Backstage with Marin’s Bonnie Raitt–blues singer/songwriter, musician & activist
No Lies Radio Music – By Teri Perticone – Sun November 07, 2021
Bonnie Raitt – Nick Of Time – 11/26/1989 – Henry J. Kaiser Auditorium (Official)
Bonnie Lynn Raitt (born November 8, 1949) is an American blues singer-songwriter, musician, and activist born in Burbank, California. She is the daughter of the Broadway musical star John Raitt and his first wife, the pianist Marjorie Haydock, and was raised in the Quaker tradition. She began playing guitar at Camp Regis-Apple Jack in Paul Smiths, NY, at an early age. Later she gained notice for her bottleneck-style guitar playing. Raitt says she played “a little at school and at [a summer] camp”, Camp Regis-Applejack, in New York. Raitt is of Scottish ancestry, with her ancestors being those who constructed Rait Castle near Nairn.
After graduating from Oakwood Friends School in Poughkeepsie, New York, in 1967 Raitt entered Radcliffe College, majoring in social relations and African studies. She said her “plan was to travel to Tanzania, where President Julius Nyerere was creating a government based on democracy and socialism”. Raitt became friends with blues promoter Dick Waterman.[3] During her second year of college Raitt took a semester off and moved to Philadelphia with Waterman and other local musicians. Raitt says it was an “opportunity that changed everything.”
Bonnie Raitt – Thing Called Love
During the 1970s, Raitt released a series of roots-influenced albums that incorporated elements of blues, rock, folk and country. In 1989, after several years of critical acclaim but little commercial success, she had a major hit with the album Nick of Time. The following two albums, Luck of the Draw (1991) and Longing in Their Hearts (1994), were also multimillion sellers, generating several hit singles, including “Something to Talk About”, “Love Sneakin’ Up on You”, and the ballad “I Can’t Make You Love Me” (with Bruce Hornsby on piano).
Bonnie Raitt – I Can’t Make You Love Me
Bonnie Raitt – Love Sneakin Up On You
Raitt has received 10 Grammy Awards. She is listed as number 50 in Rolling Stone’s list of the “100 Greatest Singers of All Time”[1] and number 89 on the magazine’s list of the “100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time”
1989–1999: Commercial breakthrough
Bonnie was signed to Capitol by a&r executive Tim Devine. At Capitol, after nearly 20 years, Raitt achieved belated commercial success with her tenth album, Nick of Time. Released in the spring of 1989, Nick of Time went to the top of the U.S. charts following Raitt’s Grammy sweep in early 1990. This album has been voted number 230 in the Rolling Stone list of 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. Raitt herself pointed out that her 10th try was “my first sober album.”
Bonnie Raitt – Something To Talk About
Bonnie Raitt – Love Me Like a Man (live)
2000–2007
In March 2000, Raitt was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio. Silver Lining was released in 2002. In the US, it reached number 13 on the Billboard chart and was later certified Gold. It contains the singles “I Can’t Help You Now”, “Time of Our Lives”, and the title track. All three singles charted within the top 40 of the US Adult Contemporary chart.
On March 19, 2002, Bonnie Raitt received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her contributions to the recording industry, located at 1750 N. Vine Street.[22][23] In 2003 Capitol Records released the compilation album The Best of Bonnie Raitt. It contains songs from her prior Capitol albums from 1989 to 2002 including Nick of Time, Luck of the Draw, Longing in Their Hearts, Road Tested, Fundamental, and Silver Lining. Raitt was featured on the album True Love by Toots and the Maytals, which won the Grammy Award in 2004 for Best Reggae Album.[24]
Souls Alike was released in September 2005. In the US, it reached the top 20 on the Billboard chart. It contains the singles “I Will Not Be Broken” and “I Don’t Want Anything to Change”, which both charted in the top 40 of the US Adult Contemporary chart. In 2006, she released the live DVD/CD Bonnie Raitt and Friends, which was filmed as part of the critically acclaimed VH1 Classic Decades Rock Live! concert series, featuring special guests Keb’ Mo’, Alison Krauss, Ben Harper, Jon Cleary, and Norah Jones. The DVD was released by Capitol Records on August 15. Bonnie Raitt and Friends, which was recorded live in Atlantic City, NJ on September 30, 2005, features never-before-seen performance and interview footage, including four duets not included in the VH1 Classic broadcast of the concert. The accompanying CD features 11 tracks, including the radio single “Two Lights in the Nighttime” (featuring Ben Harper). In 2007, Raitt contributed to Goin’ Home: A Tribute to Fats Domino. With Jon Cleary, she sang a medley of “I’m in Love Again” and “All by Myself” by Fats Domino.
2008–present
Raitt appeared on the June 7, 2008 broadcast of Garrison Keillor’s radio program A Prairie Home Companion. She performed two blues songs with Keb’ Mo’: “No Getting Over You” and “There Ain’t Nothin’ in Ramblin'”. Raitt also sang “Dimming of the Day” with Richard Thompson. This show, along with another one with Raitt and her band in October 2006, is archived on the Prairie Home Companion website. Raitt appeared in the 2011 documentary Reggae Got Soul: The Story of Toots and the Maytals, which was featured on the BBC and described as “The untold story of one of the most influential artists ever to come out of Jamaica”.[25][26]
In February 2012, Raitt performed a duet with Alicia Keys at the 54th Annual Grammy Awards in 2012 honoring Etta James. In April 2012, Raitt released her first studio album since 2005, entitled Slipstream. It charted at Number 6 on the US Billboard 200 chart marking her first top ten album since 1994’s Longing in Their Hearts. The album was described as “one of the best of her 40-year career” by American Songwriter magazine.[27] In September 2012, Raitt was featured in a campaign called “30 Songs / 30 Days” to support Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, a multi-platform media project inspired by a project outlined in a book by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn.[28] In 2013, she appeared on Foy Vance’s album Joy of Nothing.[29]
On May 30, 2015, Leon Russell, Bonnie Raitt and Ivan Neville gave a performance at The Canyon Club in Agoura Hills, California to raise cash for Marty Grebb who was battling cancer. Grebb had played on some of their albums.[30]
In February 2016, Raitt released her seventeenth studio album Dig in Deep. The album charted at number 11 on the US Billboard 200 chart[31] and received favorable reviews.[32] The album features the single “Gypsy in Me” as well as a cover of the INXS song “Need You Tonight”.
Raitt cancelled the first leg of her 2018 spring-summer touring schedule due to a recently discovered medical issue requiring surgical intervention. She reported that a “full recovery” is expected and that she planned to resume touring with already-scheduled dates in June 2018.[33]
Drug and alcohol use and recovery
Raitt used alcohol and drugs, but began psychotherapy and joined Alcoholics Anonymous in the late 1980s. She has said “I thought I had to live that partying lifestyle in order to be authentic, but in fact if you keep it up too long, all you’re going to be is sloppy or dead”.[23] She became clean in 1987. She has credited 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 Stevie Ray Vaughan was an even better musician when sober.[24] She has also said that she stopped because she realized that the “late night life” was not working for her.[25] 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.”
Bonnie Raitt-Angel from Montgomery
From the Marin Independent Journal – By Jim Harrington
More than 40 years after scoring her first hit with 1977’s “Runaway,” Bay Area music legend Bonnie Raitt is still making some of the most intriguing and engaging music of her career.
That’s pretty clear from listening to the recent offering “Dig in Deep,” which finds Raitt taking the album’s title to heart — and digging in very deep — on a dozen solid tunes that range from blues rockers to big ballads.
Raitt is supporting the new platter with a quick run through California, which kicks off March 15 at the City National Civic in San Jose. The singer-songwriter-guitarist and her talented sidemen — guitarist George Marinelli, drummer Ricky Fataar, bassist James “Hutch” Hutchinson and keyboardist Jon Cleary — also perform March 20 at the Fox Theater in Oakland in a benefit for Tipping Point’s Fire Relief Fund.
I recently had the chance to chat with 10-time-Grammy winner about “Dig in Deep,” her great band and other topics:
Q Hi, Bonnie. Thanks so much for calling me. Where are you today?
A I am calling you from Northern California. I am right over the (Golden Gate) bridge. I live in Marin County most of the time. I go to L.A. as well, but mostly I’m up north.
Q I knew you had a house in the Marin area, but I wasn’t sure if you spent more time there or in Los Angeles. After all, you are a SoCal native.
A For the last 25 years, I’ve spent a good portion of my time in this part (of California) when I’m not traveling. And then, I’d say, about a third of my time I’m in Los Angeles.
Q While I was waiting for you to call today, I had the chance to spin the new album again and I have to say you sound great on it. Take me a little bit behind the creation of “Dig in Deep.”
A The process I use to make my albums is pretty much the same. We tour two or three years off of each album. And it takes about a year to get the promotion and the sets and the rehearsals and the website designed and the artwork. So, all together, it’s almost a four-, five-year process.
Video sources: www.youtube.com & www.vevo.com
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