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More than just a best-selling artist, respected guitarist, expressive singer,
and accomplished songwriter, Bonnie Raitt has become an
institution in American music. The release of Souls
Alike, her eighteenth album, marks yet another brave, exhilarating
step in a legendary body of work.
Born to a musical family, the nine-time Grammy winner is the daughter of
celebrated Broadway singer John Raitt (Carousel, Oklahoma!, The Pajama
Game) and accomplished pianist/singer Marge Goddard. She was raised in Los
Angeles in a climate of respect for the arts, Quaker traditions, and a
commitment to social activism. A Stella guitar given to her as a Christmas
present launched Bonnie on her creative journey at the age of
eight. While
growing up, though passionate about music from the start, she
never considered that it would play a greater role than as one of her many
growing interests.
In the late '60s, restless in Los Angeles, she moved east to Cambridge,
Massachusetts. As a Harvard/Radcliffe student majoring in Social Relations and
African Studies, she attended classes and immersed herself in the city's
turbulent cultural and political activities. "I couldn't wait to get back to
where there were folkies and the antiwar and civil rights movements," she says.
"There were so many great music and political scenes going on in the late '60s
in
Cambridge." Also, she adds, with a laugh, "the ratio of guys to girls at
Harvard was four to one, so all of those things were playing in my mind."
Raitt was already deeply involved with folk music and the
blues at that time. Exposure to the album Blues at Newport 1963 at age
14 had kindled her interest in blues and slide guitar, and between classes at
Harvard she explored these and other styles in local coffeehouse gigs. Three
years after entering college, Bonnie left to commit herself
full-time to music, and shortly afterward found herself opening for surviving
giants of the blues. From Mississippi
Fred McDowell, Sippie Wallace, Son
House, Muddy Waters, and John Lee Hooker she learned first-hand lessons of life
as well as invaluable techniques of performance.
"I'm certain that it was an incredible gift for me to not only be friends
with some of the greatest blues people who've ever lived, but to learn how they
played, how they sang, how they lived their lives, ran their marriages, and
talked to their kids," she says. "I was especially lucky as so many of them are
no longer with us."
Word spread quickly of the young redhaired blueswoman, her soulful,
unaffected way of singing, and her uncanny insights into blues guitar. Warner
Bros. tracked her down, signed her up, and in 1971 released her debut album, Bonnie Raitt. Her interpretations of
classic blues by Robert Johnson and Sippie Wallace made a powerful critical
impression, but the presence of intriguing tunes by contemporary songwriters, as
well as several examples of her own writing, indicated that this artist would
not be restricted to any one pigeonhole or style.
Over the next seven years she would record six albums. Give It Up, Takin' My Time, Streetlights, and Home Plate were followed in 1977 by Sweet Forgiveness, which featured
her first hit single, a gritty Memphis/R&B arrangement of Del Shannon's
"Runaway." Three Grammy nominations followed in the 1980s, as
she released The Glow, Green Light, and Nine Lives. A compilation of highlights from
these Warner Bros. albums (plus two previously unreleased live duets) was
released as The Bonnie Raitt Collection in
1990. All of these Warners albums have recently been digitally remastered and
re-released.
In between sessions, when not burning highways on tour with her band, she
devoted herself to playing benefits and speaking out in support of an array of
worthy causes, campaigning to stop the war in Central America; participating in
the Sun City anti-apartheid project; performing at the historic 1980 No Nukes
concerts at Madison Square Garden; co-founding MUSE (Musicians United for Safe
Energy); and working for environmental protection and for the rights of women
and Native Americans.
After forging an alliance with Capitol Records in 1989,
Bonnie achieved new levels of popular and critical acclaim. She
won four Grammy Awards in 1990—three for her Nick of Time album and one for her duet with
John Lee Hooker on his breakthrough album, The Healer. Within
weeks, Nick of Time shot to number one (it
is now certified quintuple platinum). Luck
of the Draw (1991, seven-times platinum) brought even more success, firing
two hit singles— "Something to Talk About" and "I Can't
Make You Love Me" —up the charts, and adding three more Grammys to her
shelf. The double-platinum Longing in
Their Hearts, released in 1994, featured the hit single "Love
Sneakin' Up On You" and was honored with a Grammy for Best Pop Album.
It was followed in 1995 by the live double CD and film Road Tested (now available on DVD).
After all the awards and honors and decades of virtually non-stop touring
under her belt, Bonnie decided to take a break and enjoy some
of the well-earned rewards of life off the road. Spending time biking, hiking,
and doing yoga, enjoying family and friends, and traveling for fun instead of
work brought her a great sense of renewal and purpose. Of course, she never
really went too far away, continuing her activism and guesting on numerous
friends' records, including Ruth Brown, Charles Brown, Keb' Mo, Ladysmith Black
Mambazo, and Bruce Cockburn, as well as tribute records for Richard Thompson,
Lowell George, and Pete Seeger. She picked up another Grammy in 1996 for Best
Rock Instrumental Performance for her collaboration on "SRV Shuffle" from the
all-star Tribute to Stevie Ray Vaughan, and continued her "dual career,"
performing with her father, John, in concerts as well as on his Grammy-nominated
album, Broadway Legend, released in 1995.
In 1998, she returned to the studio with a new collaborative team to create
Fundamental, one of her most exploratory
projects, signaling her growing desire to "shake things up a bit." Inspired by
the music of Zimbabwean world-beat master Oliver Mtukudzi,
Bonnie wrote "One Belief Away," the first
single, with Paul Brady and Dillon O'Brian.
In March of 2000, Bonnie was inducted into the Rock and Roll
Hall of Fame; this was followed by her welcome into the Hollywood Bowl Hall of
Fame, along with her father, in June 2001. Over the years,
Bonnie has appeared as a guest on over 100 album projects, as
chronicled in the discography section of her official website. She continues to
stretch the boundaries, performing with artists as varied as Cape Verdean singer
Cesaria Evora, and legends B.B.King, Tony Bennett, and Willie Nelson.
After the Fundamental tour and more inspirational travel, she went back into
the studio with her veteran road band to record Silver Lining, released in 2002. Featuring
Bonnie's stunning interpretation of the David Gray-penned title
track, the Grammy-nominated "Gnawin' On It," and the hit single
"I Can't Help You Now," Silver
Lining was considered by many critics to be one of the best albums of her
career. She promoted the album with a lengthy world tour that included her Green
Highway Festival and an eco-partnership promoting BioDiesel fuel, the
environment, and alternative energy solutions at shows and benefits along the
way. In 2003, she released the retrospective The Best
of Bonnie Raitt on Capitol.
Raitt also stayed busy with more guest appearances,
including the stunning duet "Do I Ever Cross Your Mind" on Ray Charles’ final
release, Genius Loves Company, which won the Grammy award for Album of
the Year, and a duet on the Grammy-winning album True Love by Toots
& The Maytals. Her 1989 breakthrough album, Nick of Time, was remixed for surround
sound, and released by Capitol Records in 2004 as a DVD-Audio, garnering a
Grammy nomination in the newly created category, Best Surround Sound Album.
In 2003, she also participated in Martin Scorsese's acclaimed PBS series,
The Blues, performing two songs in Wim Wenders' film, The Soul of a
Man, and joining the all-star cast of Lightning in a Bottle, the
live feature concert film on the Blues directed by Antoine Fuqua. She also
contributed songs for two Disney movies, The Country Bears and Home
on the Range. Currently, she plays guitar on a track on the new Stevie
Wonder album, A Time To Love, and appears in the upcoming TV/DVD
tribute, Music l0l: Al Green. A DVD of her 1977 performance at the
Montreux Jazz Festival has also just been released.
These last few years have also brought some personal challenges as well.
After a prolonged illness, her father passed away in early 2005; her mother died
unexpectedly from complications from Alzheimer’s just months earlier.
Concurrently, Bonnie has also been helping support her older
brother, who contracted brain cancer and, thankfully, is now virtually cured
(largely, she says, through a macrobiotic diet program). "When there was time to
go listen to more songs for my record," she says, "it was a welcome relief."
During this time, she also co-headlined with Jackson Browne and Keb Mo' as part
of the historic "Vote For Change" tour leading up to the 2004 Presidential
election.
All of Raitt’s experiences led her to Souls
Alike, her first album ever to bear the credit "Produced by
Bonnie Raitt." The album, again recorded with her close-knit,
beloved touring band and ace engineer/co-producer, Tchad Blake, is a collection
of songs by lesser-known songwriters with whom Raitt feels a
deep affinity and whose work she is eager to champion. Featuring some surprising
new directions and, as she describes them, "thorny, adult themes," the ambitious
and innovative Souls Alike reveals an extraordinary
artist who’s never been content to rest on her laurels. "You gotta do stuff that
stretches you," Bonnie says. "I'd hang up my spurs if I didn't
have something new to play."
Bonnie continues to use her influence to affect the way
music is perceived and appreciated in the world. In 1988, she co-founded the
Rhythm and Blues Foundation, which works to improve royalties, financial
conditions, and recognition for a whole generation of R&B pioneers to whom
she feels we owe so much. In 1995, she initiated the Bonnie
Raitt Guitar Project with the Boys and Girls Clubs of America,
currently running in 200 clubs around the world, to encourage underprivileged
youth to play music as budgets for music instruction in the schools run dry.
Her commitment to the redemptive power of music is expressed in the foreword
she wrote to American Roots, the book based on 2001's PBS series of the
same name:
"I feel strongly that this appreciation needs to be out there so that black,
Latino and all kids can understand the roots of their own musical heritage," she
explains. "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." |
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