Bonnie Raitt: Someone to Talk About
Willie Nelson once said “There are two types of men in the world: those who are in love with Bonnie Raitt, and those who’ve never heard of her.” I would guess there are very few men or women over the age of 40 who are in the second group, and a whole lot of us in the first.
I was first introduced to Raitt’s music by a man who would later become my husband when we shared group housing off-campus near the University of Oregon. “Jeff” had graduated and was working at a small start-up; I was in the U of O’s journalism school.
Jeff first heard Raitt play in smaller venues around Eugene shortly after she hit the music scene in 1971. Of his eclectic mix of musical favorites, she was the one I most loved. When we later shared an apartment, Jeff brought his stereo with a diamond-tipped needle, two gigantic home-made box speakers, and a library of LPs with embossed labels, numbered with his own take on the Dewey Decimal System. I never figured out that system and so it was best for our relationship if only Jeff touched the library. However, he took requests, and I usually requested Bonnie.
The first time I saw Raitt live was at the LB Day Amphitheater in Salem, Ore. Many years and three husbands later (one for her, two for me) I saw her perform at the Maui Arts and Cultural Center. Her famous auburn hair already sported a streak of gray and she wore a black tutu, black tights, a black leather jacket, and cowboy boots. “People say I should dress my age. Nah.”
As a vocalist, slide-guitar stylist, or on the electric piano, Raitt’s musical chops aren’t in question, nor is her ability to cross categories: blues, rock, folk, country, Americana. In 1989 she had four Grammy wins in pop, rock, and traditional blues, and in 2012 she won for Best Album in the Americana category (Slipstream). In total, she has been nominated for 26 Grammy awards and has won 10.
Raitt loves musicians as much as she loves music and she’s generous with her praise of songwriters, such as the late John Prine (Angel from Montgomery) and the late John Lee Hooker, with whom she collaborated on for I’m in the Mood for Love.
Raitt attended Radcliffe College after graduating from high school, majoring in social relations and African studies. After two years there (1967–1969) she left for music, but she never left her interest in social causes. Rait is almost as well known for her social activism as she is for her music, calling her nonprofit work the “fifth member of my band.”
It’s hard to listen to Raitt’s music, especially her ballads and blues, without wondering what it was in her life that made her so deeply soulful. As one country music artist said, she can bend and twist a lyric right into your heart. Her parents were Quaker and were also musical. Her mother was a pianist and her father was an actor in musical productions. When she lost both them and a brother within a short period of time, Raitt took time off to heal. That period may be what she means in one of her most famous quotes in which she says she is spiritual, but not religious. “Religion is for people who are scared to go to hell. Spirituality is for people who have already been there.”
Although I’ve now been listening to Raitt songs for more than four decades, I continue to “discover” new favorites, such as Dimming of the Day, by Richard Thompson. Her gift of music keeps on giving. And as Bonnie says, “Real musicians and real fans stay together for a long, long time.”
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Yvonne Aileen is an indie author of nonfiction books in any category that interests her. Her first book, How to Buy a House: Vital Real Estate Strategy for the First Time Home Buyer and her second book: Goddesses Don’t Diet: The Girlfriends’ Guide to Intermittent Fasting, were both published in 2021.
