Activism Archives

Brandi Carlile Praises Bonnie Raitt’s ‘Ability to Speak to the Every Man’ While ‘Pushing Radical Concepts’
"Bonnie is a fantastic activist, speaker and leader. I have so much respect"

on March 6, 2023 No comments

This Women’s History Month, Brandi Carlile is honoring Bonnie Raitt.

Long before she was the Grammy winner the world knows today, Carlile, 41, says she stood outside of Raitt’s concert at the Puyallup Fair nearby her hometown in Washington because she “couldn’t afford to go in.”

“I listened to her lecture rednecks about the environment,” the singer recalls to PEOPLE. “I remember she was one of the first purveyors of biodiesel buses.”

Bonnie Raitt Says She Is ‘Always Really Proud to be Acknowledged’ amid 2023 Grammy Nomination

Bonnie Raitt is just happy to be included at the Grammys this year. “It’s nice to represent the oldsters!” she joked as she talked to PEOPLE’s Janine Rubenstein and Jeremy Parsons on the red carpet at the Grammys Sunday night.

Later, she says, she went to one of Raitt’s shows at the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle, and she caught Raitt’s guitar pick that said “No Nukes” on it.

“I love Bonnie Raitt’s ability to speak to the every man while pushing radical — and they shouldn’t be considered radical — concepts that challenge people to think broader about one another,” she says. “I just think that Bonnie is a fantastic activist, speaker and leader. I have so much respect. She’s beyond reproach.”

Brandi Carlile and Wife Catherine Raised $300K in 7 Days for Earthquake Relief: ‘We Pivot Quickly’

Brandi Carlile and her wife Catherine Shepherd Carlile are honored amongst PEOPLE’s 2023 Women Changing the World for their work with their Looking Out Foundation

In May, Raitt, 73, will perform at Carlile’s inaugural Mothership Weekend festival in Florida.

“We have a festival in Mexico called Girls Just Wanna Weekend, and we created that festival to speak to the fact that there’s a disparagement in headlining spaces for women in music festivals in the United States,” Carlile says. “That festival sells out every year the minute it goes on sale, so it’s starting to exclude people because it sells out. It’s also excluding people who have monetary restrictions because it’s in Mexico. So we wanted to do something like that stateside, not necessarily centered on women, but celebrating matriarchy.”

Like Raitt, Carlile thinks it’s important to incorporate activism into her career. At the festival, she and her wife Catherine will have an “action village” set up to spotlight LGBTQ+ rights, global maternal health and reproductive rights.

“It’s going to be really interactive,” says Catherine. “Basically, attendees are going to be able to visit these information booths and find out how they can support.”

Brandi Carlile’s Wife and Daughters Adorably Introduce Her Performance at the 2023 Grammys

Brandi Carlile’s wife Catherine Shepherd and daughters adorably introduce her performance at the 2023 Grammys.

The first few rows of the venue of the festival are also going to be transformed into a large cove they’re calling the “Teacher’s Lounge.”

“We set aside these passes for educators, and there’s these upgrade opportunities, and it’s a really good view of the gig,” Carlile says. “It’s our way to thank teachers in Florida who are really struggling with oppressive laws surrounding their curriculum. We just want to throw a party for them and have a spot where they can sit and drink wine.”

In the years she’s done her Girls Just Wanna Weekend, Carlile says she’s had so many “powerful” moments. The most recent festival was in January.

“Looking out from the stage this year, I saw so many men,” she says. “I loved it so much. That’s when you see the tides changing — when men realize their role and responsibility in platforming female leadership, and that they realize that it’s f—ing fun.”

About The Author

Brianne Tracy

Staff Editor

Brianne Tracy has worked as a writer, reporter and editor covering entertainment and celebrity news for seven years.

She joined PEOPLE as an intern in 2016 and was a Staff Writer on the brand’s music team prior to becoming editor of the magazine’s Scoop section.

Brianne earned her bachelor’s degree in Broadcast Journalism at the University of Southern California.

Source: © Copyright People

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Bonnie Raitt At A Heartfelt Peak

on October 23, 2022 No comments

Above all, one golden attribute renders our species worth saving: a capacity for compassion, to see the world through another’s eyes, and to feel it with a shared heart.

It’s the rare empathetic genius whose music can evoke, exalt and immortalize that capacity.

High atop that list would be Bonnie Raitt, whose transcendent Just Like That has soared to the top of the charts… and into the timeless repertoire.

Daughter of a concert pianist and a Broadway legend, Bonnie has climbed unique artistic, political and spiritual peaks.

Her lifetime in music slides from blues to folk, r&b, rock, reggae, pop, classical standards and more. A partial of list of artists with whom she’s performed tracks our musical heart-print, through the likes of John Lee Hooker, B.B. King, Aretha Franklin, Willie Nelson, Tony Bennett, Ray Charles, CSN, Jackson Browne, Sheryl Crow, John Prine, Nora Jones, Pete Seeger, Allen Toussant, Bruce Springsteen, James Taylor, Ruth, Charles & James Brown, Peter Tosh Taj Mahal, Mavis Staples, and more. Her duet with her father, John Raitt, moves mountains:

At her recent packed concert at the Greek Theater in Los Angeles, Bonnie made special mention of her long-time “dear friend” John Prine, who wrote Angel from Montg omery, now one of her signature songs. “His tragic loss to Covid in 2020,” she added, was “absolutely in my heart.”

Raised in Quaker traditions, Bonnie’s commitments to peace, human rights, ecological and other issues are legendary. Among the scores of benefits she’s headlined and helped organize are the watershed 1979 NO NUKES concerts and mass rally against atomic power. More recently she’s joined long-time cohort Jackson Browne in asking California Governor Gavin Newsom to shut the Diablo Canyon atomic reactors and fully move the state to green energy.

Bonnie’s decades of live performances attest to a relentless perfectionism married to a natural, unassuming humor that in concert are a joy to behold.

Born in 1949, Bonnie will sing live some 70 times this year.

In June, my daughters saw their “Auntie Bonnie” at New York’s Beacon Theater, and then in September at LA’s Greek…a full thirty years since two of them, as toddlers, first joined her on a stage in Dayton.

In that era, the pop repertoire has been filled with relational odes bouncing around from lust to love to sadness, breakups, forever joy, all those essential matters of the heart. From Runaway to Longing in our Hearts to Nick of Time to I Can’t Make You Love Me, Ms. Raitt’s portfolio has happily embraced the romantic landscape.

Much of her set list has come from other writers. She is a master of the memorable cover.

But lately she’s been composing more of her own. Her 2016 The Goin’ Round is Comin’ Through is, in her words, “an indictment of those perpetrating misuse of power and saying their days are numbered.”

In Just Like That she goes beyond.

With Bonnie’s ten Grammys and countless awards at its back, her latest album has sailed straight to the top. The collection is full of musical treasures.

But two of her lyrics have found the Slipstream.

Down the Hall flows through the soul of a convicted murderer consoling a fellow inmate about to pass from cancer. The offer to accompany him to hospice– and then to assume the amazing grace of comforting the many doomed– cuts to the human core.

And in the end, when I hold their hand, it’s both of us set free.

As for the breathtaking Just Like That , take a listen:

A woman has lost a son. She carries the ultimate cross.

I spent so long in darkness, I never thought the night would end.

They say Jesus brings you peace and grace, Well He ain’t found me yet.

But a stranger has brought an astounding message.

It was your son’s heart that saved me, and a life you gave us both….

The catharsis bursts with all that amazes us about the human spirit.

I lay my head upon his chest, I was with my boy again.

Against all odds, in a life otherwise so painfully unkind….

…Somehow grace has found me, and I had to let him in.

Be sure to see this magnificent woman in concert wherever you can.

Well just like that your life can change, look at what the angels sent.

Including Bonnie herself, whose gentle genius and transcendent soul still give us all reason to believe.

About The Author

Harvey Wasserman

Harvey Wasserman is author of HARVEY WASSERMAN’S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES; SOLARTOPIA! OUR GREEN-POWERED EARTH and A GLIMPSE OF THE BIG LIGHT: LOSING PARENTS, FINDING SPIRIT. He writes regularly on politics and the environment at solartopia.org and freepress.org.

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Efforts by Harry Styles, Bonnie Raitt and more help register 150,000 new voters

on October 10, 2022 No comments

By wjjy

The midterm elections are fast approaching, and many new voters will be heading to the polls on November 8 thanks to Harry Styles, Bonnie Raitt and the Dave Matthews Band.

The artists have partnered with HeadCount, a nonprofit and nonpartisan organization working to register all eligible voters. Thanks to their efforts in raising awareness about the upcoming elections, HeadCount confirmed to ABC Audio that 150,000 new voters have registered so far this year.

In a previous statement, Tappan Vickery, HeadCount’s senior director of programming and strategy, explained why the organization’s partnered with such well-known celebrities. “Midterm elections do not receive the same attention as presidential cycles and often see fewer voters at the polls – especially young voters,” Vickery told ABC Audio. “Working with cultural leaders, like the incredible Harry Styles, is one of the most effective ways to increase awareness and participation in the 2022 midterm election.”

The organization teamed up with artists like Harry and Bonnie after the most recent census data showed nearly half of all individuals between 18 and 24 years old were not registered to vote. In addition, over 8 million 18- to 19-year-olds are now eligible to vote; HeadCount aims to reach them through its registration campaigns.

Other artists to have partnered with HeadCount include Beyoncé, Anderson .Paak, Ariana Grande, Panic! At The Disco and Billie Eilish.