Born in Houston, Texas, on November 9, 1972, Carolyn Wonderland née Bradford is an American blues guitarist and singer. She developed an early love of the guitar and the music of Janis Joplin, Townes Van Zandt and Stevie Ray Vaughan, and began performing on local stages as a teenager. She gradually developed her electric style, blending blues, country, zydeco and rock with her band The Imperial Monkeys, who recorded the studio albums Play with Matches (1995) and Bursting with Flavor (1997). After settling in Austin in 1999, Carolyn Wonderland lived out of her van and criss-crossed the United States, performing three hundred concerts a year. She recorded the self-produced albums Bloodless Revolution (2003) and Alcohol & Salvation (2003) under her own name, before signing to Bismeaux Records, which released the follow-up Miss Understood (2008), featuring Ray Benson. Also a guitarist with the all-girl band Sis De Ville, the singer appeared at the Austin City Limits festival in 2008 and continued her career with the albums Peace Meal (2011), Live Texas Trio (live, 2015) and Moon Goes Missing (2017), before joining John Mayall's famous Bluesbreakers, for whom she was the last accompanying guitarist. After the album Tempting Fate (2021), produced by Dave Alvin, Truth Is was released in 2025.
