Bonnie Raitt the American singer, guitarist, and songwriter. In 1971, Raitt released her self-titled debut album, Describing her as a “master interpreter of other writers’ songs”. She has released a series of critically acclaimed roots-influenced albums that incorporated elements of blues, rock, folk, and country. She has also been a frequent session player and collaborator with other artists, including Warren Zevon, Little Feat, Jackson Browne, the Pointer Sisters, John Prine, and Leon Russell.
Bonnie Raitt
The debut album released in 1971, at the age of 22, sounding relaxed and confident on an eclectic collection of songs (from sources ranging from Robert Johnson to Buffalo Springfield and The Marvelettes) with tasteful folk and blues arrangements. Here she is sounding wise beyond her years on Sippie Wallace’s “Women Be Wise.”
Raitt’s self-titled debut album was solid, The album was warmly received by the music press, with many writers praising her skills as an interpreter and as a bottleneck guitarist; at the time, few women in popular music had strong reputations as guitarists., One journalist described the album as “an excellent set” and “established the artist as an inventive and sympathetic interpreter”
Give It Up
I think her second one, “Give It Up” (1972), was a big step forward, with better original song writing (though she was still mostly covering others’ songs) and a looser, more lively feel. She sounded just a bit tentative previously — here, she sings and plays with more abandon. Here’s the propulsive album-opener, “Give It Up or Let Me Go.”
Her album “Give It Up” had a dedication “to the people of North Vietnam …” printed on the back. Raitt’s web site urges fans to learn more about preserving the environment.
Raitt covered a 1965 Marvelettes single (“Danger Heartbreak Dead Ahead”) on her 1971 debut album,
Takin’ My Time
Also met with critical acclaimand remade another 1965 Motown single, Martha & the Vandellas’ “You’ve Been in Love Too Long,” with scintillating results, on her third album, 1973’s “Takin’ My Time”.
Raitt covered John Prine’s “Angel From Montgomery” (from his 1971 self-titled debut album)
Streetlights
Reviews for her work were becoming increasingly mixed. By this point, Raitt was already experimenting with different producers and different styles, and she began to adopt a more mainstream sound on her 1974 album, “Streetlights”, with sensational results. It became one of her signature songs, and help bring Prine to the attention of many new fans. “I think ‘Angel from Montgomery’ probably has meant more to my fans and my body of work than any other song, and it will historically be considered one of the most important ones I’ve ever recorded,” Raitt said, decades later. “It’s just such a tender way of expressing that sentiment of longing … without being maudlin or obvious. It has all the different shadings of love and regret and longing. It’s a perfect expression from (a) wonderful genius.”
Home Plate
Raitt sang on Little Feat’s 1973 “Dixie Chicken” album and memorably covered that album’s “Fool Yourself” (written by Fred Tackett) on her 1975 album “Home Plate“. To my ears, at least, her weary but warm vocals make the song top the original. She was influenced by the playing style of Lowell George, of particularly his use of a pre-amp compressor with a slide guitar. B.B. King once called Raitt the “best damn slide player working today”
Raitt, who covered Jackson Browne’s “Under the Falling Sky” on her “Give It Up” album, and Browne’s “I Thought I Was a Child” on “Takin’ My Time“, completed the hat trick with a luminous version of his “My Opening Farewell” (from his 1972 self-titled debut album)
Sweet Forgiveness
The “Sweet Forgiveness” album gave Raitt her first commercial breakthrough, when it yielded a hit single in her remake of “Runaway”. Recast as a heavy rhythm and blues recording based on a rhythmic groove inspired by Al Green, Raitt’s version of “Runaway” was disparaged by many critics. However, the song’s commercial success prompted a bidding war for Raitt between Warner Bros. and Columbia Records. “There was this big Columbia–Warner war going on at the time”, recalled Raitt in a 1990 on her 1977 release, “Sweet Forgiveness”.
The Glow
The standout track on Raitt’s 1979 album “The Glow” was its title track, a moody ballad about drowning your sorrows in alcohol that she delivers with great power and sensitivity. In the liner notes, she called the song “a real stretch for me” and said that she knew its writer, Veyler Hildebrand, as a bassist who had played with her friend Danny O’Keefe and had briefly played with her as well. “He played me this song one day and I was so blown away I had no choice but to record it,” she wrote. “One of the most starkly honest songs about feeling this particular way.”
Raitt had one commercial success in 1979 when she helped organize the five concerts of Musicians United for Safe Energy (MUSE) at Madison Square Garden in New York City. Raitt performed at the “No Nukes” concerts in New York in September 1979, and later that year, her “Angel From Montgomery” and “Runaway” were included on the three-LP live album set. Here’s “Runaway,” featuring John Hall (on guitar) and Little Feat’s Bill Payne (on keyboards), among others. She had recorded the Del Shannon classic on her “Sweet Forgiveness” album and had her first Billboard Top 100 hit with it.
Raitt dedicated a performance of “Your Good Thing (Is About to End)”, from her 1979 album “The Glow”, to sitting (and later re-elected) U.S. President George W. Bush. She was quoted as saying “We’re gonna sing this for George Bush because he’s out of here, people!”
Green Light
Raitt made a conscious attempt to revisit the sound of her earlier records. However, to her surprise, many of her peers and the media compared her new sound to the burgeoning new wave movement. The album received her strongest reviews in years, Raitt, who memorably sang “Love Has No Pride” (co-written by Eric Kaz and Libby Titus) on her “Give It Up” album, finds another great Kaz song to perform with “River of Tears,” on 1982’s “Green Light”. Richard Manuel of The Band adds his distinctive vocals as a backing vocalist.
Nine Lives
Raitt was finishing work on her what was to be follow-up album, “Tongue and Groove”. The day after mastering was completed on “Tongue and Groove”, but the record company dropped Raitt from its roster, The album was shelved and not released, and Raitt was left without a record contract. A period when Raitt was also struggling with alcohol and drug abuse problems. Despite her personal and professional problems, Raitt continued to tour and participate in political activism. In 1985, she sang and appeared in the video of “Sun City”, the anti-apartheid song written and produced by guitarist Steve Van Zandt. Along with her participation in Farm Aid and Amnesty International concerts.
Two years after Warner Brothers Records dropped Raitt from their label, they notified her of their plans to release the “Tongue and Groove” album. “I said it wasn’t really fair,” recalled Raitt. “I think at this point they felt kind of bad. I mean, I was out there touring on my savings to keep my name up, So they agreed to let me go in and recut half of it, and that’s when it came out as “Nine Lives.” That album, was Raitt’s last new recording for Warner Brothers.
Raitt’s 1986 album “Nine Lives” came during a time when she was having problems with her record company, and misguided production on some tracks made her sound like an MTV wannabe. But she still sounds good at times, such as on her simmering cover of Toots & the Maytals’ “True Love Is Hard to Find.”
Raitt was one of many featured artists on the Hal Willner-produced 1988 album, “Stay Awake” (Various Interpretations of Music From Vintage Disney Films). Backed by Was (Not Was), she sings a gorgeous, understated version of the lullaby “Baby Mine” (from “Dumbo”).
Nick of Time
After sounding lost on “Nine Lives”, Raitt turned things around in stunning fashion on her next studio album, 1989’s “Nick of Time” after several years of limited commercial success, she had a major hit with her tenth studio album, Abetted by producer Don Was, she returned to the rootsy sounds of her past in a simple, tasteful, unpretentious way that resonated with her now older and more mature fans. The album peaked at No. 1 on Billboard magazine’s album charts and won three Grammys, including Album of the Year. Here’s its title track, one of two songs from the album that Raitt wrote herself.
“Nick of Time” came out in early ’89, and later in the year, Raitt was featured on “The Healer“, an album by legendary bluesman John Lee Hooker that also featured collaborations with Carlos Santana, Los Lobos, Robert Cray and others. Raitt and Hooker displayed a lot of chemistry on their duet, “I’m in the Mood,” and they won a Grammy for it in the Traditional Blues Recording category in 1990 (in addition to Raitt’s three for “Nick of Time“). This album “Nick of Time” has also been voted number 230 in the Rolling Stone list of 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. It was also the first of many of her recordings to feature her long time rhythm section of Ricky Fataar and James “Hutch” Hutchinson (although previously Fataar had played on her “Green Light” album and Hutchinson had worked on “Nine Lives“), both of whom continue to record and tour with her.
Luck of the Draw
Raitt followed up “Nick of Time” with the very solid, and very much in the same vein, “Luck of the Draw” (1991). With it, she entered the U.S. Top 20 singles chart for the first time — twice, with the fun “Something to Talk About” and the not-fun-at-all but extremely powerful “I Can’t Make You Love Me,” a ballad (written by Mike Reid and Allen Shamblin) about accepting the fact that someone you love is never going to love you.
Three years later, in 1994, she added two more Grammys with her album “Longing in Their Hearts” part of a trilogy with the albums “Nick of Time” and “Luck of the Draw” all represent Raitt’s commercial peak, and though they aren’t necessarily Raitt’s “best” albums Raitt’s collaboration with Don Was amicably came to an end with 1995’s live release “Road Tested”. All Released to solid reviews different people have different preferences — I think most Raitt fans would put them at or near the top. Like “Luck of the Draw”, “Longing in Their Hearts” featured one of Raitt’s greatest ballad performances, on Richard Thompson’s “Dimming of the Day.”
Road Tested
After releasing three multiplatinum studio albums in a row, it’s not surprising that Raitt caught her breath, in a way, by following them up with the first live album of her career, the “Road Tested” (also available as a DVD). Guests included Jackson Browne, Bruce Hornsby, Bryan Adams and, on “Never Make Your Move Too Soon,” blues/R&B legends Ruth Brown and Charles Brown, plus Kim Wilson of The Fabulous Thunderbirds on harmonica.
Fundamental
Raitt worked with a new (for her) production team on 1998’s “Fundamental”: Mitchell Froom and Tchad Blake, known for their ability to create dark, unconventional, richly textured musical atmospheres. The approach works best on “Cure for Love,” co-written by Los Lobos members David Hidalgo and Louie Pérez and featuring Hidalgo on guitar, bass and backing vocals.
One of the standout tracks of 2002’s “Silver Lining” was an Afropop experiment that really worked: A uplifting cover of Oliver Mtukudzi’s “Hear Me Lord,” with some glorious guitar playing by Andy Abad.
The soundtrack of the 2004 animated movie “Home on the Range” featured songs written by Alan Menken (“The Little Mermaid,” “Beauty and the Beast,” “Aladdin”) and lyricist Glenn Slater, sung by artists such as Tim McGraw, k.d. lang and Raitt, who is featured on the wistful ballad, “Will the Sun Ever Shine Again.”
Souls Alike
“Souls Alike” was released in September 2005. It contains the singles “I Will Not Be Broken” and “I Don’t Want Anything to Change”, she released the live DVD/CD Bonnie Raitt and Friends, which was filmed as part of the critically acclaimed VH1 Classic concert series, featuring special guests Keb’ Mo’, Alison Krauss, Ben Harper, Jon Cleary, and Norah Jones.
Written by Emory Joseph, “Trinkets,” from Raitt’s 2005 album “Souls Alike“, is an unusual song for her to choose to record: A quirky little spoken word song. But she sounds like a natural telling its story, and her low-key, swampy, funky music is hypnotic in its own right.
In 2005, Raitt performed at a concert at the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City that was filmed as part of VH1’s “Decades Rock Live” series. The idea of the series was to have veteran artists perform on their own and with a series of younger guests; Raitt’s guests were Norah Jones, Ben Harper, Alison Krauss and Keb’ Mo. The music was released in CD and DVD form in 2006. Here are Raitt and Krauss performing “You,” a bittersweet love song that had been one of several hits from Raitt’s 1994 “Longing in Their Hearts” album.
For the all-star 2007 compilation album “Goin’ Home: A Tribute to Fats Domino”, Raitt contributed a rollicking medley of Domino’s “I’m in Love Again” and “All by Myself,” performed as a duet with keyboardist Jon Cleary, a mainstay of her backing bands as well as an accomplished singer-songwriter in his own right.
At the 25th Anniversary Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Concerts at Madison Square Garden in 2009, various inductees presented sets filled with guest appearances by other inductees; in 2010, the music came out in CD and DVD form. Crosby, Stills & Nash invited Raitt (who was inducted into the hall in 2000), James Taylor and Jackson Browne to perform with them, and one of the highlights was Raitt’s aching rendition of “Love Has No Pride” (co-written by Eric Kaz and Libby Titus and originally recorded by Raitt on her 1972 album “Give It Up“). David Crosby and Graham Nash sang backing vocals. Introducing her to the crowd, Crosby called her “my favourite singer in the world — and I’m totally serious.”
Slipstream
Raitt’s 2012 “Slipstream” album included covers of two songs from Bob Dylan’s 1997 masterpiece “Time Out of Mind”, including a version of “Million Miles” that really opened my eyes to the brilliance of this often overlooked song. The album was described as “one of the best of her 40-year career” by American Songwriter magazine
Dig in Deep
Raitt released her seventeenth studio album and last studio album to date, 2016’s “Dig in Deep“, has some deeply moving ballads, but I’ll go in the other direction here, sharing her scorching cover of Los Lobos’ “Shakin’ Shakin’ Shakes.
“When I was 17, the first woman I’d ever seen come out and rock an electric guitar was Bonnie Raitt,” said Sheryl Crow when introducing Raitt to the crowd at Eric Clapton’s Crossroads Guitar Festival at the American Airlines Center in Dallas in 2019. “Bonnie’s changed my life. I was gonna be, like, I don’t know, Elton John before that. And then I was like, ‘No, I’m gonna be Bonnie Raitt.’ ” Here are Raitt and Crow performing Bob Dylan’s “Everything Is Broken.” Highlights from the festival, including this song, were released in CD and DVD form in 2020.
Raitt announced the title of her 21st studio album would be “Just Like That.”… The record was released on April 22, 2022, and coincided with the beginning of a nationwide tour that ran through November 2022. Preceding the album, Raitt released “Made Up Mind”, a song originally written by Canadian roots duo The Bros. Landreth, as the lead single.
“Just Like That” …, just named Song of the Year and Best American Roots Song by the Grammys!
She has credited blues guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan for breaking her substance abuse, saying that what gave her the courage to admit her alcohol problem and stop drinking was seeing that Vaughan was an even better musician when sober. She has also said that she stopped because she realized that the “late night life” was not working for her. In 1989, she said, “I really feel like some angels have been carrying me around. I just have more focus and more discipline, and consequently more self-respect. Raitt’s principal touring guitar is a customized Fender Stratocaster that she nicknamed Brownie. This became the basis for a signature model in 1996. Raitt was the first female musician to receive a signature Fender line.
The Albums:
- Bonnie Raitt (1971)
- Give It Up (1972)
- Takin’ My Time (1973)
- Streetlights (1974)
- Home Plate (1975)
- Sweet Forgiveness (1977)
- The Glow (1979)
- Green Light (1982)
- Nine Lives (1986)
- Nick of Time (1989)
- Luck of the Draw (1991)
- Longing in Their Hearts (1994)
- Fundamental (1998)
- Silver Lining (2002)
- Souls Alike (2005)
- Slipstream (2012)
- Dig In Deep (2016)
- Just Like That… (2022)
The Fat Angel Sings 