4-time Grammy nominee and multi-platinum musician Boney James is bringing his Spring 2019 Honestly Tour to Detroit on Sat., April 20. The dynamic saxophonist and genre-blurring artist is celebrating his 16th album release, Honestly, which has dominated the #1 spot on the Billboard Contemporary Jazz Chart for four weeks and was a career-high Billboard Current Albums Chart debut for James, landing at #22 — a rare feat for an instrumentalist.
Since his 1992 debut as a solo artist, James has sold over three million records, has four RIAA gold albums, four Grammy nominations, a Soul Train Award, nominations for two NAACP Image Awards, and 11 CDs atop Billboard’s Contemporary Jazz Albums chart. In 2009, Billboard named him one of the top three Contemporary Jazz Artists of the Decade, along with Kenny G and Norah Jones.
With Honestly, as with futuresoul and the Grammy-nominated The Beat before it, James is making some of the most stellar, wholly realized music of his career. “I’ve just grown up, personally and musically,” he says. “We are living in interesting times. The one thing I can do with the skills that I have is to make music that evokes feelings. I’m doing what I can to try and make the world a more pleasant place.”
James started playing music early, as an 8-year old he took up the clarinet and switched to the sax two years later. It quickly became his favorite hobby and, when he was 19 and had to decide what was next in his life, James said he realized there was nothing else he felt so passionate about and so he decided to try and make a career out of making music.
Motown was an early influence for James, and he’s always loved playing in Detroit. James said that from the beginning of his solo career, Detroit has been one of his most supportive towns and that “the audiences are the best”. He particularly enjoys playing at the Detroit Opera House and the Aretha Franklin Amphitheatre (formerly Chene Park).
James will be at the Detroit Opera House on Sat., April 20 at 8 p.m.
