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Bonnie Raitt
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- BONNIE RAITT - Born to a musical family, Bonnie Raitt is the daughter of celebrated Broadway singer John Raitt 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. She was already deeply involved with Folk music and the Blues at that time, listening to the Blues Masters.
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Bonnie Raitt is one of the most enduring female artists in rock ‘n’ roll, with a career that has spanned decades. In 1970, the 65-year-old Cambridge blues promoter and manager, Dick Waterman, an important figure in the blues revival of the 1960s, recognized Bonnie Raitt as an aspiring musician on the Boston area folk and blues scene. With Waterman’s encouragement, Raitt began performing alongside established blues legends such as Howlin' Wolf, Sippie Wallace, and Mississippi Fred McDowell, and in late 1970, while opening for Fred McDowell at the Gaslight Cafe in New York, a Newsweek Magazine reporter caught Raitt’s performance and began to spread the word. Record company scouts began attending her shows and she soon entered into a relationship with Warner Brothers, who released her debut self titled album in 1971.
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When Bonnie Raitt won a phenomenal four Grammys in 1990, it came as overdue recognition for an artist who had been breaking down barriers of gender and genre since the early Seventies. Her feel for the blues was evident on her first album, Bonnie Raitt (1971), and though she’s explored different kinds of material over the years - including pop, rock and balladry - a serious rooting in the blues has remained evident in her work. Raised in Los Angeles by her actor father John and pianist mother Marjorie, Raitt took up guitar at age 12. While attending college in Boston, she gravitated to the Cambridge folk-blues scene of the late Sixties. She emerged as both a prodigy and anomaly: a young woman who sang blues with gritty passion and played slide guitar with authority, as if the genre’s fundaments had been etched in her soul.
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Appearing at the prestigious Montreux Jazz Festival in 1977, Bonnie Raitt had been supporting her release SWEET FORGIVENESS, which featured her first charting single, a cover of Del Shannon’s “Runaway”, which would peak at #57 on the Billboard Pop charts. Although it would still be 12 years before she became a national star, this 1977 show proves she was no stranger to the Blues community, pulling selections from her 6 albums at that point. This performance offers a rare glimpse at Bonnie Raitt years before she became the darling of the music industry. Also included is a taste of her 1991 performance at the Festival, which features a performance of “Three Time Loser” from the aforementioned SWEET FORGIVENESS album, along with “Good Man, Good Woman” and “Papa Come Quick” from her 1991 effort LUCK OF THE DRAW.
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Until the release of the suitably titled 1989 blockbuster Nick of Time; her tenth album, Bonnie Raitt did not begin to win the comparable commercial success she deserved. The album rocketed her into the mainstream consciousness nearly two decades after she first committed her distinctive blend of blues, rock, and R&B to vinyl. Raitt felt an immediate likeness for the blues, after picking up the guitar at the age of 12. She went off to attend Radcliffe in 1967, within two years she had dropped out to begin playing the Boston folk and blues club circuit. She was soon performing alongside the likes of idols including Howlin' Wolf, Sippie Wallace, and Mississippi Fred McDowell, signing with noted blues manager Dick Waterman, and in time earned such a strong reputation that she was signed to Warner Bros.
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Over the course of her career, Bonnie Raitt has become as well known for her support of worthy causes as she is for her music. She has performed many benefit concerts and has spoken out at every opportunity for many different political, environmental and human rights causes. She has lobbied in Washington, DC and has been arrested for ancient forest protection. She has campaigned to end war in Central America, and apartheid in South Africa, and in support of the rights of women and Native Americans. She co-founded Musicians United For Safe Energy (MUSE) and performed in the historic No Nukes concerts in 1979. During her 2002 tour, she initiated the Green Highway Festival, a traveling eco-village which provides information to concert-goers about alternative energy solutions.
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Bonnie Raitt