Reviews

Bonnie Raitt Gives It One More Try with ‘Green Light’: Review
REVIEWS: Album Rewinds

on June 29, 2025 No comments

In the summer and fall of 1981, Bonnie Raitt was enjoying the sunshine and good vibes in Malibu, Calif., recording her eighth album for Warner Bros. Records at Shangri-La Studios, a two-acre ranch up the hill from popular Zuma Beach. Audio engineer Rob Fraboni had converted the main house, which had been a bordello in the 1950s, into a recording studio at the direction of Bob Dylan and the Band after their 1974 tour.

By 1976, Fraboni and his business partners had bought the building and upgraded it to a full 24-track facility. The Band continued to do sessions at Shangri-La, and Eric Clapton later recorded his No Reason to Cry LP there. As Raitt told High Fidelity’s Stephen X. Rea, “I’ve been waiting my entire career to make this record, and I finally got the right band with the right producer in the right studio…I had a ball. Green Light is the first album I actually had fun doing…I tend to worry too much, to analyze and anguish over everything. That tends to make you look at things in a more serious framework. But then there’s the side of me that likes to let go and party all the time. It’s difficult to reconcile the two. Rob and the guys in the band helped to bring out the rebellious, crazy side of me.”

Warner Bros. was an artist-friendly label that was known for sticking with acts they liked and supported, giving them lots of opportunities to turn good recordings into commercial hits, but not applying a lot of pressure. Raitt would probably have already been dropped by most other labels, but she had a home: “I’m amazed that 200,000 or 300,000 people want to buy my record. I’m grateful that we draw as well as we do. All the people that come to see me year after year after year—I feel like I have a pact with them.”

Her previous album, The Glow, produced by the hitmaker Peter Asher, failed to meet expectations, with Raitt admitting she was “stung by the lack of response.” Inspired by the rootsy bands she was enjoying, including the Blasters, the Stray Cats and Rockpile, she intended to make an unabashed rock record. She told Rea, “There were inklings of the direction I was going in all along, when I started standing up at my shows about five years ago instead of sitting in a chair; when I began to play the Gibson instead of the acoustic, and then a Strat instead of the Gibson; when I moved my uptempo songs from the encore to the beginning of the set.”

Raitt found a readymade set of co-conspirators in the Bump Band, which featured ex-Faces keyboardist Ian “Mac” McLagan, guitarist Johnny Lee Schell, bassist Ray Ohara and drummer Ricky Fataar. They were signed to Mercury Records but could be imported as a unit, with additional players, like guitarist Rick Vito, organist William “Smitty” Smith or saxophonist David Woodford added as necessary.

As Raitt didn’t compose much, the songs were sourced from a smorgasbord of admired classics (the Equals’ “Baby Come Back”), nuggets from the eclectic catalog of NRBQ (“Me and the Boys” and “Green Lights”) an unrecorded Bob Dylan masterwork (“Let’s Keep It Between Us”) and other hot finds. Raitt co-wrote two of the LP’s 10 cuts, explaining songwriting wasn’t a priority: “I guess it’s a combination of laziness and lack of desire. I don’t spend any time at it. I don’t play guitar or piano for recreational purposes. I’m not a songwriter. I’m not a poet like Jackson Browne. I’m just not that good at it. Maybe I’d be better if I worked at it more.”

“Keep This Heart In Mind,” written by the fairly obscure Fred Marrone and Stephen Holsapple, leads off the album, and was unfortunately the disc’s initial failed single release. It has an infectious chorus, in which the singer insists that an ex-lover can always come back—a touching, if probably unrealistic, optimism. Raitt’s authoritative singing is buttressed by four backing vocalists, including Jackson Browne.

Eric Kaz, the highly respected songwriter for Raitt, Linda Ronstadt and many others, wrote “River of Tears.” Like “Love Has No Pride” and other heart-tuggers he wrote or co-composed, it features downcast lyrics: “Rivers of tears, oceans of heartbreak/I want to feel what your love can be/I close my eyes.” Unusually for Kaz, melodically it’s not a lament, but rather a midtempo groover. The Band’s Richard Manuel (who was living on the Shangri-La property at the time) sings harmony, and Raitt lays down her first impressive slide guitar solo.

Walt Richmond, pianist for Tulsa country-rockers the Tractors, co-wrote “Can’t Get Enough” with Raitt. A funky reggae beat merges with a guitar riff recalling both Ian Dury’s “Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick” and (when the saxophone enters), Average White Band’s “Pick Up the Pieces.” It’s a wonderfully rambunctious track that Raitt leads with enthusiasm. Fraboni and Fataar add some nice percussion.

Schell’s “Willya Wontcha” begins with a bang as his crisp guitar blends with Raitt’s slide and McLagan’s barrelhouse piano. Taken at a breakneck pace, it very much sounds like a hybrid Little Feat/Faces romp, with Schell singing parallel lines with Raitt like he’s Lowell George’s twin. Her slide solo midway is fiery. The lyrics are silly (“Willya wontcha do you dontcha really really wanna kiss me?/Honey it’s all right/I promise I won’t bite”) but who cares when you’re dancing around the room?

“Let’s Keep It Between Us” is an unrecorded Dylan song the bard offered to Raitt. Dylan had played it live on his autumn 1980 tour, but his own tour-rehearsal tape wasn’t released until 2021 on Bootleg Series Vol. 16. With a gospel drive characteristic of several of Dylan’s early ’70s songs like “The Groom’s Still Waiting at the Altar,” it features a series of descending melody lines that the band absolutely nails. The interplay between McLagan’s piano and Smith’s organ couldn’t be better.

Raitt seems especially committed to the lyrics, about a (possibly interracial) couple defending themselves against the disdain of the world: “Back seat drivers don’t know the feel of the wheel/But they sure know how to make a fuss/Oh darlin’, can we keep it between us?” The bridge section adds an even more shocking aspect of the dilemma: “I know we’re not perfect, but then again, so what?/That ain’t no reason to treat you like a snake or to treat me like a slut/And it’s making me so angry.” In a career of great performances, this one may be Raitt’s most overlooked.

Raitt’s take of Terry Adams’ “Me and the Boys” follows the template of NRBQ’s 1980 original on their Tiddlywinks album, with its excitingly irregular rhythm intact and tons of room for hard rockin’ from the whole Bump Band. The groove is so like Rockpile it’s no wonder Dave Edmunds cut the song for his D.E. 7th album, which was released within a few months of Green Light.

Schell’s love of Keith Richards’ leading-from-the-rhythm technique is shown beautifully during the opening of “I Can’t Help Myself,” which he wrote with Raitt, Fataar and Ohara. The lyrics are a joyous celebration from the point of view of a woman who learned how to fall in love at an early age and never regretted it: “No matter how hard I try/I just can’t leave it alone/No use in wondering why/’Cause my heart has a mind of its own.” Vince Gill sings backup lines with Raitt and Schell.

“Baby Come Back” was originally a B-side for the multiracial British group the Equals’ single “Hold Me Closer” in 1967, before it returned as an A-side the following year as a worldwide hit (it peaked at #32 in the U.S.). Written by the band’s guitarist Eddy Grant, it grafted ska onto bubblegum pop, with a 4/4 beat that wouldn’t let go. The Bump Band arrangement replicates much of the original, including the spoken “all right”s and “yeah”s added by Bonnie’s big brother Steve.

Penned by the genre-bending Texan Jerry Williams (often known as Jerry Lynn Williams to avoid confusion with Jerry Williams Jr., a.k.a. Swamp Dogg), “Talk to Me” was included on his 1979 Warner Bros. disc Gone. Rick Vito’s guitar is added for Raitt’s version, to help it hit the spot between disco and Stax-style R&B. It’s a bit of a throwaway, but when the last 45 seconds are turned over to Woodford, it catches fire.

NRBQ originally cut “Green Lights” for their 1978 LP At Yankee Stadium, definitely not recorded at the baseball field, but with cover photos taken there as a birthday present for their bassist and Bronx Bombers fanatic Joey Spampinato. He wrote “Green Lights” with Terry Adams, and Raitt grabbed it for a fantastic conclusion to her “singular” LP. The band rocks mightily, but Fraboni and his engineer Tim Kramer botch part of the track, with Raitt’s voice too far back in the mix, with a vocal effect laid on it that screams “’80s” way too much.

Green Light was a solid enough album, but it didn’t break new ground commercially for Raitt. The record label began to admit she was never going to become the star she should be, and her contract was terminated in 1983 just after she turned in her next album, Tongue & Groove. In an extraordinary move, the label gave her the money to recut part of the album in 1985 (“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, and my ability to draw was less and less”). Released as Nine Lives, it did nothing.

And then Capitol Records signed her, and she decided it was time to stop her sometimes over-the-top lifestyle. Raitt’s debut and “first sober album” for Capitol, Nick of Time, went to #1, and she won four Grammy Awards at the 32nd ceremony, three for that album and one for her duet with John Lee Hooker, “I’m In the Mood,” from his album The Healer.

Her time at Warner Bros. Records had been exhilarating, frustrating and highly creative, and her legacy there is still well worth exploring. She’ll kick off her next tour in August 2025. Tickets are available here and here.

Watch Raitt perform “Me and the Boys” live on Fridays in 1982

Raitt’s extensive catalog is available in the U.S. here and in the U.K. here.

Related:

Bonnie Raitt Rebounds in the ‘Nick of Time’

About The Author

Mark Leviton

Mark Leviton began writing about music and pop culture in 1967, with credits in Rolling Stone, Creem, Fusion, Bay Area Musician, LA Weekly, Phonograph Record and many fly-by-night publications.For 25 years he worked for the Warner Music Group and Rhino Records, producing hundreds of compilation albums and historical reissues, placing recordings in films and TV, and generally having a blast.His bi-weekly radio show “Pet Sounds” is heard on KVMR-FM in Nevada City, CA and the website www.petsoundsmusic.com.

Source: © Copyright Best Classic Bands

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Music Review: Bonnie Raitt, 02 Apollo Manchester

on June 24, 2025 No comments

by Kevin Bourke

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.

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About The Author

Kevin Bourke

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.

Source: © Copyright Northern Soul

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Bonnie Raitt, Brighton Dome review – a top night with a characterful, very American blues rock queen
The US star concludes her UK tour with a rockin' south coast send-off

on June 18, 2025 No comments

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?).

*Santa Cruz Blues Festival – May 2015* © Susan J. Weiand

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

About The Author

Thomas H Green

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

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.

About The Author

Charles Pring

Reporter

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.