Bonnie Raitt is devoting her Sunset Center appearance to supporting journalism. “Never has protecting a free press been more essential,” she says.

Bonnie Raitt has long been recognized as a blues-rock icon for her stellar songwriting, silky smooth voice, punchy rhythms, and for her virtuosic electric guitar blues slide technique. The late great B.B. King called her “the best damn slide player working today.”

“It was an incredible gift for me to grow up with all of the great blues legends,” Raitt says. “Not only were we players, we were all friends. So in addition to the music I learned how they lived, ran their marriages and how they talked to their kids.”

But it wasn’t all an easy road. Raitt, like so many other music stars, succumbed to addiction on her way up. She credits the late Stevie Ray Vaughn with helping her to get sober.

“I thought I had to live that late-night partying lifestyle to be an authentic blues player,” Raitt recalls. “But if you keep it up too long, all you are going to be is sloppy or dead. One day I heard that Stevie was a much better player sober.”

What followed has been a multi-decade foray into the very heart of modern political activism, dating back to the early 1970s supporting causes like No Nukes. Raitt has been active in Farm Aid, music education outreach for kids and many other programs.

Her appearance locally on Sept. 23 will benefit four prominent nonprofits dedicated to investigative journalism and protecting a free press: the Center for Media and Democracy; Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR); the Fund for Investigative Journalism; and ProPublica.

“There’s never been a time like this that made me look around and say, ‘wow – nobody saw this coming,’” she says. “All of a sudden everything shifted, and with our democracy at a crossroads, never has protecting a free press been more essential to holding the powerful to account and keeping the public informed and engaged.”

Turning to her current music, Raitt waxes circumspect.

“My fans will always cheer for ‘Angel From Montgomery’ or ‘Something To Talk About,’” she points out. “But lately I feel that there’s something else there, and that we’ve built a whole new audience with a younger Americana generation. What’s going on with roots music now is the harvest of what we did in the ’60s and ’70s. I feel like I’m part of a continuum.”

Bonnie Raitt 7pm Monday, Sept. 23. $100-$350; sold out. Sunset Center, San Carlos and 9th, Carmel. 620-2040, sunsetcenter.org.