Petrella Ann Bonner

2021 brought Petrella's 8th album "Song of Many Colors" with lead-off single "Bebop Hoedown" scoring 164,781 streams on Spotify with the follow-up single "Bring It Here Baby" receiving 163,201 streams on Spotify.

In 2016 Petrella was listed in Essence magazine as one of the “18 Black Country Singers You Need to Know”.

In the summer and fall of 2015 Petrella sponsored two scholars to work as interns in the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum's Digital and Library Collections department, re-housing approximately 20,000 images from the Fabry Collection into archival quality storage. Most recently she donated two acres of land to Habitat for Humanity, on which four homes were built.

In 2013 Petrella formed a band in Arkansas to tour Arkansas and help raise money for “Every Child is Ours” in Northeast Arkansas. The band also performed with and raised money for the Philander Smith College Choir.

In the year 2012 she recorded her 25th anniversary album Shine on Me with DJ Jack Gale as her producer and filmed a video of her single “Working in the USA” with video producer K.C. Amos.

In 2012 Petrella formed a band, Mixed Influence, and for the next few years played at venues throughout Southern California and Central Coast California. She opened for The Spinners in February 2018 at The Rose Music Venue in Pasadena, CA. She has also opened for Gladys Knight, Tracy Lawrence, A. J. Croce (son of Jim Croce), Billy Vera and the Beaters and the Delfonics.

Petrella moved to Pasadena, CA in 2010 to write songs for a new album and to attend the California College of Music where she received a Certificate of Completion of the Artist Development Program, Professional Level on March 25, 2011. At CCM she received instruction from Kevin Dorsey, Phillip Ingram, Oren Waters, Uros Raskovski, Alex Brown, Dr. Sherri Canon, Ray Iglese and Daniel Brummel.

Petrella was introduced to the theatre at Tarrant County Junior College and appeared in three amateur productions. Based on this experience, in 2009 Petrella developed a one-woman show called 18 Reasons to Live, Laugh and Love with the help of writer/director Stacy Schronk. She joined the Arkansas Arts Council, the Mid-America Arts Alliance and Arts Midwest, and attended showcases and booking conferences; she then performed her show throughout Kansas, Arkansas, and Nebraska, and in 2012 performed three shows at the Carrie Hamilton Theatre located at the historic Pasadena Playhouse.

Also in 2009, Petrella represented Hot Spring Village in the Mrs. Arkansas American beauty pageant and as a first time contestant was awarded Mrs. Congeniality.

In 2008 she signed a distribution deal with Warner Bros. Records through TMG, resulted in her single "I Want To Know You Forever" from her 2008 CD 100 Proof Woman charting on the Billboard Hot Single Sales at number 15.

The start of 2000 took Petrella to Pasadena, CA where she reconnected with David Scheffler, a producer who had worked on a lot of her songwriting demos. She worked with Scheffler on her CD Papa Did a Raindance as well as working with Jason Miles (New York producer) on two songs for the CD, Anthony Smith (Nashville) on three songs for the CD and Charles Ng for a photo shoot for the CD art work.

In the years 2000 through 2007 Petrella was touring and promoting her CDs throughout the United States with stops at Hastings video and music stores in 16 cities in AR, TX, NM, OK, CO, TN and WY. She also started performing at coffee shops with her “Brewing a cup of Dreams” tour throughout IA, WI and IL.

In 1996, Petrella created Dreams of the Heartland Foundation, a not-for-profit organization that utilized the proceeds from her album sales to the Garland County Literacy Council, the Lupus Foundation of America, Charitable Christian Medical Clinics, Habitat for Humanity, and Court Appointed Special Advocates. Her foundation also provided scholarships to music majors or full-time members of the college choir at Philander Smith College, her alma mater.

In 1994, two other singles, "Go For It" and "Remedy" reached the country charts top 100 and Nashville Tracker magazine nominated Petrella as New Female Vocalist of the Year and her Album was nominated as “Album of the Year”. Petrella's relationship with Gale spanned almost 30 years until his death in 2018 and included three CDs (Petrella, 100 Proof Woman and Shine on Me). That year she went to Nashville, TN to prepared her one-woman show for her first tour. She performed at the 1994 Inaugural Country Fanfest at the LA County Fairgrounds in Pomona, CA as well as touring seven secondary markets including on-air interviews at radio stations in Hot Springs, AR, Hot Springs Village, AR, Childress, TX, Pampa, TX, Clovis, NM, Portales, NM and Alamogordo, NM.

As a member of the Nashville Songwriters Association International, Petrella received “Songwriter of the Year” from the Tennessee Songwriters Association for her song “Living on a Shoestring”. Petrella also joined R.O.P.E. (Reunion of Professional Entertainers, Nashville, TN) in 1994. Petrella also has showcased at Nashville's The Broken Spoke and attended songwriter nights at The Bluedbird Café and Douglas Corner. She performed at Norman Petty Studio in Clovis, NM in 1995 and appeared on the Midnight Jamboree Radio show out of the Ernest Tubbs Record Store where she performed “Blues Stay Away from Me” while being backed by the Rhonda Vincent Band.

In 1988 as a member of the Los Angeles Songwriters Showcase, Petrella received her first record contract from pitching a demo to Jack Gale of Playback Records, an independent record label in Nashville, TN. She signed a contract in 1989 with Ridgewood Records (a division of Playback Records) for a 2-sided single. In 1991 the song "This Isn't Goodbye" charted on the Up and Coming Chart at Number 14. and "Blues Stay Away From Me", charted on Cashbox Top 100 Country Singles at number 85. This chart action led Gale to form a “Country-Soul Division" under Playback Records with the first album release featuring Petrella distributed nationally by Laurie Records. A video of “Blues Stay Away from Me” recorded in California was also released and played nationally. On March 13, 1993 the music trade magazine Cashbox featured her on the cover and the cover story. Her single "I Found Somebody" placed her as the #1 Indie at #53 on Cashbox Top 100 Country Singles.

Petrella was married in 1976 to her husband Bob and has two children, Nedra and April and five grandchildren. She had one great grandson, Braiden, who died at the age of 3. Petrella and her family have lived in several states including Michigan, Ohio, Iowa, Colorado, Arizona, Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana, Tennessee, and California. She currently resides in California with her husband.

Petrella Ann Bonner (born April, 1947) is an American country music singer, songwriter, and music producer. Billing herself as "The first lady of country soul", she has released eight studio albums. A number of her songs have appeared on the Top 100 Country Singles charts, and she has toured throughout the United States. She was named “Songwriter of the Year” in 1994 by the Tennessee Songwriters Association.