THE CULTURE

Micah Bonn When I Get a Nudie Suit

WRITTEN BY JENNY STARLING FOSS

PHOTOGRAPHY BY FRANK FORTUNE

Micah Bonn

Micha Bonn strums her silver and black Les Paul Gibson electric guitar, standing on the front porch of a house in South Georgia, singing into the night, “Why don’t you do right; do right by me? Why don’t you do right, baby? Show me some mercy.” The lyrics and tune are original music written and performed by the virtuoso in her Youtube video “Do Right.”

A polymathic performer, Micah, formerly known professionally as Micahlan Boney, is now an accomplished musician who plays fiddle, mandolin, and banjo, plus electric and acoustic guitars during her solo performances.

But before she was posting impressive ballads online or performing in Nashville, Micah was a music student. She started learning classical violin at the early age of eight.

“I took classical violin at GSU and from Dr. John Aceto, director of the strings program at the Averitt Center for the Arts,” said Micah.

But, classical violin didn’t have the toe tapping sound that Micah was drawn to.

“I became interested in the roots of the American fiddle and went to Appalachia to study the old masters of the style. Players like Tommy Jarrell, Ed Hayley and Bobby Taylor, founder of the Appalachian String Band Festival. I sought out the best and wanted to know what it really meant to be a fiddle player.”

She performed fiddle in North Carolina and in Nashville at fiddle contests and won.

“But, how many times can you play ‘Devil Went Down to Georgia?’” she asked. “I wanted to stretch the sound of the instrument. I fell in love with Jerry Lee Lewis and wanted to play the fiddle like he plays the piano.”

She calls the sound she’s arrived at “Cosmic Country Funk.” Which has a down-to-earth poetic approach to music inspired by musicians like Gram Parsons.

“Funk with an infectious rhythm,” she said.

In 2017, at the age of 16, she won the John Hartford Memorial Songwriter’s Challenge in Indiana with the song “Gone too Soon.” She was the first girl and the youngest to ever win the contest. Micah feels music is her true calling and it’s what she is most passionate about. „

“I have lived in Nashville for the past year and a half working with producers who have recorded with Dolly Parton, Vince Gill and Emmy Lou Harris,” she said. “I’m working on an album releasing my songs one at a time.”

“Do Right” is currently on Youtube and will soon be available on Spotify.

“Promoting my music is a grassroots effort,” she said. “The producer helps with getting the song out there, but it’s up to me to promote it. It’s too common now to quickly churn out an album of ubiquitous songs that seem like they are copy and pasted. Songs about dirt roads, beer and the river.”

Instead, Micah prefers to concentrate on authenticity and her identity which she feels will be more valuable to her career in time.

Micah gets her ideas for songs by reading and studying the poetry of artists like Leonard Cohen and Maya Angelou.

“My songs start out as poetry and I put them to music,” she said. “Love songs are super powerful.”

Micah focuses mostly on the guitar and fiddle because those are the instruments she uses to compose. She “loops”” her recordings to capture multiple performances or takes of the same music passages while playing her different instruments. It can sound like a band of musicians, but all of the instruments heard on the song track are played by Micah.

While in Nashville, Micah was picked up by a pirate band, Tom Mason & the Blue Buccaneers.

“I fiddled for them,” she said. “It was a combination of pirate, rock and blues. It was interesting.”

Micah is managed by her biggest fan and promoter, her father Mike Boney, a jeweler and master craftsman by trade. Her mom, Karen helps with the family business.

She chose to change the family name to Bonn, back to its Swiss base, for her stage name and brand.

In addition to “Do Right” her new songs include “True Lovin’ Woman,” “Sweet Josephine,” “Easy Way of Lovin,’” and “When I Get a Nudie Suit.”

“There’s a story behind “When I Get a Nudie Suit,” Micah said.

Nudie Cohn is an American tailor who designed decorative „

We’re not just here for you. We’re here with you.

Member FDIC Equal Housing Lender

104 Springhill Drive | Statesboro 912.225.1460 colony.bank

Statesboro’s favorite place to retire since 1988

We boast being the region’s only community to offer a National Board Certified Assisted Living Executive Director as well as a National Board Certified Adult Nurse Practitioner to meet the needs our families, residents, and employees. With 45 private rooms in addition to a large spacious sun room, lobby and lifestyle center, our Residents and Families will agree we are the very finest in retirement living.

rhinestone-covered suits, known as “Nudie Suits,” and other elaborate outfits for celebrities. Cohn dressed Roy and Dale Evans, Hank Snow, Hank Williams, Sr., Gram Parsons and bands like Chicago and ZZ Top. He passed away in 1984, but the family tradition of dressing performers and rhinestone cowboys is now done by granddaughter, Jamie Nudie.

Bonn’s friend, pianist Jerry Gowen of St. Simons Island, contacted Manuel Cuevas, master tailor for Nashville stars in the tradition of Nudie Cohn.

“He invited me to the store in Nashville to play for him. Then he made me a suit and gave it to me,” she said. She got it last September.

“He chose the design,” she said. “Red flames for rock, leopard for funk, rhinestones on a pair of lips on the butt, and music notes on the sleeves. Plus a fiddle on back.”

Clad in her Nudie Suit, Bonn feels that her time has come.

“I want to play updated fiddle with more bluesy rock,” she said. “I want to honor where I came from. We have to know where we came from to see where we’re going. Also, how do we innovate, evolve, and change while still honoring the past? I believe the spirit of the music is purest with the people who started it.”

What does Bonn hope to accomplish in the future with her silky soulful voice and her musical prowess?

“I want to craft shows and songs about sharing a message of hope,” she said. “Music is the quickening art. It is a powerful form of spreading hope. My middle name is Hope, so it was all meant to be.” S