Petaluma songbird spreads her wings

How does someone find the time to own and operate a business as well as sing in two popular bands - and then launch yet another musical project?

“It’s like running small countries,” said Pamela Joyce, who owns a local skin-care salon by day and fronts “D’Bunchovus and Foxes in the Henhouse by night. “It’s sometimes a daunting task to get everybody in the same place for gigs and rehearsals, because most everybody I play with also plays in other bands. But it’s all about having a passion for what you do. I’ve just learned to juggle things around.”

D’Bunchovus, a five-piece band, evolved as an offshoot of a dance band called Funk Sway.

“I wanted to go back to my roots with acoustic music and harmonies,” Joyce said.

So she asked Tom Farnham, also a member of Funk Sway, if he wanted to form a duo with her. They quickly worked up a song list and The Two of Us was born. Not long afterward, Funk Sway bassist John Lonacker joined them and the group became The Two of Us, A Three-Piece Duo.

When the ensemble expanded to four and then five musicians, they renamed themselves D’Bunchovus. Multi-instrumentalist Russ Gauthier (a former member of New Riders of the Purple Sage) and harmonica player Bruce Kurnow (Mason Proffit) round out the current quintet.

“D’Bunchovus is a very special group to me,” Joyce said. “I get to sit between the most amazing musicians I’ve ever been with.”

The group’s sound is harmony-driven with a variety of musical genres. They cover songs by such artists as Led Zeppelin, the Beatles, Carole King and Taj Mahal (plus a few original tunes by Farnham), but they don’t consider themselves a cover band.

“We’re kind of the un-cover band,” she said.

D’Bunchovus has released a CD, “Random Acts of Music.”

“I’ve always been ‘the chick up front’ in all of my bands,” said Joyce, who has been singing professionally since her late teens. “But I’ve never done a solo project. I couldn’t do it without singing harmony. I like being part of a group.”

She also plays guitar, mandolin, ukulele, banjo, harmonica, cajón and washboard in both bands.

Recently, Joyce and Farnham decided to revive the Two of Us as a duo project while keeping D’Bunchovus together as well.

“We’ve worked up a lot of the same songs we used to do as a duo,” Joyce said.

Farnham, who has been playing with Joyce since the early 2000s, sang Joyce’s praises.

“Pamela is a combination of the most gracious, fun, talented and giving musician I’ve ever performed with. She is, by far, my favorite person to share a stage with,” he said.

Joyce’s other band, Foxes in the Henhouse, an all-female ensemble, came together after a conversation she had with a friend.

“I thought that having a group with two- or three-part female harmonies would be something beautiful and special,” she said. She contacted Elaine Lucia, Kathy Mezger and Dorian Bartley. “I immediately got responses from all of them saying, ‘Yes.’?”

Their first gig was at the annual Black History Celebration at the Petaluma Community Center in 2010. After six years, the group is going strong, despite a couple of brief interruptions due to personnel changes.

Lucia and Mezger amicably left the group within a couple of years, and the remaining two Foxes found themselves at a crossroads. Instead of disbanding, Joyce and Bartley decided to rebuild the group. Violinist Alice Fitzwater immediately stepped in, but finding a singer-guitarist proved to be more challenging. Eventually, Hannah Jern-Miller agreed to join the Foxes and after a three-month break to rehearse with the new members, the Foxes were off and running again. Percussionist Kathy Rothkop, who had been sitting in with the band, recently became a full-time Fox as well.

The group’s music is rooted in Americana, gospel, folk and bluegrass music.

“We’re more ‘rootsy’ than D’Bunchovus,” Joyce said. This year they released their first CD, “Fox on the Run.”

Joyce, 63, has noticed a resurgence of musicians of similar age in Petaluma over the past few years. Most of them played music when they were younger, then drifted away to raise families or pursue their careers.

“I started to notice these people were coming out of their cubicles and doing music again at an older age,” she said. “They are following their heart. It’s a brave thing to do when you are older. I’ve been really impressed by that.”

As for Joyce, she doesn’t plan to stop anytime soon.

“I’m going to keep going until somebody takes me aside, then maybe I’ll think about it,” she said. “Music is something that you can do until you just can’t physically do it anymore.”

(Chris Samson is the former editor of the Argus-Courier. Contact him at chrissamson@yahoo.com.)