Being immersed in blues music, Bonnie Raitt represents a segment of the culture that is rooted in slower, simpler times. But talk to this Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee, who performs tonight at Pompano Beach Amphitheatre, and there’s a sense of things spinning rapidly.
Tours are tied in with albums, favored causes and fundraisers. The scheduling of anything more time-intensive than lunch — public appearances, interviews, recording sessions — can require a year’s advance notice.
Raitt also has suffered personal losses in this decade: the deaths of her parents, both musicians; and a brother, who succumbed to cancer in April. Her work life didn’t stop while she was tending to loved ones; it just became more complicated.
So it’s not a surprise to hear the Grammy-winning singer and guitarist, who turns 60 next month, say in a telephone interview that she’s looking forward to some time off. What’s more unexpected is how much time off: It could be a good long while.
“I’m going to be taking a break, an extended break, after basically 10 years of much illness and nonstop working,” she said. “So I’m looking forward to a hiatus where I get to do what I want to do, and not necessarily be obligated to … go on tour to raise … money and get people out for the elections or take care of anybody who’s very, very ill. So it’s just going to be a time when I get to really have my first hiatus in a long time.”
Raitt does not anticipate a total retreat from the world. “My day job running my political-activist life, that never goes away,” she said. But she is clearing sections of her calendar. “I’ve already had to turn down at least half a dozen things that I would have given my teeth to do if I wasn’t needing this break.”
“I’ll stay busy with my — the world isn’t going to lose all the different causes that I’m involved in,” she said. “But I don’t need to make another record. I don’t need to win any more awards. I don’t need to tour to make a living. After 40 years of always having another record in the back of my mind when I finished a tour, this is the first time I’m going to regroup.”
She called this “a good time … to be able to wait and plan my next move.”
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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