Ponty Bone is a Texan accordion

Accordion

The accordion is a box-shaped musical instrument of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone family, sometimes referred to as a squeezebox. A person who plays the accordion is called an accordionist....

ist who has led his 1980s band, the Squeezetones to international popularity over a twenty year period.

Originally from San Antonio, Texas

San Antonio, Texas

San Antonio is the seventh-largest city in the United States of America and the second-largest city within the state of Texas, with a population of 1.33 million. Located in the American Southwest and the south–central part of Texas, the city serves as the seat of Bexar County. In 2011,...

, Bone began studying accordion when he was only 5 years old. Later, he learned to play trumpet also. Ponty attended Texas Tech

Texas Tech University

Texas Tech University, often referred to as Texas Tech or TTU, is a public research university in Lubbock, Texas, United States. Established on February 10, 1923, and originally known as Texas Technological College, it is the leading institution of the Texas Tech University System and has the...

 in Lubbock

Lubbock, Texas

Lubbock is a city in and the county seat of Lubbock County, Texas, United States. The city is located in the northwestern part of the state, a region known historically as the Llano Estacado, and the home of Texas Tech University and Lubbock Christian University...

.

Early in his career Bone became a member of the Joe Ely

Joe Ely

Joe Ely is an American singer, songwriter and guitarist whose music touches on honky-tonk, Texas Country, Tex-Mex and rock and roll....

 Band.

By the mid 1980s Ponty Bone had formed his own band, Ponty Bone & the Squeezetones. The group's early style ranged through Russian gypsy dances, reggae

Reggae

Reggae is a music genre first developed in Jamaica in the late 1960s. While sometimes used in a broader sense to refer to most types of Jamaican music, the term reggae more properly denotes a particular music style that originated following on the development of ska and rocksteady.Reggae is based...

-blues

Blues

Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...

, Tex-Mex

Tejano music

Tejano music or Tex-Mex music is the name given to various forms of folk and popular music originating among the Mexican-American populations of Central and Southern Texas...

 polka

Polka

The polka is a Central European dance and also a genre of dance music familiar throughout Europe and the Americas. It originated in the middle of the 19th century in Bohemia...

s, and Cajun

Cajun

Cajuns are an ethnic group mainly living in the U.S. state of Louisiana, consisting of the descendants of Acadian exiles...

 boogie

Boogie

Boogie is a repetitive, swung note or shuffle rhythm, "groove" or pattern used in blues which was originally played on the piano in boogie-woogie music. The characteristic rhythm and feel of the boogie was then adapted to guitar, double bass, and other instruments. The earliest recorded...

. In 1987, early in their career, the group made their singular appearance on the PBS

Public Broadcasting Service

The Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit public broadcasting television network with 354 member TV stations in the United States which hold collective ownership. Its headquarters is in Arlington, Virginia....

 music television program Austin City Limits

Austin City Limits

Austin City Limits is an American public television music program recorded live in Austin, Texas by Public Broadcasting Service Public television member station KLRU, and broadcast on many PBS stations around the United States...

, as part of a "Squeezebox Special" episode. Longtime Squeezetones bassist Wash Hamilton died in early 2008.

With his band, Ponty has shared the stage with such artists as The Clash

The Clash

The Clash were an English punk rock band that formed in 1976 as part of the original wave of British punk. Along with punk, their music incorporated elements of reggae, ska, dub, funk, rap, dance, and rockabilly...

, Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, King Flaco Jiménez

Flaco Jiménez

Leonardo "Flaco" Jiménez is a Tejano music accordionist from San Antonio, Texas. Jiménez's father, Santiago Jiménez Sr. was a pioneer of conjunto music. He began performing with his father at age seven and recording at age fifteen, as a member of Los Caporales...

, Linda Ronstadt

Linda Ronstadt

Linda Ronstadt is an American popular music recording artist. She has earned eleven Grammy Awards, two Academy of Country Music awards, an Emmy Award, an ALMA Award, numerous United States and internationally certified gold, platinum and multiplatinum albums, in addition to Tony Award and Golden...

 and Ronnie Lane

Ronnie Lane

Ronald Frederick "Ronnie" Lane was an English musician, songwriter, and producer who is best known as the bass guitarist and founding member of two prominent English rock and roll bands; the Small Faces where he was nicknamed "Plonk", – and, after losing the band's frontman, Faces, with two new...

.

Bone's album, "Fantasize" (on the Loud House label) has been described as drawing from Tex-Mex

Tejano music

Tejano music or Tex-Mex music is the name given to various forms of folk and popular music originating among the Mexican-American populations of Central and Southern Texas...

, rock, blues, R & B, zydeco

Zydeco

Zydeco is a form of uniquely American roots or folk music. It evolved in southwest Louisiana in the early 19th century from forms of "la la" Creole music...

, and even Caribbean music

Caribbean music

The music of the Caribbean is a diverse grouping of musical genres. They are each syntheses of African, European, Indian and native influences, largely created by descendants of African slaves...

to create a whole new style.

External links

• http://www.pontybone.com