Bonnie's Pride and Joy

Fansite with ALL the news about Bonnie !

Sippie Wallace and Bonnie Raitt Prove That Blues Birds of a Feather Can Flock Together

on April 12, 1982 No comments
By Carl Arrington, Maryanne George

Sippie Wallace, 83, is a stout black woman whose heyday as a blues singer was in the 1920s. Bonnie Raitt, 32, is a lean, fast-living rock ‘n’ roller who travels in WASPy music circles in L.A. Sippie is a believing Baptist whose friends and contemporaries have included Fats Waller and Louis Armstrong. Bonnie, more devout in her liberal politics than in religion, numbers among her friends Jane Fonda, Jackson Browne and Graham Nash.

They have in common dazzling dimples, red hair (Sippie’s is store-bought), a fierce feeling for the blues and a spunky attitude summed up by a line from Mighty Tight Woman, a song written by Wallace that both have recorded: “There is nothing, nothing that I fear.” Raitt and Wallace are also close friends. “We are two souls who have known each other before,” says Bonnie. “It’s a connection that transcends age and space. She’s more my own grandma than my natural grandmother.” Sippie reciprocates, “I love Bonnie.”

The friendship will soon be reflected in the marketplace. Bonnie has a scorcher LP called Green Light that’s doing wheelies up the charts. Sippie, Wallace’s first recording in 16 years, has set off an industry buzz before its late-April release. Wallace has provided Bonnie with tunes over the years; Bonnie sat in on three tracks in Sippie’s new album.

Their camaraderie upholds a blues tradition of cross-generation ties that began in the early 1920s when blues queen Ma Rainey took under her wing a young singer named Bessie Smith. Yet the roads that brought Wallace and Raitt together could not have been more different. Sippie was born Beulah Thomas to a Houston Baptist deacon and his wife in 1898. She got her nickname because she had few teeth until she was 3 and had to sip everything she ate. At the Shiloh Baptist Church, she and several of her 12 siblings developed their musical skills. Sippie became an overnight success in 1923 when her debut record, Up the Country, sold more than 100,000 copies in the first three months.

Before long she was in great demand on the Theater Owners Booking Association black vaudeville circuit. (Its acronym led performers to describe it as “Tough on Black Asses.”) In 1927 she moved to Detroit with Matt Wallace, a professional gambler and her second husband. She has lived there ever since. After she cut 48 songs the Depression hit, and she did not record again until the blues revival of the mid-’40s.

It was around then, in 1949, when Broadway-Hollywood actor John (Pajama Game) Raitt and his wife, Marge, had daughter Bonnie. After graduating from a Quaker school in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., Bonnie went on to major in African studies at Radcliffe and join the folk/blues revival then beginning in Cambridge coffeehouses.

In 1965, meanwhile, a young blues buff named Ron Harwood discovered that Sippie Wallace was living in his hometown of Detroit, once again in obscurity. Besides becoming the historical expert on her career, Harwood, now an electrical contractor, gently lured Sippie back to performing and became her manager. Just as things were looking up, though, Sippie suffered a massive stroke in 1969. “It was six months before she could walk or talk,” recalls Harwood, “but the first thing she did was to play the piano.”

RELATED
I’ll Take You There – Celebrating 75 Years Of Mavis Staples

She was still in a wheelchair and recuperating in 1972. Raitt, by then performing on her own, had been impressed by Wallace’s picture on a record she happened to pick up in a London store in 1968. (“I saw the rhinestone glasses and the tiger-striped vest and said to myself, ‘This woman really knows how to dress.’ “) When she heard of Sippie’s recovery, Bonnie urged that she be invited to perform at the Ann Arbor Blues and Jazz Festival. Their duet on Sippie’s Women Be Wise (“Don’t advertise your man”) sealed their friendship.

Since then such gigs as the Newport Jazz Festival and royalties from Bonnie’s versions of her songs have helped support Sippie. Bonnie and others also raised some $45,000 to shoot a documentary—as yet unfinished—on her friend’s unusual life. “Sippie has always seen the struggle of the sexes with a sense of humor and compassion,” Raitt says. “She knows that freedom is the name of the game even though women have always had to answer to men.” Wallace says, of such songs as hex After I Was Loved My Eyes Flew Open Like an Electric Light, You Got to Know How and You Don’t Know My Mind, “There isn’t anything I sing about that hasn’t happened to me.”

This March 2 was declared Sippie Wallace Day in Detroit. The proclamation read: “[Her] life has been a moving drama of success and failure, heartbreak and pain, love and joy woven into the lyrics of her songs and expressed through her powerful, resonant voice.”

Sippie now lives with three great-grandnieces and a great-great-grand-niece in Harwood’s boyhood home in suburban Detroit. Her social life is centered on the Mount Prospect Missionary Baptist Church. Rev. Nathan Woods, her minister for 25 years, says, “Sippie has filled all categories in church except preaching.”

“The only time I have a church service is when I see Sippie,” confesses Bonnie. She was, however, one of the founding members of the antinuclear MUSE Foundation. She is also on the board of the Pacific Alliance, an umbrella organization concerned with a panoply of enviromental problems including water pollution and toxic-waste dumping. “I’ve always had two sides of me,” Bonnie once said. “One wanted to sing Bob Dylan protest songs and get good grades, and the other wanted to wear leather jackets and get laid.”

During the past two years Bonnie has frequently left her Hollywood Hills home to visit friends in a different music scene in Tulsa, Okla. “Sure, it’s Bible Belt country,” she says, “but musicians are musicians.” She will not cite one specific man in her life, but instead claims five—the members of her newly formed backup band. They will be traveling with Bonnie on the concert trail this year.

This summer she and Sippie expect to play some dates together. Wallace, who has diabetes but no lingering effects from her stroke, is sure she’ll be able to keep up with Bonnie. “If I was in the middle of dying,” she says, “and someone said, ‘Sippie, sing me a song,’ I’d stop dying to sing that song.”

About The Author


Source: © Copyright: People

Please rate this article


/ 3

Your page rank:

Related Posts

Take a look at these posts
Subscribe
Notify of
guest

0 Comments
oldest
newest most voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

Also enjoy listening to Bonnie in these posts!

SHEROES RADIO PRESENTS: THE ROAD TO JONI September 13, 2024 READ MORE Julia Gets Wise with Bonnie Raitt April 3, 2024 READ MORE The Blues Show with Cerys Matthews - BBC Sounds June 5, 2023 READ MORE 6 Things To Know About Bonnie Raitt: Her Famous Fans, Legendary Friends & Lack Of Retirement Plan March 6, 2023 READ MORE Bonnie Raitt Talks with David Remnick February 3, 2023 READ MORE Bonnie Raitt - The Bob Lefsetz Podcast October 20, 2022 READ MORE Bonnie Raitt performs as if no one has ever seen the show before October 7, 2022 READ MORE Bonnie Raitt - Bullseye with Jesse Thorn October 4, 2022 READ MORE Bonnie joins Dave Cobb on Southern Accents Radio September 17, 2022 READ MORE Paul Ingles - Talk Music With Me - Bonnie Raitt: JUST LIKE THAT June 28, 2022 READ MORE Bonnie Raitt, Blues Sister: Her Life And Times In Eight Songs June 7, 2022 READ MORE Spotlight On: Bonnie Raitt May 28, 2022 READ MORE {{title}} {{date}} READ MORE A conversation with Bonnie Raitt May 8, 2022 READ MORE {{title}} {{date}} READ MORE Bonnie on CBC LISTEN q with Tom Power April 22, 2022 READ MORE {{title}} {{date}} READ MORE Bonnie Raitt - WTF with Marc Maron Podcast April 11, 2022 READ MORE Bonnie on The Record Store Day Podcast with Paul Myers April 5, 2022 READ MORE Bonnie talks to Bruce Headlam on Broken Record Podcast March 16, 2022 READ MORE Bonnie Raitt - Questlove Supreme March 9, 2022 READ MORE Bonnie Raitt sits in March 7, 2022 READ MORE Bonnie Raitt: favorite songs from each album August 25, 2021 READ MORE {{title}} {{date}} READ MORE Hear a 21-Year-Old Bonnie Raitt Cover Joni Mitchell’s ‘Woodstock’ August 14, 2020 READ MORE Bonnie Raitt on Angel From Montgomery while on Debatable April 14, 2020 READ MORE {{title}} {{date}} READ MORE I Am (Not) a Diva June 4, 2019 READ MORE Turning The Tables Listening Party: Women Of Roots And Americana December 1, 2017 READ MORE Little Kids Rock Honors Elvis Costello and Bonnie Raitt October 19, 2017 READ MORE Bonnie Raitt still giving them ‘Something To Talk About’ May 27, 2017 READ MORE {{title}} {{date}} READ MORE {{title}} {{date}} READ MORE Bonnie Raitt On World Cafe July 27, 2016 READ MORE Johnnie Walker meets... Bonnie Raitt on BBC Radio 2 May 29, 2016 READ MORE Bonnie Raitt on The Music Show May 22, 2016 READ MORE Bonnie Raitt: 2016 April 8, 2016 READ MORE {{title}} {{date}} READ MORE Concert review: Bonnie Raitt digs in deep at Heinz Hall March 23, 2016 READ MORE Listen to Bonnie Raitt on The Strombo Show - March 6, 2016 March 7, 2016 READ MORE Bonnie Raitt in Magnetic Form Once Again with ‘Dig In Deep’ February 29, 2016 READ MORE {{title}} {{date}} READ MORE Americana Music Association UK Produces First Awards Show February 5, 2016 READ MORE {{title}} {{date}} READ MORE Bonnie had a fantastic chat with Simon Mayo on BBC Radio 2. Have a listen! February 2, 2016 READ MORE Nick Of Time - Track by Track 25th Anniversary July 16, 2014 READ MORE The Leonard Lopate Show - Bonnie Raitt November 5, 2013 READ MORE Interview: Bonnie Raitt October 13, 2013 READ MORE Bonnie Raitt On World Cafe December 26, 2012 READ MORE 2012 Americana Music Association Honors & Awards Show September 15, 2012 READ MORE Focus On: Bonnie Raitt - 2012 Americana Music Association Keynote Interview September 15, 2012 READ MORE {{title}} {{date}} READ MORE Bonnie Raitt: A Brand-New Model For A Classic Sound June 16, 2012 READ MORE Paul Ingles - The Emergence of Bonnie Raitt May 11, 2012 READ MORE Bonnie Raitt - Words and Music - 2012 May 10, 2012 READ MORE Something To Talk About With Bonnie Raitt April 17, 2012 READ MORE {{title}} {{date}} READ MORE Bonnie Raitt Posts Live Duet with Maia Sharp for Download March 22, 2012 READ MORE Bonnie Raitt, Taj Mahal let the good times roll at the Greek September 12, 2009 READ MORE Bonnie Raitt, Taj Mahal provide perfect ending to Meijer Gardens Summer Concert Series August 24, 2009 READ MORE Bonnie Raitt and Taj Mahal Interviewed by Michael Bourne (Audio) August 10, 2009 READ MORE WNYC Soundcheck - Bonnie Raitt and Taj Mahal July 28, 2009 READ MORE Bonnie Raitt serves up variety of styles at Majestic May 12, 2009 READ MORE Mississippi Fred McDowell Blues Trail Marker May 8, 2009 READ MORE A Prairie Home Companion June 7, 2008 READ MORE A Prairie Home Companion with Bonnie October 28, 2006 READ MORE Blues and Conversation with Bonnie Raitt July 6, 2006 READ MORE Bonnie Raitt – Telluride Bluegrass Festival, CO 2006 June 18, 2006 READ MORE Review: Bonnie Raitt live at Wiltern Theater in Los Angeles November 22, 2005 READ MORE Bonnie Raitt Shakes it Up May 4, 2002 READ MORE

Popular Posts

Recommended Reading