Marc Bonilla

Marc Bonilla is a guitarist and composer. He has worked with Keith Emerson (including on 1995's Changing States and in Emerson's 2006 touring band), Ronnie Montrose, Glenn Hughes (on Addiction (produced, co-written and performed), The Way It Is, 1999, also playing keyboards), David Coverdale (late 2000 live band) and Kevin Gilbert (Toy Matinee live band). He also appears on the Emerson, Lake & Palmer tribute album Encores, Legends & Paradox (Magna Carta Records, 1999) and a spoken word album with comedian Bobby Gaylor for Atlantic entitled "Fuzzatonic Scream" including the controversial single, "Suicide" in 1998.

He has released a number of solo albums. Among them, EE Ticket (Reprise, 1991), and American Matador (Warner Brothers, 1993), which includes covers of "A Whiter Shade of Pale" and "I Am the Walrus" with guest Ronnie Montrose.

Bonilla currently plays in California Transit Authority, a project led by former Chicago drummer and founding member Danny Seraphine, featuring some updates to early Chicago songs as well as new material and has currently completed the follow-up album of all original material. He has also produced, co-written and performed with the Keith Emerson Band's new album. In addition, he tours with Eddie Jobson's UZ Project as singer, guitarist and bassist.

Marc is originally from the San Francisco Bay area and, along with Joe Satriani, was one of the preeminent rock guitar teachers in the Bay area during the 80s. Marc moved to LA in the early 90's to work on TV and movie scoring working with James Newton Howard, John Debney, and others, earning an Emmy nomination in 2001. In addition, he had cameo roles in the 1997 television series Nightman about a crime-fighting sax player, for which he was the musical director and acted as a performer (with his band) in several episodes under the alias Marc Bonilla and Dragonchoir. He has done guitars for numerous films such as The Replacements, The Scorpion King, Spiderman 2, Iron Man 2, Green Lantern, The Bourne Legacy, and composes and performs the music on the hit series, Justified, on FX channel, with keyboardist, Steve Porcaro (Toto). He also lectured at LA's Guitar Institute of Technology (GIT). He now lives in Los Angeles with his wife and son and has recently completed a new ground-breaking album with Keith Emerson titled The Three Fates Project with the Munich Radio Orchestra, conducted by Maestro Terje Mikkelsen.

Although Marc appears in the video for Toy Matinee's "Ballad of Jenny Ledge," he did not actually play lead guitar on the album. Lead guitar work for the Toy Matinee LP was done by LA studio guitarist Tim Pierce, though Marc replaced him for the touring incarnation of the band along with Sheryl Crow.

Around the time that EE Ticket was released, Yamaha musical instruments produced a prototype left-handed Marc Bonilla model guitar. This guitar was embellished with comic book superheroes, of which Marc was very fond. (www.marcbonilla.com)