Concerts

Welcome Return to GR: The heartrending, uplifting musical mastery of Bonnie Raitt

on June 27, 2024 No comments

The renowned, award-winning guitarist and singer transfixed a sold-out crowd at Meijer Gardens on Wednesday night. The review and photo gallery at Local Spins.

As always, Bonnie Raitt can sing like an angel and play the slide guitar like nobody’s business.

From the opening bars of “I Sho Do,” the 74-year-old singer had Wednesday’s sold-out crowd at Frederik Meijer Gardens & Amphitheater in the palm of her hand.

Perfectly at ease fronting her band of stellar musicians, she delivered her own hits and songs by artists she admires in her sometimes velvety, sometimes raspy voice and almost always accompanying herself masterfully on guitar.

What’s remarkable about Raitt, besides the fact that age has not slowed her down one bit, is her generosity in sharing the music of artists much less famous than her. Take “Made Up Mind,” a lovable, rootsy tune written by a band from Winnipeg, Manitoba, The Bros. Landreth. Not only did she pluck it from relative obscurity for her live shows, but she also won a Grammy Award for her cover in 2023.

“Hear Me Lord,” a joyful petition to “whoever is going to get us out of pain and dissension in this country,” was written by the late Zimbabwean singer Oscar Mtukudzi. In Raitt’s capable hands, the song unfurls as a lament that gives way to hope in the divine.

Her voice exuded grief when Raitt sang her classic rendition of late friend John Prine’s song, “Angel From Montgomery.” Fans could hear how much she missed him in her reverent, devoted delivery. “I love him, too,” she said after fans cheered the song.

Perhaps the most moving moment came when Raitt sang “Just Like That,” which won her Song of the Year at the 2023 Grammy Awards. This heartrending song explores the story of a mother who hears her late son’s heartbeat in his organ recipient’s chest. It was, Raitt says, inspired by Prine’s death in 2020 from COVID-19.

*Keeping the Music Going: Blue skies greeted fans.* © Chelsea Whitaker

The ever-graceful artist knows how to keep things from getting too sad, though. In her return to the venue that she last played in 2016, she praised the venue to the skies — for its lush gardens and sculptures, and even the food she ate before performing.

Fans enthusiastically greeted her beloved songs, with “Something to Talk About” and “Love Letter” at the top of the list.

By the time she crooned “I Can’t Make You Love Me” in the encore, the air had cooled but the crowd was still warmly responsive. “Maybe I’ll be like Mick (Jagger) and Taj (Mahal) and (other older artists who continue to tour),” she wondered out loud. “Maybe I’ll be back out here, keeping the music going.”

Opening for Raitt was the rockabilly/soul/blues band James Hunter & The Six from Essex, England.

With a leathery voice reminiscent of James Brown or Ray Charles, Hunter gustily sang lead vocals. He and his band, whose instruments included saxophone, double bass and organ, got things swinging with the “Okie Dokie Stomp” and paid homage to The Five Royales and their Carolina Soul sound with a smooth cover of “Baby Don’t Do It.”

About The Author

Lorilee Craker

Lorilee Craker is a veteran writer and author of “Money Secrets of the Amish,” “Through the Storm” with Lynne Spears, and “My Journey to Heaven” with Marv Besteman.

Source: © Copyright Local Spins

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Bonnie Raitt upholds her timeless talent, enduring appeal at MGM Fenway

on June 16, 2024 No comments

Bonnie Raitt upholds her timeless talent, enduring appeal at MGM Fenway

Bonnie Raitt was 40 when she became a star. It was central to her origin myth; she’d already lived a lifetime or two, both personally and professionally, before 1989′s “Nick of Time” hit No. 1 and won the Grammy for Album of the Year. People simply don’t become pop stars at that stage in their lives, but Raitt did, and the 74-year-old singer and guitarist who sold out the MGM Music Hall at Fenway Saturday night was perfectly at ease in her skin and in her music.

She had cause to be. Her voluminous red hair, with its attendant white streak, may or may not get outside assistance these days. Still, Raitt’s two other trademarks — her authoritative rasp and her masterful slide guitar playing — can’t be faked, and they both remained stunningly undiminished by the years. Caressing her voice around the self-flagellating “Blame It on Me” with gorgeous, bluesy skill before slipping into the slow glide of her solo, she made the song as sexy as if she’d recorded it half a century ago.

Raitt place, Raitt time

Bonnie Raitt can’t be summed up easily. Some people might view her as a sassy blues singer, some as a no-nonsense social activist, and some as an observant balladeer who writes deeply serious songs such as “Nick of Time” (a 1990 Grammy winner about a woman wanting to get pregnant before it’s too late) and “Just Like That,” a stunning track about a heart transplant survivor that won a Grammy last year for song of the year. It turns out, of course, that Raitt is all of the above and more.

Ironically, for a setlist that touched on her pre-”Nick of Time” career once, a number of songs sounded like they could have played on the radio in the late 1970s next to the likes of Boz Scaggs, from the simmering bump of “Made Up Mind” to the blues-funk of “Used to Rule the World.” Toots Hibbert’s “Love So Strong,” meanwhile, had elements of reggae (the watery organ, the guitar chop) but wasn’t played that way, thanks largely to drummer Ricky Fataar opting instead for a subtle roll.

Following their boss’s lead, Raitt’s four-piece band rarely opted for fireworks, but the ease that they demonstrated never read as laziness or disinterest. Instead, it was more like slipping comfortably into well-worn boots. “Million Miles” sneaked around with a lopsided shuffle that became more and less forceful throughout, as if it were occasionally holding its breath. The band radiated joy with the clean guitar pings of Zimbabwean musician Oliver Mtukudzi’s “Hear Me Lord.” (Raitt was consistently generous about crediting her songs’ writers and original artists.) And they played with a feather touch that reinforced the gentle heartbreak of “Just Like That.”

So did a sympathetic vocal from Raitt, whose most affecting singing came with words and melodies that she could wrap her voice gently around. Half-speaking many of the lyrics, she floated atop the delicate and airy “Angel From Montgomery”; she never pushed on “I Can’t Make You Love Me,” letting each note land softly but with great feeling, the blues in feel and topic if not in actual sound. It was her only song without an instrument in hand. And still, she had everything she could need.

Bonnie Raitt, with James Hunter

At: MGM Music Hall at Fenway, Saturday

What a great time was had by all on Saturday night at Bonnie’s sold out show at Boston’s MGM Music Hall at Fenway. She was honored to have fellow soul rocker Peter Wolf at the show. Here’s a photo of them backstage after the show. Bonnie thanks all the fans, her band and crew, The James Hunter Six and their MGM hosts for a fantastic night! — BRHQ
Photo by Duke Levine

About The Author

Marc Hirsh

Marc Hirsh lives in the Boston area, where he indulges in the magic trinity of improv comedy, competitive adult four square and music journalism. He has won trophies for one of these, but refuses to say which.
He writes for the Boston Globe and has also been spotted on MSNBC and in the pages of Amplifier, the Nashville Scene, the Baltimore City Paper and Space City Rock, where he is the co-publisher and managing editor.
He once danced onstage with The Flaming Lips while dressed as a giant frog. It was very warm.

Source: © Copyright The Boston Globe

Review & setlist: Bonnie Raitt was thrilled to be back in Boston Saturday, and it showed

By Peter Chianca
June 16, 2024

In turns playful and heartbreaking, the blueswoman extraordinaire was in peak form at MGM Music Hall.

I wonder if Bruce Springsteen is ever a little bit jealous of Bonnie Raitt. After all, The Boss — who famously opened for Raitt 50 years ago in Harvard Square, on the night he was declared to be “Rock and Roll Future” — still seems to feel like he has to dominate the stage like a whirling dervish. Whereas his contemporary Bonnie, as she showed at MGM Music Hall Saturday, exudes every bit as much presence and command just standing center stage, baring her heart and soul through the slow burn of her startlingly expressive blues guitar licks.

Granted, the sold-out MGM crowd was clearly full of true believers — a prolonged standing ovation greeted Raitt as she took the stage, smiling beneath her trademark red coif with just a shock of gray. But the poise, warmth, and sheer musicianship of her 17-song set would likely have won over any random visitor who might have wandered in from the Red Sox game next door. (Yes, even a Yankee fan!)

Bonnie was clearly tickled at the idea of playing in such close proximity to the fabled ballpark, despite obvious concerns (“I was worried about you all finding a parking space,” she admitted, understandably), and to be in Boston in general: She even shouted out J. Geils Band frontman Peter Wolf (who was there), and senators Ed Markey and Elizabeth Warren (who weren’t). Plus her band has its own local pedigree, with guitarist Duke Levine hailing from Worcester and bassist James “Hutch” Hutchinson having grown up in Somerville.

She also, in response to a particularly loud “We love ya, Bah-nie!,” shared her love for our local accent with a story of a regular Boston concert-goer who would yell, “Bah-nie, I want yah body!” “All of a sudden in my 50s it disappeared,” she playfully lamented. “Somewhere, wherever he is, I hope he still wants my body.”

As for the music, well, it was clear right from the bluesy opening bars of “I Sho Do” that at age 74, she hasn’t lost a step. Hitting the high notes with apparent ease, she’s also clearly reached the blues singer sweet spot of having just enough gravel in her voice to make the world-weary lyrics come across more expressively than ever. This was especially true on her acoustic cover of Bob Dylan’s swampy “Million Miles,” with her supple-but-never-syrupy vocals bringing more smoke than swamp to the proceedings. (Although it was still pretty swampy.)

Another thing pretty obvious from the get-go was that this probably wasn’t going to be a night about well-known songs and catchy hooks. But no matter: the second number, “God Was in The Water” from Raitt’s 2005 album “Soul Away” — a moody meditation on the general state of things in the world (not great) — was mesmerizing in the way it settled into a chugging blues vibe that wound up seeping through and carrying the whole night. (It’s worth noting that the first real “hit” of the show, 1991’s “Something To Talk About,” didn’t come until nine songs in.)

Raitt was clear to note that she didn’t write most of these songs, despite what you might read on the internet, but it’s always been her skills as a song stylist that’s set Bonnie apart. This is never truer than on “Angel from Montgomery,” which she dedicated to its author, the late John Prine: She noted that she’s been singing it since 1971, but its opening line — “I am an old woman, named after my mother, my old man is another child that’s grown old” — no doubt hits much harder now, for both her and us.

Raitt’s captured most of these interpretations on her records, but delivered live, songs like The Bros. Landreth’s “Made Up Mind” and “Blame It On Me” — a stunning torch song written for Raitt by John Capek and Andrew Matheson — feel even more moving and personal, full of pregnant pauses and tossed-off spoken lines that make them feel like intimate conversations. (Raitt ends “Blame” with a sad howl that simultaneously chills and thrills.)

Of course, if you doubt Raitt’s own song-writing bonafides, listening to some of the songs she did pen will dispel that notion pretty quick. Her Grammy-winning “Just Like That,” off of 2022’s album of the same name, was performed to reverent silence on the part of the Boston crowd, its themes of attaining grace and redemption inspiring palpable heartache and probably more than a few tears.

And “Nick of Time” — from the 1989 Album of the Year that provided Raitt with a late-career resurgence at the ripe old age of (checks notes) 39 (!) — was simply gorgeous Saturday, dedicated in honor of Father’s Day and with the lyrics about her parents changed poignantly to the past tense. (Raitt’s father, the Broadway star John Raitt, died in 2005.)

Through it all Raitt had some marvelous interplay with her talented band, most notably with her fellow guitarist Levine, whose more traditional rock chops combined perfectly with Raitt’s blues licks. And in one of the night’s absolute highlights, he plucked out bouncy African rhythms on Oliver Tuku Mtukudzi’s “Hear Me Lord,” a bouncy gospel song that Raitt turned into an uplifting singalong.

Given the relatively low-key vibe of the evening, I wouldn’t have minded if Raitt had brought things up a notch at the end. Still, who could blame her for instead starting her encore with a heart-rending take on maybe her most wrenching song, “I Can’t Make You Love Me.” But she segued from that into the mellow “Matters of the Heart,” which in lieu of something more upbeat made for a kind of sleepy slide to the finish. (Apparently Raitt hasn’t sung the raucous “Willya Wontcha” since 1992, which is a shame.)

Regardless, the R&B chug of “Never Make Your Move Too Soon” to close the show provided a suitably honky-tonk finish to a stellar night in Boston for a legendary blueswoman — and proved that she’s nowhere near done.

The show opened with a super-engaging set by the James Hunter Six, “also known as who the hell is that?” joked the group’s affable British frontman. But if you’re unfamiliar with their horn-driven, noir rockabilly stomp and old-fashioned R&B and soul, you should get to know them — they were a treat.

Setlist for Bonnie Raitt at MGM Music Hall at Fenway, June 15, 2024:

I Sho Do
God Was in the Water
Made Up Mind
Love So Strong
Blame it on Me
Hear Me Lord
Million Miles
Just Like That
Something to Talk About
Use to Rule the World
Nick of Time
Angel from Montgomery
Living for the Ones
Steal Your Heart Away

ENCORE:

I Can’t Make You Love Me
Matters of the Heart
Never Make Your Move Too Soon

About The Author

Peter Chianca

General Assignment Editor

Peter Chianca, the general assignment editor for Boston.com, is a longtime news editor, columnist and music writer in the Greater Boston area. A Tufts University graduate, he’s the author of “Glory Days: Springsteen’s Greatest Albums,” and is co-creator of the comic strip “Pet Peeves” with artist Dave London. He’s been with Boston.com since 2019, where he handles daily news assignments, coordinates concert and celebrity coverage, and profiles local cartoonists and illustrators.

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Bonnie Raitt fills The Met with rock and remembrance

on June 11, 2024 No comments

The singer-songwriter icon took us from her days at the Main Point all the way up to present day in a stellar return to Philly.

*Bonnie Raitt at Philadelphia, PA in The Met 2024* © Bud

On Friday night, Bonnie Raitt and her band brought their Just Like That… tour to The Met and reminded us why she is a rock legend. Her set was a mix of old and new, with many cuts from her 2022 album including the touching Raitt-penned title track which moved the crowd to a standing ovation. Raitt’s gift as an interpreter of others’ songs shone through as well, playing her reggae-tinged take on Gerry Rafferty’s “Right Down the Line” and of course her gorgeous version of John Prine’s “Angel from Montgomery.”

She took us way back to her Philly roots, remembering The 2nd Fret and The Main Point with a scorching “Love Me Like A Man” from 1972’s Give It Up, and moved through her other eras as well, joking that this was in fact her Eras Tour. She navigated her catalog seamlessly, one song a gorgeous ballad, the next a blues ripper. Throughout the night, she told stories talking about writing songs with her former husband, losing friends and coping with the losses, and she ended the night asking the crowd to remember those that came before, then launching into BB King’s “Never Make Your Move Too Soon,” complete with Raitt’s signature slide guitar solos.

Opener the James Hunter Six mesmerized the crowd with their rockabilly style and impressive solos. By the time Hunter tore into a cover of The 5 Royales’ “Baby Don’t Do It,” the Met was in the palm of the Six’s hand.

Check out a gallery of photos from the show below. Raitt and Hunter’s tour continues this week in New England, with gigs in Portland, Bridgeport, Boston and more. Full dates here.