Bonnie Raitt and her band began the Tried & True Tour last night at The Capitol Theater in Port Chester, New York. Jimmie Vaughan & The Tilt-A-Whirl are on board supporting the run and Vaughan emerged at the end of Raitt’s set for a performance of “The Pleasure Is All Mine.”
“I’m looking forward to having my longtime pal and one of my favorite artists, blues legend Jimmie Vaughan & The Tilt-A-Whirl Band be our special guests for the late Summer tour,” Raitt said back when the tour was announced. “We’ve shared many gigs and duets over the years but never as a ‘double trouble’ co-bill. Bound to be some good blues rockin’ going on – can’t wait to hit the road together!”
Vaughan joined Raitt during the latter’s encore at The Cap, which began with “I Can’t Make You Love Me.” Vaughan then came out to add guitar and vocals to “The Pleasure Is All Mine,” the blues staple written by Billy “The Kid” Emerson that he has performed with Raitt before.
Watch Raitt and Vaughan take up “The Pleasure Is All Mine” at The Cap below:
Andy Kahn joined the JamBase Editorial team in 2015 and is currently its Editor-In-Chief. Prior to that, he worked for a Seattle-based digital music distribution company. Currently located in Minneapolis, Kahn has written for several outlets, and was part of an award-winning Chicago-focused music news website, while earning a Master’s Degree in journalism from DePaul University. AK saw his first Grateful Dead show at age 13 and has been going to see live music ever since.
When Bonnie Raitt was a young girl, she was enthralled by the power and charisma of such blues and folk greats as John Lee Hooker and Sippie Wallace, modelling her own music and guitar-playing on them.
Later, when she became a recording and touring artist herself, she got the chance to play alongside some of her heroes and remembers learning about professionalism, grace and longevity from them, all of which helped her to transcend some of her own challenges. These days, after the self-penned, apposite and resonant song Nick of Time from her 1989 album of the same name helped her achieve “overnight success” some 18 years after her debut, she’s become something of a hero herself, especially to a generation or three of women for whom her defiant independence and consistent support of liberal causes means a whole lot more than (just for instance) donning a succession of cowboy outfits ever could.
As well as her manifest love and respect for her “uppity blues women” forebears like Sippie Wallace, whose mischievous Woman Be Wise has long been a staple of Raitt’s shows, and Mable John, whose 1966 classic Your Good Thing (Is About To End) appears early in the set at Manchester’s 02 Apollo by way of tribute to the late soul-singer, she has a superb ear for more contemporary songs penned by the likes of John Hiatt (Thing Called Love), Richard Thompson (Dimming of the Day) and, of course, the late John Prine. His Angel from Montgomery has been a highlight of her appearances for many years now, and an already-poignant song has only become more affecting in the wake of her old friend’s tragic death.
Even so, the exquisitely heartbroken lament I Can’t Make You Love Me runs it pretty close in the tear-in-the-eye stakes as does her more recent Grammy-winning tale of redemption, Just Like That. But Raitt is still impressively sassy in her 70s and there’s a whole lot of friskiness and boogie in there too, graced not only by her own knife-sharp slide guitar and rough-edged, lived-in voice but also by superbly intuitive musical support from her four-piece band, supplemented for much of the set by the New Orleans-style piano of Jon Cleary, who played in Raitt’s band for a decade or so and had already been the night’s solo support act.
It’s a superlative, moving show of warmth, maturity and real soul, shot through with compassion, and offering, as she says (echoing Bruce Springsteen a few days earlier and a few miles down the road) “a healing experience in this suffering, hard-assed world”. Sometimes that can be enough, despite the bombs falling and the egos flying.
Kevin Bourke is a writer and broadcaster. He can be seen pontificating about theatre, film, and almost any vaguely artistic topic on the BBC Breakfast sofa, or heard on local and national BBC Radio. He’s a regular contributor to Big Issue North, Songlines, the roots music magazines R2 and No Depression and many other magazines and websites here and in the US. For many years he wrote about film and theatre for the Manchester Evening News, sneaking in esoteric folk, blues and Americana music whenever he could. He was an early champion of the likes of Peter Kay and Danny Boyle, but he’s equally proud that Lou Reed slammed the phone down on him and that Robbie Williams once tore up one of his articles in front of thousands of angry fans. Visiting some dubious Manchester dives with the late Leonard Cohen and, more recently, dodging polar bears with a bunch of blues musicians are just a couple more of his adventures in arts land.
Bonnie Raitt, Brighton Dome review – a top night with a characterful, very American blues rock queen
by Thomas H Green
If you walked into a bar in the US, say in one of the southern states, and Bonnie Raitt and her band were playing, you’d have the best night of your life. They are the kind of purely American rhythm’n’blues experience, tempered with FM radio balladry, that somehow works best, and perhaps only, on those endless highways and dusty plains.
Tonight she imports that spirit – the best of America at a time when the world is seeing the worst of it – to a 200-year-old hall full of septuagenarians on the British south coast.
Raitt plays for an hour-and-a-half and has real presence, a gregarious chatty ease that’s both funny and affectionate, the gift of being genuinely “there” in front of 1700 people. She’s petite and lithe, her signature hair bright red with a white streak, wearing a metallic aquamarine blouse and black rock’n’roll pantaloons. Her backdrop is simple yet surprisingly effective, a tree-lined lake beneath a hazy sun, its mood changing, dependent on the lighting. She opens with the down-home boogie of “Split Decision” from 2012. And we’re off.
Full disclosure; when my partner said she was interested in seeing Bonnie Raitt. I was, like, “What!?!, Why!?!”. I associated her with middle-of-the-road country-rock-lite blandness. This, of course, is because she achieved global fame with a string of slick multi-million selling albums in the early 1990s, starting with her biggest of all, 1989’s Nick of Time (from which she, naturally plays a few numbers tonight, including John Hiatt’s “Thing Called Love” and ultra-Eighties slowie “Too Soon to Tell”). But my partner then introduced me to her raw blues side, the songs from her ten-year career before fame and, indeed, her regular trips down that road since. This was a Bonnie Raitt I didn’t know and hadn’t bothered to explore. It was a happy discovery.
In that vein, for this listener, the highlights of her set include Little Willie John’s “Need Your Love so Bad”, a fantastic take on Sippie Wallace’s “Women Be Wise” (itself a reversion of the 1920s blues “Don’t Advertise Your Man”), her own riffin’ blues-rock, “Livin’ for the Ones”, an ode to living your best life in honour of contemporaries being picked off by the reaper, and an encore-closing, raucous rock’n’roll guitar jam on BB King’s “Never Make Your Move Too Soon”. The latter included support act Jon Cleary, a New Orleans-based Brit who’s worked with everyone from Taj Mahal to Eric Clapton. He reappeared repeatedly during Raitt’s set, even playing one of his own songs, “Unnecessarily Mercenary”, with her.
Raitt creates a new set-list every concert, throwing in covers, deep cuts and curveballs for the sheer joy of it
The rest of her band are impressive too; Ricky Fataar, who’s drummed with everyone from The Beach Boys to The Rutles, bassist Hutch Hutchinson, who’s played with her for 42 years, after being introduced by Rolling Stones keys-man Ian McLagen, Canadian keys-player Glenn Patscha, Duke Levine on guitar, and a percussionist whose name I didn’t catch (Matt Bates?).
Sometimes, though, Raitt pared things back to just a spotlight and an acoustic guitar or piano, giving us John Prine numbers, Richard Thompson’s “Dimming of the Day” and others. Whether she’s emoting soulfully or making Annie Lennox’s “Little Bird” sound like an early-Seventies Who cut with her group, there’s a sense this is a band who play together rather than just play together. By that I mean that where so many bands in 2025 are nailed to tech considerations, playing the same songs in the same order each night, Raitt creates a new set-list every concert, throwing in covers, deep cuts and curveballs for the sheer joy of it.
And she seems so alive. The Dome is all seated tonight and the only couple who get up and dance are soon made to sit down. This is fair enough as they’re blocking someone’s view, but also sort of sad. Raitt deserves some boogie-ing. She’s fine with it, though, a genial raconteur, whether stating “I can’t believe pot is illegal in England?” and doing an impression of a stoned fan, or slyly bemoaning the state of the States, or telling us she was tickled to meet the real Sheriff of Nottingham the other night. She’s generous, to us and to her band. Not all the set is for me – some really not! – but the best of it is riven with raw spirit, turbo-amped by her extraordinary fret-wrangling abilities. It’s just another concert on her long tour, but it felt like something one-off and special. Which is rarer than it might be.
Below: watch an hour-long performance by Bonnie Raitt on the Austin City Limits TV show
Thomas writes regularly for the Daily Telegraph and Mixmag. He has been a consistent presence in the UK dance music media since the mid-Nineties and has also written more broadly about music and the arts elsewhere. He has written one book, Rock Shrines, with another on the way. An ageing raver, he’s still occasionally to be found in nightclubs as dawn approaches.
Review of Bonnie Raitt at the Brighton Dome on June 17, 2025
18th June By Charles Pring
Bonnie Raitt’s concert at the Brighton Dome on June 17 was a confident, classy, effortless reminder of why she has endured for more than five decades.
Arriving onstage after a good-natured opening set from long-time collaborator Jon Cleary, she greeted the sold-out hall, settled a Strat across her shoulder, and went seamlessly into a set of classics and deeper cuts drawn from her extensive catalogue.
From the first number, it was clear that Bonnie was on top form and hadn’t lost an ounce of her magic. The power and tone of her voice is still incredible – better than ever perhaps, despite her 75 years.
On Mable John’s Your Good Thing (Is About to End) she let phrases trail off just long enough to underline the song’s resignation; a few minutes later she brightened the mood with the upbeat John Hiatt cover Thing Called Love nailing every note.
Her guitar work was similarly impressive, adorning instrumental breaks with soulful slide solos.
Bonnie was on top form (Image: The Argus)
The set list balanced familiar titles with less-travelled songs.
Crowd-pleasing staples—Nick of Time, Something to Talk About, and a poignantly delivered Angel From Montgomery—sat alongside deeper selections such as Sippie Wallace’s playful Women Be Wise and Richard Thompson’s gentle Dimming of the Day.
Newer material held its own: Just Like That was delivered nearly at whisper level, the story allowed to speak for itself, and the mid-tempo rocker Livin’ for the Ones landed with joyful conviction.
Credit also goes to the four-piece band.
Guitarist Duke Levine supplied tasteful fills without ever getting in Bonnie’s way; and the rhythm section of drummer Ricky Fataar and bassist Hutch Hutchinson, both of whom have been with Raitt for decades, kept a solid groove throughout.
Keyboardist Glenn Patscha filled spaces with understated organ and piano voicings that lifted the slower numbers.
Bonnie’s guitar playing was on point (Image: The Argus)
When Cleary joined the gang for his own song Unnecessarily Mercenary, the group shifted easily into a loose New Orleans groove, giving the show a burst of earthy funk.
Raitt left the stage after ‘closing’ with Little Bird, an Annie Lennox song, but there was no doubt that the crowd would demand an encore, which she duly delivered.
I Can’t Make You Love Me, her 1991 smash hit, provided the emotional high point of the evening, sung with a tenderness not often present in Raitt’s more bluesy numbers.
The final two, Love Letter and Never Make Your Move Too Soon, ended proceedings with a rock n’ roll rollick, with Cleary chiming in with some vocals and impressive guitar licks.
At roughly ninety minutes, the concert felt compact but complete.
The band departed to a rapturous ovation (Image: The Argus)
Raitt offered few surprises, and none were needed. This was an unshowy yet satisfying performance that foregrounded craft above everything else.
As you would hope, Bonnie was the absolute of the show, entertaining the audience with quips about how much curry she’d eaten on her UK tour, and how she couldn’t believe that “pot” wasn’t legal here yet (I guess she can’t have spent much time walking around Brighton recently).
Her voice could rouse any amphitheatre, and her charm could melt glaciers. What a woman, what a night.
Brighton-based journalist with an interest in sports, music and history. Some of Charles’ articles are being drafted with the assistance of AI tools such as ChatGPT. However, Newsquest editors and journalists always decide what content to cover and always review this content before it is published.
Bandana Blues is and will always be a labor of love. Please help Spinner deal with the costs of hosting & bandwidth. Visit www.bandanablues.com and hit the tipjar. Any amount is much appreciated, no matter how small. Thank you.
Bonnie Raitt is nothing if not loyal. And when she caught wind of the fact that Mike Reid and I were writing and recording together, she was quick to volunteer to sing on our song “The Bridge.” It’s one of my favorite songs Mike and I have written. And I can no longer imagine it without her heroic spirit present. ~ Joe Henry
Released on: 2025-09-05 Producer: Joe Henry Music Publisher: Rivers and Roads Music (ASCAP - admin by Endurance Music Group) Music Publisher: Mule Rider (ASCAP) Music Publisher: Blue Raincoat Music (ASCAP) ℗ 2025 Work Song Inc. marketed and distributed by Thirty Tigers
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Prison Bound Blues · Bonnie Raitt
Bonnie has contributed a new recording of "Prison Bound Blues" written by Leroy Carr to a project called Better Than Jail, an extraordinary new album benefiting Free Hearts and Equal Justice USA. Better Than Jail is available everywhere today and features covers of iconic prison songs from Steve Earle, Taj Mahal,Margo Price, The War and Treaty and many more. The album seeks to raise awareness and support for the urgent need to reduce the harm of the criminal justice system. https://found.ee/BetterThanJail.
I'm so proud to have joined in with so many illustrious artists in creating this very special album in support of rural prison reform. Overlooked for far too long, this issue cuts across all cultural and political divides and deserves all our focused attention to finally bring about some swift and meaningful action. Better Than Jail is one of the most inspired and heartfelt albums I've been blessed to be a part of and I hope it sets a fire in hearts far and wide to join in our efforts." ~ Bonnie Raitt
Released on: 2024-10-04 Executive Producer: Brian Hunt Producer: Kenny Greenberg Producer: Wally Wilson Producer: Bonnie Raitt Recording Engineer: Jason Lehning at Sound Emporium Mastering Engineer: Alex McCollough at True East Mastering Production Assistant: Shannon Finnegan Mixer: Justin Niebank at Hounds Ear Music Publisher: Universal Music Corp. Composer, Lyricist: Leroy Carr ℗ Believe Entertainment Group and Wyatt Road Records
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The Fabulous Thunderbirds - Nothing in Rambling Ft. Bonnie Raitt, Taj Mahal, Keb' Mo' & Mick Fleetwood
In celebration of the band’s 50th Anniversary, The Fabulous Thunderbirds have just released Struck Down, their first studio album in eight years on Stony Plain Records. The ten-track album includes a wonderful cover of Memphis Minnie’s “Nothing in Rambling,” featuring longtime friends, T-Birds founding member Kim Wilson, along with Bonnie, Keb’ Mo’, Taj Mahal and Mick Fleetwood. — BRHQ
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Little Feat - Long Distance Call
“I’ve always loved Little Feat and this new incarnation of the band is bringing some serious heat, cred and new blood to their enduring legacy. Every Feat fan loves us some Sam. I’m so glad he’s now gotten a chance to step out front and center and put his spin on these wonderful blues songs. I loved singing "Long Distance Call" with him, always one of my favorites, and Scott slayed on slide. Know you’ll enjoy hanging out with us at Sam’s Place!" -- Bonnie Raitt
“Long Distance Call” was written by blues legend, Muddy Waters. It has Sam Clayton and Bonnie Raitt on vocals, Scott Sharrard on Dobro, Fred Tackett on acoustic guitar, Tony Leone on drums, and Michael “The Bull” LoBue on harmonica. The album also features Bill Payne on piano and Kenny Gradney on bass.
Little Feat have composed an album that’s their love letter to the blues entitled, ‘Sam’s Place.’ “Long Distance Call” plus many other blues classics are on this album. You can stream and order ‘Sam’s Place’ here: https://orcd.co/samsplace
Broken Hearts & Dirty Windows: Songs of John Prine, Vol. 2, the anticipated new John Prine tribute record from Oh Boy Records, is out today. Stream/purchase HERE.
Created as a celebration of Prine’s life and career, the album features new renditions of some of Prine’s most beloved songs performed by Brandi Carlile (“I Remember Everything”), Tyler Childers (“Yes I Guess They Oughta Name A Drink After You”), Iris DeMent (“One Red Rose”), Emmylou Harris (“Hello In There”), Jason Isbell (“Souvenirs”), Valerie June (“Summer’s End”), Margo Price (“Sweet Revenge”), Bonnie Raitt (“Angel From Montgomery”), Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats (“Pretty Good”), Amanda Shires (“Saddle in the Rain”), Sturgill Simpson(“Paradise”) and John Paul White (“Sam Stone”). Proceeds from the album will benefit twelve different non-profit organizations, one selected by each of the featured artists.
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Bonnie Raitt - Write Me a Few of Your Lines/Kokomo Blues
60 years anniversary celebration of Arhoolie
December 10, 2020
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Arhoolie Foundation celebrates it's 60th anniversary (1960-2020) with an online broadcast.
Bonnie Raitt - Shadow of Doubt
Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival
October 3, 2020
Hardly Strictly Bluegrass celebrates it's 20th anniversary with an online broadcast titled “Let The Music Play On”.
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Bonnie Raitt & Boz Scaggs - You Don't Know Like I Know
Farm Aid 2020 On the Road
Sam & Dave classic written by Isaac Hayes and David Porter.
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Sheryl Crow & Bonnie Raitt - Everything Is Broken
[Eric Clapton’s Crossroads 2019]
Eric Clapton, one of the world’s pre-eminent blues/rock guitarists, once again summoned an all-star team of six-string heroes for his fifth Crossroads Guitar Festival in 2019. Held at the American Airlines Center in Dallas, Texas, the two-day concert event raised funds for the Crossroads Centre in Antigua, the chemical dependency treatment and education facility that Clapton founded in 1998.
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'A Tribute To Mose Allison'
Celebrates The Music Of An Exciting Jazz Master
Raitt contributed to a new album, If You're Going To The City: A Tribute To Mose Allison, which celebrates the late singer and pianist, who famously blended the rough-edged blues of the Mississippi Delta with the 1950s jazz of New York City.
NPR's Lulu Garcia-Navarro talks to Bonnie Raitt about her friendship with the Mose Allison. They're also joined by Amy Allison — his daughter, who executive produced the album — about selecting an unexpected list of artists to contribute songs to the album.
Recorded on tour June 3, 2017 - Centennial Hall, London - Ontario Canada
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