Singer-songwriter, Grammy-winning trumpeter return to Fox Tucson

Karla Bonoff is returning to Fox Tucson Theatre on Tuesday, April 1, with a concert that she had hoped would be with JD Souther.

The singer-songwriters had spent weeks last year learning one another’s music and sketched out a show that connected many of the dots in their decades-long musical journeys.

“We had prepared a show with just the two of us on stage for 90 minutes doing both of our songs,” Bonoff said last week. “I learned ‘New Kid in Town’ and ‘Best of My Love’ and ‘Faithless Love’ and ‘Heartache Tonight’ and he learned all of mine. I was really excited about it.”

A week before the first show in Phoenix on Sept. 24, Souther died at his New Mexico home. He was 78.

In an homage to Souther and what could have been with the tour, Bonoff will include one of his songs in her set.

“I’m still just getting it together, so I’m not going to promise,” she said of possibly performing Souther’s “Last In Love,” recorded in 1978 by Nicolette Larson.

Back to homepage

Subscriber Login

Keep reading with a digital access subscription.

Subscribe now

Bonoff could slip the song into her setlist that draws from more than 40 years of writing songs that have been recorded by superstars including Bonnie Raitt, Wynonna and Tucson’s own Linda Ronstadt.

Ronstadt recorded six of Bonoff’s songs, including the hits “Lose Again,” “If He’s Ever Near” and “All My Life” with Aaron Neville.

Bonoff and her longtime guitarist Nina Gerber take the stage at the Fox, 17 W. Congress St., at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $20-$45 through foxtucson.com.

Also this weekend at the Fox:

• The 1970s California progressive R&B, soul band War will have Tucson rocking out to “Low Rider,” “Why Can’t We Be Friends” and “The Cisco Kid” at 7:30 p.m. Friday, March 28. Tickets are $39.50-$89.50.
• The Michael Jackson tribute band Rock With You will perform “Thriller” at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, March 29. The Sade tribute band Cherish the Day open the show; $34.50-$59.50.
• Grammy-winning jazz trumpeter Chris Botti must really like Tucson. He is back at the Fox less than two years after his last show in October 2023, which came less than a year after his first post-pandemic Tucson concert in April 2022. The show is 7 p.m. Sunday, March 30; $20-$89.50.

React