger sibling John and moving to Los Angeles to work as songwriters and session musicians. He landed a deal with RCA in 1985 with his backing band Range and found huge success with second single "The Way It Is." Written in reference to the American Civil Rights Movement and arranged around an iconic, cascading piano riff, the track became his great signature anthem, reaching Number 1 in the US charts and later sampled on Tupac Shakur's posthumous hit "Changes." He went on to win the first of three Grammy Awards for Best New Artist, and albums The Way It Is (1986) and Scenes From The Southside (1988) both made the US Top 5, while "Mandolin Rain" and "The Valley Road" also became big hit singles. Bruce Hornsby began playing with his boyhood heroes the Grateful Dead in 1988 and inducted them into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994, and Jerry Garcia appeared on his album Harbor Lights (1993) alongside Phil Collins, Bonnie Raitt and Branford Marsalis. He also recruited fans Sting, Eric Clapton and Elton John to play on Halcyon Days (2004) and received great acclaim for his bluegrass collaboration with Ricky Skaggs in 2007. The next phase in his career included the Noisemakers studio album Levitate in 2009, the retrospective/live package Bride of the Noisemakers in 2011, the Skaggs collaboration Cluck Ol’ Hen in 2013, the solo set Solo Concerts in 2014, and Rehab Reunion in 2016, a Noisemakers album built around Bruce Hornsby’s Appalachian dulcimer playing. Alongside those records, he kept expanding his film and television work with Spike Lee, scoring or contributing music to Kobe Doin’ Work, Red Hook Summer, Da Sweet Blood of Jesus, both seasons of She’s Gotta Have It, and BlacKkKlansman; he also reunited with the Grateful Dead camp for the 2015 Fare Thee Well concerts. From 2019 onward he entered one of the most adventurous stretches of his catalog, releasing Absolute Zero, Non-Secure Connection, and ’Flicted—a trilogy that drew in collaborators including Justin Vernon, James Mercer, Jamila Woods, Ezra Koenig, Danielle Haim, Blake Mills, yMusic, Jack DeJohnette, and Robert Hunter. He revisited Spirit Trail with a 25th-anniversary edition in 2023, then teamed with yMusic as BrhyM for Deep Sea Vents in 2024, a ten-song collaboration that reached Number 1 on Billboard’s Classical Crossover chart. In 2026, as The Way It Is reached its 40th anniversary, Bruce Hornsby released Indigo Park, featuring contributions from Bonnie Raitt, Ezra Koenig, Bob Weir, Blake Mills, Pino Palladino, Chris Dave, and Robert Hunter, and launched an extensive U.S. tour with the Noisemakers behind the album.