495: Bonnie Raitt — Give It Up (1972, Warner Bros. Records)

Overall Rating: 4

Level of Prior Familiarity: 1

How I Listened: Via Spotify on my Amazon Echo, with repeated listening on my computer while I wrote this.

I used to work at Warner Bros. Records. Hanging all over the building were these relics of album artwork, old posters, rare photographs, and what have you. I mean, these were real treasures. There was a Madonna album cover with the airbrushing overlays, and art director’s notes written in red pencil. Photos of Prince, and Van Halen, and Alice Cooper, and a zillion others. Concert posters and platinum record plaques, and all the other paraphernalia of rock and roll. Walking through the building you couldn’t help but feel the presence of these icons, the history, the magic of those records that defined generations, defined genres, defined music and culture and art.

Why didn’t I ever see Bonnie Raitt on the walls there?

Somehow this album completely escaped me for, well, my entire life. And that’s a shame, because this album is gorgeous. It highlights Raitt’s spectacular guitar playing, but it’s not a straight-ahead blues album (the kind she would eventually be known for). There are pop songs here, funky rock tunes, ballads, Dixieland, Raitt can pretty much play in any style, and damn she can sing too. Bonus points for Paul Butterfield on the harp.

Standout tracks: “Love Me Like A Man,” “Nothing Seems To Matter,” “If You Gotta Make A Fool Of Somebody.”

I really can’t explain how albums like this disappear from our collective consciousness, but these are exactly the reason my little RS500 exercise is so important. I’m only a handful of records into this experiment, but I’m already finding incredible gems like this one for the first time.