"Pay attention, Texas," announces Rockzilla World. "The land that gave birth to legends as disparate as Townes [Van Zandt] and Stevie Ray has birthed what may turn out to be another." Patricia Vonne is a woman of many worlds, a fact reflected within the richness and breadth of her music. A native of San Antonio, she developed her multicultural ranchera rock'n'roll while living in New York City before bringing it all back home to Texas.
And quite naturally, notes the Dallas Morning News, "there's no pigeonholing" her "alluring" debut album. With a voice hailed by Texas Music magazine as "strong, lush, supple and endlessly listenable," Vonne blends her spirited Tex-Mex musical roots with splashes of rock, country and blues as well as the corridas and rancheras of her Mexican heritage.

Vonne features a dozen bold and confident originals that run the gamut from slow-burn ballads like the Spanish "Soledad" to full-tilt, honky-tonk-ready rockers like "Mudpies and Gasoline". Her assertive roots rock with pop accents on "Won't Fade Away," "Shine A Light" and "Devotion" offer songs that seductively explore the complexities of modern love. The glowing coals of her potent balladry make feelings of personal longing ("Can You Hear Me") and spiritual hunger ("Morning After") tangibly emotive.

Vonne's poignant tribute in spanish to her grandmother on "Severina" compliments the vibrant Southwestern outlaw spirit that shines on her tributes to Native American ghost dancers ("Dance In The Circle") , female bandits ("Bandolera") and her epic tale, "El Cruzado."

Vonne is able to assert her vibrant personality within a diversity of musical and thematic modes offering "something for everyone" thanks to a lifelong immersion within a universe of music. One of 10 offspring of a drummer father of Mexican descent and a singing and guitar playing Spanish mother, she grew up in a household where "music was always a part of our lives." Her mother would quell the brood and instill them with a harmonic sense by leading them in Spanish folk songs from an early age, while also treating them to afternoons at the cinema enjoying MGM and Broadway musicals.

By her early teens, Vonne was also enjoying musical input from the various sounds and styles found within her siblings' record collections. But it was artists with a particularly Texan mix such as Lone Star heroes Stevie Ray Vaughan and Joe Ely that captured her imagination. After attending her first concert by Chris Isaak sideman Johnny Reno and his Sax Maniacs, Vonne was captured by the allure of performing onstage. Then when one of her brothers brought home an album by Chicano new wave rockers The Cruzados, she discovered a modern style that reflected her identity. " They sang in English and Spanish, which made us proud of our heritage," she recalls.

Moving to New York City to pursue her creative ambitions, Vonne landed a gig singing and then also playing bass in Mick & The Maelstroms, a hard-working pop-rock band on the Big Apple club circuit. By 1996, she had the confidence in her abilities to start penning songs that reflected her own musical and cultural experiences, often collaborating with her then boyfriend and now husband, Robert LaRoche from the Virgin recording act The Sighs. Hooking up with lead guitarist Kirk Brewster, a Texas transplant from the legendary Dallas band The Werewolves, Vonne formed a band that could deliver her Lone Star style with New York City intensity.

After playing the South By Southwest Music Festival in Austin in 1999, Vonne "knew I had to bring the music back home." Since settling in Austin the following year, she has rapidly become a popular Texas attraction thanks to what The Bulletin calls "a refreshing approach to the increasingly arid Texas music genre." Since forming her own Bandolera Records and releasing her first album to rave reviews, Vonne has forged a statewide performing circuit while also opening shows for Los Lobos, Joe Ely, Alejandro Escovedo, Raul Malo, Pat Green and Charlie Robison. Matching the passion of her music with flamenco dance stage moves and snapping castanets, she can "deliver the goods from the get-go" notes Texas Monthly writer and editor Joe Nick Patoski.

Vonne has also earned the admiration of her peers, joining her inspiration Tito Larriva of The Cruzados - who she pays tribute to with her song "El Cruzado" - for an eight week European tour with his band Tito and Tarantula playing guitar, mandolin, keyboards, castanets, and backing vocals. Her music will also be featured in the upcoming film "Once Upon a Time In Mexico," written and directed by her brother Robert Rodriguez ( who also co-wrote a song on the album)

With her music now taking root in its natural Texas soil, Vonne wants "to grow it organically." And its blossoming already augurs well for the future. Indeed, one listen to Patricia Vonne, hailed by the Austin Chronicle's Margaret Moser as "a bilingual tour-de-force that melds eclectic with electric and exudes an elegance seldom associated with rock" -- and it's clear she's caught up to her destiny with a vengeance.