Bonnie Koloc was once called a renaissance woman, and it’s easy to see why.
As an accomplished singer/songwriter, visual artist, actor and illustrator, Koloc embodies the essence of an artist regardless of the medium. Originally from Waterloo, Iowa, she made a name for herself in Chicago when she first arrived in 1968 to chase her passion for singing.
“I’ve sung since I was a little girl. I knew I wanted to be a singer really early on,” she said in an interview ahead of her show at Evanston SPACE on Saturday, Nov. 23. “When I went to college, I started out as a drama major, switched to an art major and then I started making a living at singing. I was interested in playing guitar, but then I found out about folk music, and actually I was very interested in traditional folk music. I loved Irish, English ballads, and I loved, actually, Gregorian chant and very traditional stuff.”
Iconic folk singer Bonnie Koloc, who recently turned 80, is coming to Evanston for a rare performance Saturday night, Nov. 23. Credit: ProvidedAs a student at the University of Northern Iowa, Koloc began to explore music, taking lessons from Scott Cawalti and Bob Waller, who inspired her to start performing locally. Despite being initially hesitant, she played her first gigs at the Cypress Lounge in the Regent Hall in Cedar Falls, among other venues in Iowa where she learned valuable lessons in performing.
As she continued singing, she said she felt the need for a change of scenery. That change was a move to Chicago, where she had a friend who was an artist.
“I took the midnight train, the Illinois Central, into Chicago,” Koloc recalled. “And my friend picked me up on a Saturday morning. I think it was probably like in March or April. And I slept on his floor and cleaned house for him till I got a place for myself in Old Town.”
Living in the Old Town neighborhood provided ample opportunities to perform at numerous venues in the area, namely the Quiet Knight on Wells Street and the Earl of Old Town, which had become a home to the city’s folk scene after opening in 1962.
Koloc’s first year in Chicago was 1968, and she remembers grappling with chaos on the streets during that summer’s Democratic National Convention.
“That whole area was just crazy, and I was in the middle of it. So, yeah, it was really an interesting time,” she said. “And we were singing a lot of protest songs. And, oh my gosh, you’d go out on Wells Street, and it was like the midway of a circus.”
She recalls witnessing some of the demonstrations organized by the Youth International Party, or Yippies, including carrying a pig through the streets and violence ahead of a performance at the Quiet Knight.
“I was working with [folk duo] Jim and Jean, who were fantastic, and they did a lot of Phil Ochs songs, and Phil Ochs was very well known for his incredible songs, protest songs. And I was opening for them at the Quiet Knight that first summer during the convention,” Koloc said. “And people were running … past a window at the club, and they were running on Wells Street, and I looked out the window and saw the police chasing people … and beating this guy with one of their clubs. It was crazy.”
Amid the chaotic atmosphere that summer, she continued singing in Old Town and even made her way up north to Evanston, performing at Amazingrace Coffeehouse. Amazingrace was considered an institution at the time for music of the counterculture movement on the Northwestern campus. Koloc performed there many times during the 1970s, and she remembers how the audience of students would sit on blankets to watch her.
When she felt she had done everything there was to do in Chicago, she moved to New York City. There, she pursued acting, and she decided she wouldn’t turn anything down that came her way. This led to her a nomination for the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actress in a Musical and a Theatre World Award in 1984 for The Human Comedy. Yet, she felt compelled to move back to Chicago and return to her education.
“I decided that nothing made sense in my career, and so I came back to Chicago and decided I would finish my degree in art because no one in my family had ever even finished high school,” Koloc said. “And so I wanted that college degree.”
She earned her degree in art education from the University of Northern Iowa at age 44. She prides herself on graduating with a 4.0 GPA after initially being kicked out because of her grades.
Since then, Koloc has continued exploring different mediums of art to express herself. Whether painting, illustrating or sculpting, she said it all comes down to her love of making new things.
Even with the challenges of the music and theater industries, she has stayed persistent with her art.
“My career has been so crazy, but I’ve done what I love. It’s what I am. It’s who I am to be an artist,” she said. “The arts are, to me, indispensable. They make life to me bearable and interesting.”
As an artist who finds inspiration from many sources, Koloc was always proudly eclectic and resisted the pressure to fit into one box, even from her record company, which wanted her to have a signature sound.
“One record guy said to me, ‘Well, what are you? You’re all over the place.’ But I had to do who I am, and I’m just interested in a lot of different stuff,” she said. “As a visual artist, you’re always influenced by everybody. When you’re starting, you just are. And then you find your groove that all blends together and becomes your own thing.”
Even though her upcoming concert at SPACE is the only performance on her schedule, Koloc said she hopes to continue performing in the future. She still feels excitement around performing, especially earlier this year, when she spent her 80th birthday doing what she loves most: performing at the Old Town School of Folk Music.
“I don’t feel old, and I’m still singing well, so it’s really thrilling to do this,” Koloc said. “In my life, if I had to live again, I would want to come back as a singer.”
Although some of her original band members have died, Koloc feels fortunate to be playing with Chicago-based musicians Steve Eisen, John Mulder, Eric Hochberg and Rose Snider. To her, the audience is the final part of an art piece, and she wants to continue finding audiences to complete future work.
Throughout her life, Koloc has remained committed to art regardless of the shape it takes.
“In certain ways, the arts open doors for us because it really comes from self expression, and that’s born into us as human beings,” she said. “Solving problems and creative thinking, that’s the kind of thinking you need for things like NASA and research and being a doctor. There’s an art in everything, and we must, we must, we must pursue that for our children and for everybody. It’s so important.”
Koloc will be performing Saturday, Nov. 23, at Evanston SPACE, 1245 Chicago Ave. Doors open at 7 p.m. A limited number of standing-room-only tickets are still available here for $25.
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