Awards

Again and again, Bonnie Raitt did it her way. Her way keeps on working.
Kennedy Center Honors

on December 3, 2024 No comments
By Karen Heller

Hanging out with the sublime singer who makes her guitar sound “the way bacon smells” — and reflecting on her lifetime of music and activism.

SAN FRANCISCO

In the late 1960s during her sophomore year, Bonnie Raitt took a leave from Radcliffe. Her intention was to hang with blues legends Mississippi Fred McDowell, Son House, Buddy Guy and Junior Wells, who were managed by her then-boyfriend Dick Waterman, inhaling the sort of storied education that wasn’t offered at Harvard.

Video: © Jesse Dittmar /The Washington Post

Music was “just a hobby and a passion of mine,” says Raitt, 75, who began noodling on a $25 guitar from Sears at the age of 8 and was quickly influenced by an array of blues, folk and country artists. “I never expected it to be my life. My intention was to have a really cool side experience.”

Instead, Raitt has helmed a rock, folk and blues odyssey that is as improbable as it is lengthy, 21 albums and 54 years of touring punctuated by triumphs that erupted decades apart in an industry that tends to Vitamix its young.

“Takin’ My Time,” the title of her 1973 third album, proved prophetic. It took Raitt, among this year’s Kennedy Center Honors recipients, nearly two decades of recording to top the charts with her 1989 Grammy album of the year “Nick of Time” and then — wait for it — another two decades to have her writing honored for the tear-duct-depleter and 2023 Grammy song of the year, “Just Like That.” In broadcast footage of both ceremonies, she looks profoundly shocked by the wins.

When Raitt first left college, “my plan was to hang out with my heroes and use my hobby to maybe open some shows,” she says, sitting in a friend’s loft office near her home in Marin County, California. “She jumped into the deep end of the pool,” says Taj Mahal, who met her during those early days. “She could hang with any of them.”

Raitt returned to college for another year, while playing in local clubs. The record labels came courting. With characteristic moxie, Raitt told executives, “If you give me complete artistic control and never tell me what to wear or what to sing and who to work with or how often to make the records, I will work really hard.”

She was all of 20.

Warner Brothers conceded to every wish, and Raitt quit Radcliffe for good. She found a way to meld music and activism through a lifetime of touring, a calling. “Making people happy every night, including us, is a thrill,” she says.

When she landed a record deal in 1969, Raitt told Billboard, “I was inexpensive, ­nonthreatening and interesting.” © Jesse Dittmar /The Washington Post

A lengthy autumn afternoon hanging with Raitt is exactly as you might expect, like meeting a dear friend. Her distinctive face — an aquiline nose, eyes canopied by a high crease — is framed by a fountain of Titian hair fronted by a signature white streak that first appeared in her 30s. She’s bought a vivid bouquet to brighten the room, answers every question without hesitation, and leaves with a powerful hug. There are candid and lively peregrinations about politics (progressive), old friends (kept), new causes (myriad), industry gossip (delicious), sobriety (since age 37), exercise (yoga, biking and hiking so she can keep touring), children (never wanted them, asks about yours), men (marriage to actor Michael O’Keefe, 1991-1999, mum about her love life, invoking the Sippie Wallace mantra, “women be wise, keep your mouth shut, don’t advertise your man”), the influence of parents (profound) and thrift (“I’m Quaker and Scottish so I’m quite frugal”).

“Bonnie epitomized and personified what I saw for myself,” says Sheryl Crow, who credits Raitt as “the template for showing me that a woman can front a band playing the guitar. She shares her ideas. She’s an excellent mentor.” Best advice? “Keep your nose in the work, and don’t ever listen to anybody.” Says Raitt, “I’m really lucky that I’m the boss. I was just too much of a feminist to be pushed around.”

Bonnie Raitt and Sheryl Crow perform at CMT studios in 2019 in Nashville. “Bonnie epitomized and personified what I saw for myself,” says Crow, who credits Raitt as “the template for showing me that a woman can front a band playing the guitar.” © Jason Kempin /Getty Images for CMT

Her late father, musical theater luminary John Raitt (“Carousel,” “Oklahoma,” “The Pajama Game”), remains her Polaris. “My dad didn’t care if he had another Broadway show. He just wanted to take his music to the people,” she says. “He knew that he would last a long time if every show was opening night. I grew up with that ethos and knew how much fun he had.” He toured until his mid-80s, until his body would no longer let him. (He died of complications from pneumonia in 2005 at the age of 88.)

That kind of staying power is Raitt’s mission, too. In 1978, she attended the first Kennedy Center Honors, where her father performed as part of the tribute to composer Richard Rodgers. Almost a half-century later, it’s her turn.

Early on, in addition to being a red-haired Radcliffe dropout steeped in the blues, Raitt was aware that she was peddling something novel. “If I was only doing blues, we wouldn’t be sitting here. The mix of what I do is what makes it stand out,” she says. “If I didn’t play guitar the way I did, I would never have gotten a record deal.” The late B.B. King, one of Raitt’s many collaborators, dubbed her “the best damn slide player working.” She’s a master of fingerpicking, too. The goal, she has said, is to make her guitar sound “the way bacon smells,” inspiring a trove of younger female performers. When she landed a record deal in 1969, Raitt told Billboard, “I was inexpensive, ­nonthreatening and interesting.”

John Lee Hooker and Bonnie Raitt – John Lee Hooker Tribute at Madison Square Garden, New York, October 16, 1990 © Paul Natkin /WireImage/Getty Images

She was more than that. “When Bonnie sings, she commands this truth. She demands it of herself and of the song and the music,” says Jackson Browne, who toured with Raitt during the early 1970s, two bands sardined into one bus. She was a self-identified tomboy and often the only woman on board.

Blues and jazz legends have perennially aged with grace, becoming more venerated with time. No one could have guessed when she entered the youth-obsessed rock industry — just after Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison died at age 27 — that its performers could enjoy a lasting audience, and that their fans might stay true to their musical heroes for the long haul, achieving a profound bond spanning decades.

She is the one singer who I kind of feel like she’s mine. Thousands of fans feel exactly the same way

Julia Louis-Dreyfus

“She is the one singer who I kind of feel like she’s mine. Thousands of fans feel exactly the same way,” Julia Louis-Dreyfus gushed when Raitt appeared on the actor’s podcast this year. Almost everyone wanted to collaborate with Raitt: Aretha Franklin, blues titans (John Lee Hooker, Ruth Brown, Pops and Mavis Staples), Tony Bennett, Ray Charles, Willie Nelson. “She loves the collaboration, the spark, and knows that’s where all the good juju is,” Crow says.

“We’ve all become really comfortable with our age. Your elder years have completely changed,” Raitt says. “It’s wonderful that Billie Eilish and Olivia Rodrigo and Taylor Swift are fans of mine. I think they’re all fantastic.”

One of her childhood role models was Miss Kitty on television’s “Gunsmoke,” portrayed by Amanda Blake. “She was sassy, had swagger and owned the saloon, so she didn’t have to get married.” A redhead, too. Raitt views herself as a character actress among singers, not a leading lady. “I get to age more gracefully. I don’t have to follow the path where I’m going to do a skin-care commercial,” she says.

Bonnie Raitt performs with her father, musical theater luminary John Raitt. In 1978, she attended the first Kennedy Center Honors, where her father performed as part of the tribute to composer Richard Rodgers. © Bettmann Archive /Getty Images

There was also durability in primarily being an interpreter of other people’s songs. “I would be totally bored doing only my own point of view. It’s the mix of different points of views and styles that keeps me interested,” Raitt says. She didn’t have to wait for inspiration to strike, an advantage in delivering the next album and mastering new material.

Raitt never tired of the road. Never wanting children made it easier. “It’s like a magical exhalation that happens, the exchange between the audience and us,” says Raitt, who has won 13 Grammys as well as a Lifetime Achievement Award, and was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2000. “Playing live is what drives you. That’s what your purpose is. At the end of the night, I feel like I’ve had my blood changed.” Being at home for too long “is really boring,” she says. “Traveling in a pack on the road is like a moving summer camp.”

Raitt’s parents were Quakers and peace activists. Her mother, Marjorie, was a pianist and her father’s musical director. (They divorced in 1971.) Bonnie was the middle of three children, the only girl, all of them musical. At school, she refused to participate in mandatory bomb threat drills. At age 15, she accompanied her mother to the March on Washington against the Vietnam War. “I’m an activist musician, a woman bandleader and music director. It’s a big deal,” says Raitt.

John Raitt and his family liked to spend weekends away from the glitter of Hollywood. Heading for a weekend outing in the desert in February 1961 are Marjorie, David, 9, and John. In back are Bonnie Lynn, 12, and Stephen, 14. © AP Photo

She buys back her concert tickets to thwart speculators, offering premium seats at higher prices with the proceeds funneled into a dizzying number of causes. In 2022, she dispensed 147 charitable grants totaling more than $300,000 from touring, independent of her benefit performances and personal donations. “I think of my causes as my fifth band member,” she says. “Fairness is the thing that runs through everything I do.”

In her early days, Raitt made good on her promise to the record label, releasing six albums in seven years, interpreting other writers’ songs to the point of ownership: Chris Smither’s “Love Me Like a Man,” Joni Mitchell’s “That Song About the Midway” and John Prine’s “Angel From Montgomery,” the last performed at every concert.

“I couldn’t stand my voice back then. It was high and fruity sounding,” Raitt says. She aged it with late nights of drink to sound more like her heroes, Sippie Wallace and Etta James. “I hammered that baby into submission,” she says.

Bonnie Raitt performs at a San Francisco television studio in 1975. “Playing live is what drives you,” she said. “That’s what your purpose is.” © Ginny Winn /Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

“It was a great voice learning to expand itself to its potential,” says Taj Mahal. “She’s done the thing that you have to do with your voice, and that is make it a signature. As soon as you hear it, you know who you’re listening to.” The same holds true for her guitar playing.

Raitt developed a devoted fan base on college campuses, smaller venues and progressive FM radio, but not substantial sales. Becoming big wasn’t the dream. “I’ve turned down songs that were clearly hits because I just thought it was too on the nose,” she says.

“Bonnie’s not standing in line waiting to be made the latest flavor,” Browne says. “She’s one of those people that is plugged into the moment, and the truth of the moment.”

In late 1983, the label dumped her, along with Randy Newman, T-Bone Burnett and Arlo Guthrie. Raitt was livid.

The quest was for young artists, pop hits, a hailstorm of synthesizer.

“I wasn’t linking up with what they were looking for,” she says.

Raitt got sober, got in shape and teamed up with musician Don Was, now a vaunted producer. “We weren’t the most attractive or the most commercial package to be offered to a label,” Was says. But they agreed on the path forward.

The only way to get noticed is to go deeper,” Was says. “At that time, no one wanted to hear music about turning 40. ‘Nick of Time’ is totally about turning 40.

“The only way to get noticed is to go deeper,” Was says. “At that time, no one wanted to hear music about turning 40. ‘Nick of Time’ is totally about turning 40.”

Their aim was to acquire emotional intimacy, to make the album sound like “Bonnie was six inches away from you, talking to you in your ear,” Was says. “That called for a whole lot of space, which wasn’t fashionable at the time. The really great, sensitive artists always know when to leave. The emotion is sometimes in the nuance.”

When Raitt recorded her gut-wrenching single “I Can’t Make You Love Me,” written by Mike Reid and Allen Shamblin, which routinely leaves fans in tears, she was newly married to O’Keefe, happy. “She kind of Stanislavskied it. She found some incident in her life to access,” Was says. Steeped in the blues, Raitt was a musical method actor, leaning into the hurt. A studio exec dropped by one of their sessions. Was recalls the executive asking him, “Do you have a tux? Because you better get one. You’re going to the Grammys.”

Known for her charitable causes, in 2022 Raitt dispensed 147 grants totaling more than $300,000 from touring. “I think of my causes as my fifth band member,” she said. © Jesse Dittmar /The Washington Post

Forty turned out to be just fine, as did 50 through 75. Lo and behold, her audience grew. “Nick of Time” has now sold more than 5 million copies in the United States and, two years ago, entered the Library of Congress’s National Recording Registry.

Raitt has contributed more original compositions on recent albums. “Just Like That” tells the story of a woman who causes a car accident that kills her son, then meets the transplant victim who received his heart, the latter inspired by a news story. Even after singing the song a few hundred times, Raitt cries recalling its genesis.

“Songs like ‘Just Like That’ don’t come along very often,” Crow says. “It’s a perfect song, and if she never wrote a song before or after it, it wouldn’t matter. It is deep and meaningful, and I feel like it’s who she truly is. A thinker, an intellect. She shows up for the cause.”

Bonnie Raitt took home Grammy Awards for song of the year for “Just Like That” and best Americana performance for “Made Up My Mind” at the 2023 ceremony in Los Angeles. © Jae C. Hong /Invision/AP Photo

“To have your livelihood fall into your lap without desiring it,” Raitt says, “then to be able to use your gift to raise money and more attention than you would have had you become an activist or social worker is incredible.”

This, she did. Hold steady. Maintain artistic autonomy. Don’t let anyone tell you what to do. Work really hard. Bring your music to the fans. Love what you’re doing. Do it as long as you can. Sooner but possibly much later, the accolades will come.

Bonnie Raitt photographed at the Rosebud Agency in San Francisco on Oct. 14. The renowned musician will receive a Kennedy Center Honors award this month. © Jesse Dittmar /The Washington Post

About The Author


Source: © Copyright The Washington Post

But wait, there's more!

Grammy-winning song hits close to home for Bonnie Raitt’s bassist
Maui resident James Hutchinson knows firsthand the meaning of ‘Just Like That’

on March 30, 2023 No comments
Jon Woodhouse | For the Maui News

When Bonnie Raitt received the Grammy Award for Song of the Year for “Just Like That” in February, her band’s longtime bass player, James “Hutch” Hutchinson, was watching on TV in Los Angeles. Raitt had earlier won Grammys for Best American Roots Song for “Just Like That” and Best Americana Performance for “Made Up Mind,” which meant her band all shared in the award.

“We were all shocked,” said Hutchinson, who has played with Raitt for 40 years and has made Maui his home for 20 years. “We were up for four awards, three of them in the Americana category. We won the first two and then the third one, Americana Album of the Year, Brandi Carlile won and she got up and said, ‘I can’t believe I won this. I thought Bonnie was going to sweep again.’

Bonnie Raitt with James “Hutch” Hutchinson 2019
© Maike Schulz /Gruber Photographers

“We were thrilled to win two out of three,” Hutchinson continued. “The performance award is a band award. Then, of course, the icing on the cake was when she won for Song of the Year, which is the award she really wanted because she’s the sole composer of the tune. So it was big, a big deal.”

Heading to the Maui Arts and Cultural Center for a concert on Friday, Raitt has now won 13 Grammys, including some for her multimillion-selling albums, “Nick of Time” and “Luck of the Draw.”

The title song of Raitt’s latest album, “Just Like That” is an emotionally wrenching song that has touched so many people. She based it on a news story about a mother who donated her deceased son’s organs. It was the first song written by a solo composer to win the award since Amy Winehouse’s “Rehab.”

“‘Just Like That’ is about a woman who loses a son and organ donation, and the trials and tribulations, and the redemption that sometimes comes along with it,” said Hutchinson. “Many a night on stage, I’ve had an emotional reaction to it. She was broken up, as she is every time she sings anything that means something to her.”

The song was especially heartbreaking for Hutchinson as he lost his sister, Ann Hutchinson Tower, the week of the awards, and “she ended up saving two women. Her kidneys went to two younger, fit women in their 50s. Organ donation is important, but I didn’t think I’d be living that song the week we won Song of the Year for it. It was one of the more bizarre, surreal moments of my entire life. There’s been extreme highs and extreme lows.”

In a tough couple of months, he also lost a handful of musician friends, including David Lindley and David Crosby. Hutchinson had been getting ready to head out on tour with Crosby, and had previously recorded with him, and Crosby with Graham Nash, and with Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young.

“I’ve known David for 50 years,” he explained. “I met him when I was 19. He was always in my life, a sort of a mentor and friend and a bandmate many times. The rehearsals in December sounded great. I’d never seen him happier. He was ready to go out and do a final tour. I just loved working with him. My proudest musical moments are anything with David Crosby. I miss him so much.”

{{svg_quality_icon}}
{{quality-options}}

Player’s Pick Podcast #63 – James “Hutch” Hutchinson – December 2020

Talk with Hutchinson and he will regale you with 50 years of encounters with a myriad array of famous musicians, from recording with the Rolling Stones in Ireland to rock ‘n’ roll legend Jerry Lee Lewis. His remarkable list of recording credits includes Ringo Starr, B.B. King, Elton John, Brian Wilson, Al Green, Willie Nelson, Stevie Nicks, Ziggy Marley, Jackson Browne, the Doobie Brothers, Joe Cocker, Roy Orbison, Garth Brooks and Neil Diamond.

What was it like playing with the Beatles’ legendary drummer?

“Ringo is great. He’s funny, and he’s great to be around,” Hutchinson said. “He’s just a fantastic musician, and he loves music and he loves people. I worked with Ringo a number of times. I love people who are easy and fun to work with.”

Proclaimed “The Groove King” by Bass Musician magazine, Hutchinson can comfortably fit into any genre.

His local collaborations include recording with other musicians on Maui like Grammy winner Peter Kater, Pat Simmons Jr. and Gail Swanson. He toured the Mainland with Hapa and was also a regular at Shep Gordon’s Wailea benefit shows. Teaming with John Cruz, he played on a star-studded “Playing for Change” video of “The Weight,” and was filmed in Haiku with Pat Simmons in a marvelous updating of Cat Stevens’ “Peace Train.”

Back on the road with the “Just Like That Tour 2023,” Hutchinson said the Maui show will include “at least four songs” from the latest album.

“The set list changes,” he said. “We know a lot of tunes and you can only play so many per night, and there’s some we have to play. People expect ‘Something to Talk About’ and ‘I Can’t Make You Love Me.’ People want to hear those songs.”

The Maui leg of Raitt’s Just Like That Tour 2023 takes place on Friday at the MACC’s A&B Amphitheater. John Cruz will open. The show begins at 7 p.m. and gates open at 5 p.m. Tickets are $60, $80, $100 and $140 Gold Circle, plus applicable fees, at MauiArts.org.


Source: © Copyright The Maui News

But wait, there's more!

Tim Davern: Just Like That

on March 17, 2023 No comments
by Dr. Tim Davern

A Grammy-winning song reminds Dr. Tim Davern of the life-and-death miracle of organ transplants.

This past February, I was surprised and delighted that Bonnie Raitt won song of the year at the Grammys against stiff competition from several pop star leviathans.

I knew Raitt’s reputation as a respected singer-songwriter, but hadn’t heard her winning song, “Just Like That”. Intrigued by her Grammy selection, I found the lyric video on YouTube as I drifted to sleep later that night. My eyes welled with tears as I listened to her beautiful voice vividly narrate the heartbreaking story of a middle-aged woman tormented by guilt, sorrow and loneliness in the wake of a sudden tragic accident 25 years before that took her young son. When a mysterious young man appears at her door, we learn that he has been long searching to thank her for the gift of life as he was the recipient of her son’s heart, which she hears beating in his chest when they hug. The heart connects them, giving the man life and the mother the peace, redemption and grace that had so long eluded her.

As a transplant physician, I found this magnificent song to be a stark reminder that each deceased donor organ transplant represents a tragic paradox: it is a miraculous gift of life for the fortunate transplant recipient, but an unimaginable tragedy for the donor family.

The transplant team focuses on the former, desperately trying to keep patients with end-stage organ failure alive for life-saving transplants, and we appropriately celebrate each one. But Raitt reminds us that while the successful transplant represents the recipient patient and family’s best day, it is simultaneously the donor family’s worst. Joy and grief, life and death – like yin and yang – are inextricably linked. Thus, each transplant should be both a celebration and a time for somber reflection and thanks for sacrifices made.

Thank you, Bonnie Raitt, for this masterpiece and important reminder, and thank you to all of the donors and donor families for the greatest gift of all – the gift of life.

{{svg_quality_icon}}
{{quality-options}}

With a Perspective, this is Tim Davern.

Tim Davern is a transplant hepatologist, internal medicine doctor, gastroenterologist, and primary care doctor.


Source: © Copyright KQED

But wait, there's more!