Happy birthday, Ms. Bonnie Raitt! The bottleneck slide whiz emerged as a teenager in the eye of the ’60s blues revival, opening for the likes Mississippi Fred McDowell and Sippie Wallace, and singing with a voice that rang with decades of maturity despite her youth. She seemed to arrive almost fully formed, a lovely creature the blues had coughed up in order to seduce us with her 12-bar ways. Once she began making albums in 1970 her range rapidly expanded to draw upon folk-blues, acoustic rock, Muscles Shoals soul and more of America’s rich musical melting pot. From the start, Raitt has possessed an unerring knack for picking her collaborators, and in turn always elevates the proceedings when she sits in with any of her chums. She’s also an inspired interpreter of other’s songs, often getting inside them in a way that equals or betters the originals. While her sound has smoothed out and settled into a comfortable groove in recent years, there remains that initial integrity and grit that first snagged our ear. We love her as a survivor, carrier of great traditions and for her abundant natural talents. Glad we get to share this lovely blue-green planet with you, Bonnie!
We begin our birthday salute to Bonnie with her appearance on the Old Grey Whistle Test in 1976 doing “Too Long At The Fair.” You try not to be enchanted by this woman!
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How’s about a slow blues take on Mose Allison’s “Everybody’s Cryin’ Mercy” with Junior Wells captured in 1974? Well here it is, at 49min.
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Here she is working “Dixie Chicken” with Little Feat and Emmylou Harris and Jesse Winchester on The Midnight Special.
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Witness the totally badass pickin’ from Raitt in this performance of “Kokomo/Sugar Mama” from London in 1976.
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Check out this surprisingly slinky version of “Thing Called Love” from the 1990 Grammy Awards. That’s a voice with some serious authority!
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Bonnie Raitt-Thing Called Love – Grammy Awards 2-21-1990
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We conclude with Raitt doing “Woman Be Wise,” a Sippie Wallace nugget that’s become a staple of Raitt’s setlists over the years. Let the easy sway (and sound advice) carry you off to a most pleasant Saturday. But spare a happy thought for Bonnie at least once or twice today, okay?
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Jazz and blues fests are everywhere now, and Americana is going strong on college radio. What I'm hearing is an appreciation of real music.
Bonnie Raitt
I speak my mind and come from a place of conscience, as well as have fun as a musician.
Bonnie Raitt
I don't know if I'm a heroine; I'm just somebody that can cheer the troops by singing to folks, and have receptions after the show, and tithe a dollar of every ticket sale for all kinds of different great charities and social action groups.
Bonnie Raitt
Quakers are known for wanting to give back. Ban the bomb and the civil rights movement and the native American struggle for justice - those things were very, very front-burner in my childhood, as were the ideas of working for peace and if you have more than you need, then you share it with people who don't.
Bonnie Raitt
The consolidation of the music business has made it difficult to encourage styles like the blues, all of which deserve to be celebrated as part of our most treasured national resources.
Bonnie Raitt
I think my fans will follow me into our combined old age. Real musicians and real fans stay together for a long, long time.
Bonnie Raitt
I grew up in Los Angeles in a Quaker family, and for me being Quaker was a political calling rather than a religious one.
Bonnie Raitt
I just play the music that I love with musicians that I respect, and fortunately, I'm in a position where people are willing to play with me, and perhaps I can do something to help them.
Bonnie Raitt
I never saw music in terms of men and women or black and white. There was just cool and uncool.
Bonnie Raitt
Solar power is the last energy resource that isn't owned yet - nobody taxes the sun yet.
Bonnie Raitt
Religion is for those who are scared of hell, and spirituality is for those who have been there.
Bonnie Raitt
Life gets mighty precious when there's less of it to waste.
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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
Arhoolie Foundation celebrates it's 60th anniversary (1960-2020) with an online broadcast.
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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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