It was your typical Thursday night City Block party at Springfield’s Stearns Square, with just the right mix of Harleys, street people, fast-flowing beer and tranquil temperatures to make for a loud, raucous, fun-filled night.

But, then an odd thing happened. As the singer Bonnie Bramlett, that night’s entertainment, launched into her passionate, soulful rendition of Gregg Allman’s “Oncoming Traffic,” the bikers suddenly stopping their revving, the street people calmed down their demons and the beers taps seemingly shut down. There was silence, utter solitude from the crowd packed into the square, as the stupendously talented Bramlett poured all of her almost half-century of performing skills into the song, coaxing a stunned rapture out of the audience with her down home, gritty, sultry rendition of the song, displaying the utter perfection of a craft she first learned as an underage singer in the bars and clubs of her native East St. Louis, Illinois, honed through an incredible career with the vastly underrated, yet seminal Delaney & Bonnie & Friends, and which she has continued with her most recent solo album, the heartfelt, powerful, personal life exclamation of “I’m Still the Same.”

When she finished the song, emotionally spent, her hands cradling her microphone, sweat dripping off her, the crowd went absolutely crazy with appreciative applause, whistling and screaming. And that was only halfway through a spellbinding, hour-long tour de force of the soul, gospel and good time rock and roll performance that, seemingly, is the utter essence of the animated, spellbinding Bramlett, who, as she reaches close to age 60, is just as strong, both on stage and off, as she’s ever been.

As her record says, she’s “still the same.”

“I’m a demonstrative person, I’m big in all my feelings, and that translates really well on stage, although not so well sometimes in real life,” she said, with what seems to be an ever-present laugh and good humor, in an interview with Sound Waves before the show. “I can be too big, sometimes, for some people, emotionally. Nevertheless, I don’t have a knob to turn it off. Being on stage is my circle of life. I don’t mean to sound arrogant, I mean to sound accomplished. It’s what I do really well.

“It’s not my job to sell anything, it’s not my job to be famous, it’s my job to be a great singer, that’s what I do,” she continued. “It may not be who I am, I’m not sure of that yet, maybe, but it is what I do.”

And, if that night’s performance in Springfield was any gauge, Bramlett can still do it, in spades.

Her storied career began at the tender age of 14, when she began singing in the rhythm and blues bars of her East St. Louis hometown, where, at such a young age, she began her performance education with the likes of Miles Davis, Little Milton, Count Basie, King Curtis and Albert King, among many others. Working in those predominantly black settings was a revelation for her art, and for her expression, she said.

“I was raised a Christian, but found that I was so restrained in the white churches,” she said. “I found that freedom in the black churches, and in those black neighborhoods where I began performing on stage.

“I was raised in a very racist, separatist town, although when you are a little kid, you don’t know it,” she said. “They (in the black churches) made me cry. You dance in the spirit in the white churches, too, but it’s just something a little different there. I looked at some of these people, Mahalia Jackson when I was about age 8, and Tina Turner, when I was about 15 and she was all of about 20, and I just knew that was what I wanted to do. I thought ‘what they’re doing to me, I want to do to other people.’ And I knew in my inner-most feelings that I could.”

But, she said, it had to be done in the right places.

“I couldn’t do that in my community,” she said. “I had to go to their community. There’s no color to soul, it’s permission to feel, publicly. Us white kids ‘snuck under the bridge,’ so to speak, and went to the black clubs. It was safe to do that in those days.”

That education manifest itself in incredible ways for Bramlett, who became an Ikette, backing Ike and Tina Turner, at the age of 15.

“I was there anyway, so I knew all the parts; it was show biz, being in the right place at the right time,” she said. “Ike went to my house, because I was under age, and asked my mother for permission to join the band.

“I don’t care what anyone says, or what you have heard about Ike Turner, but I know he’s a man of his word; nothing but a gentleman. He treated me like a little lady,” she recalled. “I was separated, I was in different rooms, because they were the adults, and I didn’t have any business being there. My mother, my father, they used to come in sit with me, because I was under age.

“Let me tell you, without Ike Turner, baby, there would be no rhythm and blues.”

It was a learning experience, Bramlett admits, that would never happen in today’s programmed, packaged, corporate music world.

“That knowledge just isn’t available anymore,” she said.

In the late 60s, Bramlett moved to the Los Angeles area, where a whirlwind musical and personal romance blossomed with the guitarist and singer Delaney Bramlett.

“It was wham, bam, thank you m’am,” she said, laughing again, describing how that occurred. “We met, and we were married seven days later. We were in love, had children, put a band together, went right to the top, got introduced to cocaine and fell right back to the bottom, in about three seconds.

“And, the rest is all about recovery and getting up again,” she said, “And, I think that I’ve done a very good job with that.

“Delaney put the band together, he did all the hard work,” she remembered. “I hated going to the studio, live I excel, but the studio….. . He had the stress going on stage, he vomited before every show, so together we made quite a pair. He taught me the intricacies of harmony.

“He knew the Mississippi Delta blues, that’s where his heart was, and I knew the urban blues; I knew the city streets,” she said. “We were supposed to meet because we got Suzanne and Bekka (their two daughters).”

Their meeting also produced musically, with Delaney & Bonnie & Friends, which, at times, included luminaries such as Eric Clapton, George Harrison, John Lennon, Leon Russell, and Dave Mason, producing five stellar albums. The core band, bassist Carl Radle, drummer Jim Gordon, and keyboardist Bobby Whitlock, later formed Derek & the Dominos, with Clapton. Delaney & Bonnie & Friends received widened exposure on a European jaunt with Clapton playing along with them as a band member, captured on the “On Tour” album, as well as garnering the opening slot in the sole American tour of Clapton’s supergroup, Blind Faith. It was, Bramlett remembered, a somewhat mixed blessing.

“He (Clapton) heard about us from George Harrison,” she said. “George came down with Gram Parsons, taped us on a cassette and took it back to Eric. And, they hired us.

“I come from the blues, and I thought Eric Clapton was almost as good as Albert King, she recalled. “But, his influence caused us a lot of heartache, because it was misunderstood. We were almost booed off the stage in Germany, because everyone thought they were there to see ‘Eric Clapton with Delaney & Bonnie & Friends,’ rather than the other way around.

“They had no idea who we were, and they felt a little ripped off, and it was difficult after that,” she recalled. “But, we were the boot camp for all those people, who learned and went off to do their own thing. Eric has said it publicly, as well, that Delaney taught him how to sing.”

With their musical union came a years-long party, with the soulful music of the Bramletts and their Friends serving as their own personal soundtrack of that time. Much of that atmosphere has been chronicled in the recent film “Festival Express,” about the shenanigans of a month-long Canadian tour, by train, that included, along with them, the Band, the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, and several others. Bramlett performed at the recent Toronto premiere of the film.

“They left all the good parts (of ‘Festival Express’) out; what they put out was just so squeaky clean,” she laughed. “It was a difficult time for us, on that train. I got off in Calgary; it was too nasty. I flew the rest of the way. It was a huge party. I bet it was a lot of fun, if you weren’t married.

“It was a star-crossed era, a lot of people died,” she remembered. “But, a lot, like Delaney, and like me, managed to make it through. We had the foundation to avoid it.”

Along the way, Bramlett also became the chief songwriter of the group, penning such memorable songs in their repertoire as “Where There’s a Will, There’s A Way,” “Coming Home,” “Get Ourselves Together,” “Someday,” and a host of others.

She also teamed up with Leon Russell to co-write one of the era’s most breathtakingly beautiful songs, “Superstar,” which later became a monster hit for the Carpenters. When asked about the genesis of the song, Bramlett gives a refreshing response in our video-addled, ready-made, music world of today.

“If I tell you (what ‘Superstar’ is about), I might as well put a video in front of you,” she said. “If I don’t tell, then it can be your song, and I can share it with you. Right now, it’s mine, and I share it with you and I don’t tell you, or anyone, who it’s about, how it came about, so it can be yours.”

As Bramlett noted, the run of Delaney & Bonnie & Friends seemingly came to an end as fast as it started, as did her relationship with Delaney, although, looking back, she remains both honest and positive about it.

“It was devastating,” she said. “It wasn’t just a band. That was my husband, the father of my children. Delaney and I just loved each other to death, we still do. What happened in between, it doesn’t matter.”

And, it’s created a professional relationship, alongside the obvious one of mother and daughter, for her with Bekka, a terrific singer who, for a time, performed with Fleetwood Mac, among others.

“Bekka grew up in it, and her dad mentored her a lot in the studio,” she said. “Hey, she’s produces me, so I go to her, actually, and say ‘what do I do?’ She’s my peer now. We do the mom and daughter thing at home, all the time, but, on stage, we’re peers.”

After the break-up, Bramlett characteristically moved on, heading south to Georgia, and a solo career on Capricorn Records, which released three solo albums of hers between 1974 and 1978. Two of them, “It’s Time,” and “Lady’s Choice,” have recently been remastered and re-released on compact disc by the Australian-based Raven Records.

It was also at that time that she was involved in the infamous incident in which she slugged singer Elvis Costello after he allegedly slurred Ray Charles in an alcohol-fueled argument in an Ohio bar; an incident which, although has its place in rock history, Bramlett nonetheless wishes would go away.

“He was drunk, and he was out of line, but please allow both of us to have made a faux pas,” she said about the incident. “I smacked his face, but it’s over. All this huge thing that’s been made of it, let it go. Elvis Costello is probably one of the finest artists we have, he’s like one of our Mozarts, one of our Beethovens. If we don’t make a big deal out of this anymore, it will disappear.”

On the move again, this time back out to Los Angeles in the early 80s, Bramlett made a foray into acting, ultimately landing a recurring role in the “Roseanne” television series after working with star Roseanne Barr’s then husband, Tom Arnold, in a theatre production. Ironically, according to Bramlett, her acting career, which started as a lark, actually helped her singing career.

“It was ‘kismet,’ again, if you will. I left my purse on the top of the car, and this great acting coach found it, and he returned it to me with a card about acting, and, I’m telling you, it’s a God shot,” she said.

“My acting classes have taken my performance abilities as a singer way to another level, she observed. “Taking those words off the pages and making it mine, that’s what I do with a song. An actor takes those words off the pages and makes that character real, and I know that’s what I have to do with the songs.”

But, although bitten by the acting bug, and working, at the time, on the most popular series on television, the pull of music remained strong for her. At the urging of friends, she moved to Nashville, where she became exposed to country music, which seems to be just about the only kind of music that she had not recorded or sung, at least to that point. On August 25, she will participate in the taping of a musical tribute to country icon Hank Williams, Sr. for Great American Country (GACTV), for which Bramlett will perform Williams’ “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry.”

“Country music and blues are the same thing, it’s just a different expression of the same frustration, the same homegrown, uneducated way of expressing pain,” she said.

Her latest move has culminated in the release of “I’m Still the Same,” which continues her amazing run of stellar, soulful music.

“This was like my ‘pretty dress record,’ but, as I told a friend, I still haven’t made that perfect record yet,” she said. “The guys who played on this record for me, Reggie Young and so many of the others, are so far beyond union scale, but they did it, I think, out of love for me. On the web site, people write in and say ‘Bonnie, that’s the best record, your singing is so beautiful,’ and that’s all I need.”

And, where does this take Bonnie Bramlett next?

“I really have no idea at all, “ she said, the laughter coming again. “I’ve grown with my audience, but I’m still the same person. I mean, I’m going to be 60, and I never thought that I’d live to be 30. I tell the young guys in the band that it’s such a trip to get older, who would have thought it? 60’s not what it used to be, honey.

“Nobody’s guaranteed tomorrow,” she says, with her characteristic laugh and positive nature. “We’ll see what happens, whatever it brings. Let’s see.”

Whatever it is, if her past is any guide, you can bet, with Bonnie Bramlett, it will be soulful, honest and real.