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Bonnie Raitt, Sheryl Crow, Quavo Shine a Light on Fallen Legends in Grammy Tribute Performance

on February 6, 2023 No comments
by Cillea Houghton

Bonnie Raitt, Sheryl Crow, Quavo, and Kacey Musgraves were among the artists to take part in tribute performances to the late Christine McVie, Takeoff, and Loretta Lynn at the 2023 Grammy Awards. 

Country star Musgraves opened the medley with a tribute to Lynn with a humble performance of her signature song, “Coal Miner’s Daughter.” Poised barefoot on a stool with Lynn’s acoustic guitar in hand, Musgraves’ soft voice introduced the famous opening line: Well, I was born a coal miner’s daughter. With an altar of roses and flowers at her bare feet, Musgraves’ performance featured images of other country icons who’ve passed away over the past year, including Naomi Judd and Mickey Gilley.

Following Musgraves were Quavo and Maverick City Music in tribute to Takeoff, the 28-year-old Migos rapper who was shot and killed in Houston in November 2022. Tears rolled down my eyes / Can’t tell you how many times I cried, Quavo sang in the opening line of his tribute song to his nephew, “Without You.” The lyrics reference the time the pair went to Coachella together and the rapper wishes he had a time machine as he shares I miss how you smile at me. Quavo was then joined by a choir of voices in Maverick City Music, who sang the chorus of Wiz Khalifa’s “See You Again” with a dark background illuminated by the light of the stars behind them. 

The tribute ended with a touching ode to Fleetwood Mac’s McVie. Crow was seated at a piano adorned with floral arrangements while Raitt appeared across from her. McVie’s bandmate, Mick Fleetwood, was positioned off to the side of the stage, playing a bongo drum as Crow and Raitt serenaded the room with McVie’s powerful “Songbird,” as the two traded soft, tender vocals. Raitt’s voice was strong and steady, capturing the emotion of the song. The performance ended with Fleetwood taking his hat off in salute to his collaborators. 

Songbird Tribute

Jeff Beck, David Crosby, Lisa Marie Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Anita Pointer, and Twitch are among the many other fallen icons whose faces were shown onscreen throughout the performances.

Prior to his Grammy “in memoriam” performance of Fleetwood Mac‘s 1977 Rumours track “Songbird,” along with Sheryl Crow and Bonnie Raitt during the 65th annual Grammy Awards, drummer Mick Fleetwood said that he doesn’t see a future for his legendary band following the death of their keyboardist and songwriter Christine McVie, who died on November 30, 2022, at 79.

“I think right now, I truly think the line in the sand has been drawn with the loss of Chris [McVie],” said Fleetwood during an interview at the 65th annual Grammy Awards. “I’d say we’re done, but then we’ve all said that before. It’s sort of unthinkable right now.”

Fleetwood added that all the Mac members are still busy working on their individual projects and performing outside of the band as well. “They all get out and play,” added Fleetwood, “so I’m gonna be doing the same thing, finding people to play with.”

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Source: © Copyright American Songwriter

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Why Bonnie Raitt Deserved Song of the Year at the Grammys

on February 6, 2023 No comments
by Andrew R. Chow

When Bonnie Raitt’s name was called by presenter Jill Biden for Song of the Year at the Grammys on Sunday night, many on social media responded with confusion and even disgust. “Stop giving random people awards challenge,” wrote one user.

Raitt’s victory—which came at the expense of pop titans like Beyoncé, Adele, Taylor Swift and Harry Styles—was one of the more notable upsets in recent Grammys history; even Raitt herself was stunned. “Just Like That’ wasn’t remotely in the zeitgeist this year. It has one-sixtieth the number of Spotify streams as the second-least streamed song in the category, DJ Khaled’s “GOD DID.” To many, its victory was a perfect example of the Grammys being out of touch.

That critique is partly true: the song absolutely benefited from older Grammy voters who look upon music industry changes with contempt and long for the good old days. But it also happens that “Just Like That” is a terrific, poignant song, written from a perspective that is all too often boxed out of the cultural spotlight.

A vote for a more personal approach to music

There are many systemic reasons why a path was cleared for Raitt to take home her unlikely trophy. First of all, Raitt is a music legend, deeply respected by her peers of all generations. She is a mean blues guitarist and a devastating writer of songs about breakups and hard times. Her influence is deeply felt through two of her younger Grammy winners: Brandy Carlile, who once said she tells herself to “be Bonnie” in tough situations; and Adele, who called Raitt’s song “I Can’t Make You Love Me” “perfect in every single way,” and said it was an outsized influence in the creation of her monumental album 21.

Raitt was also likely aided by the fact that her connection with the Grammys is long and deep. She nabbed her first of 13 trophies in 1990—taking home Album of the Year for the Americana classic Nick of Time—and has remained a frequent onstage presence ever since. In recent years she’s gamely performed in an array of situations, whether duetting with Alicia Keys on an Etta James classic or helping Joni Mitchell read the teleprompter last year. She serves as a bridge both to an older generation and a younger one.

Why Bonnie Raitt Deserved Song of the Year at the Grammys

Bonnie Raitt looked stunned when her win for “Just Like That” was announced at the 65th annual Grammy Awards ceremony in Los Angeles on Sunday, February 5.

© Francis Specker /CBS/Getty Images

Raitt has succeeded at the Grammys not just for her overflowing musical talent, but because she’s the kind of artist that the Grammys want to honor, especially in the face of rapidly changing musical trends. Grammy voters tend to be old and white; they like it when artists play their own instruments, write their own songs, and uphold long-held traditions. Several anonymous voters admitted as much in a recent Variety article, with one complaining about the lack of “real musicians” on the ballot and how “the pendulum is swinging… way into ‘We must appease the TikTok generation.’”

A vote for Raitt, then, was a vote not just for the song, but for a generation, as well as a non-digital, highly personal approach to music. Song of the Year is supposed to be a songwriters award, and “Just Like That” was the only song on the ballot to only list one songwriter. It’s entirely possible that many older voters saw her solo name and picked as a rejoinder to a new era of pop songs written by committee. It’s also possible that many picked the song as a continued legacy vote for an artist who was already awarded with a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award last year.

A unique story from an oft-ignored perspective

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But all of this analysis ignores the quality of the song itself. “Just Like That” is a story song, an increasingly rare breed these days. Over a finger-picked guitar, Raitt sings through the lens of the fictional Olivia Zand, a grief-stricken mother who receives a stranger at her door. While the hardened, solitary Zand at first wants to turn him away, she lets him in and soon learns that he was the recipient of her dead son’s heart transplant. He has come to thank her for effectively saving his life. “And just like that, your life can change, look what the angels send/ I lay my head upon his chest and I was with my boy again,” Raitt sings.

It’s a story of how heartbreak can spring into hope, filled with suspense and haunting turns of phrase. Raitt delivers a lovely, understated vocal performance as a woman who has long buried her sadness before letting it unleash.

The song is reminiscent of another one of Raitt’s foremost hits, the John Prine-penned “Angel From Montgomery,” partially because both are written from a perspective rarely taken seriously in pop music, or pop culture at large, these days. Last week, TIME film critic Stephanie Zacharek wrote a piece pegged to the new film 80 For Brady about how the stories of older women have long mattered little to wider culture.

“As we age, nearly all women notice that they become somewhat invisible in the world, but in the golden era of the women’s film, older women really were expected to fade quietly into the wallpaper,” she wrote. “Just Like That” shows Raitt refusing to fade away; it shows that stories that are supposed to have been long-finished can be rejuvenated.

If you went on social media last night, you would quickly absorb the opinion that Raitt’s voice has no consequence, particularly in relation to her blockbuster peers; that because the Grammys didn’t center youth or statistical streaming proof, they got it wrong. But “Just Like That” matters because it tells a unique story from an oft-ignored perspective—and because it’s a flat-out beautiful song that Adele, Taylor Swift, or Beyoncé would be proud to have written. And hopefully, when they all reach age 73 just like Raitt has, they’ll find that their stories still matter as much as the empowerment anthems of their youths, even if the users of the app that has replaced the app that has replaced TikTok don’t agree.

Contact us at letters@time.com.

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Source: © Copyright TIME

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“Just Like That”: The Powerful Meaning Behind Bonnie Raitt’s Surprise Grammy Winner

on February 6, 2023 No comments
By Rachel Ulatowski

When the Grammy Awards aired on Sunday night, there were more than a few surprises. One of the biggest surprise wins was for Song of the Year, a prestigious Grammy often considered one of the Big Four awards along with Record of the Year, Album of the Year, and Best New Artist. As a result, the category featured a very impressive group of nominees for the 2023 award: Adele, Lizzo, Harry Styles, Taylor Swift, Steve Lacey, DJ Khaled, Kendrick Lamar, and Bonnie Raitt.

Given that Lamar and Adele were among the artists with the most nominations at the 65th Grammys, and that Lizzo and Styles won awards in the Big Four, those four seemed like the strongest candidates for Song of the Year. Meanwhile, 12-time Grammy-winner Swift was also a strong contender with her unique 10-minute song, “All Too Well (Taylor’s Version).” However, the award ultimately went to Raitt for her song “Just Like That.” While most fans were preoccupied with singers like Styles and Lizzo, both of whom received the most hype, Raitt was a stronger contender than some might have thought. The iconic blues singer also received the Lifetime Grammy Achievement Award during this year’s ceremony, bringing her career total to 13 Grammy awards.

Viewers’ surprise at her win was still warranted, considering that even Raitt did not seem to expect to win Song of the Year. When the news was announced, she looked shocked as she made her way to the stage. However, the award was definitely well-deserved, as listeners of the gut-wrenching and powerful song will recognize.

The meaning behind Bonnie Raitt’s “Just Like That”

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“Just Like That” appears on Raitt’s album of the same name, which was released on August 22, 2022. The song is a folksy ballad with a soft, slow tune that tells a very heartbreaking tale. It begins with the story of a woman named Olivia Zand who receives an unexpected visitor. She finds herself oddly trusting of the mysterious stranger, and lets him in her home after he says he has something Zand would “want to know.” The lyrics, from Zand’s point of view, read, “It’s not like me to trust so quick / Caught me by surprise / But somethin’ about him gave me ease / Right there in his eyes.”

The song then changes direction as Zand looks back at how life can change “just like that.” She reveals that her son would’ve been 25 today if he hadn’t died when she “looked away.” Zand goes on to detail the regret she feels about her son’s death: “They say Jesus brings you peace and grace / Well he ain’t found me yet.” The song circles back to the man, who reveals he has spent years looking for Zand to let her know that he was the recipient of her son’s heart when he died. He says, “It was your son’s heart that saved me / And a life you gave us both.”

That’s when the woman finds her life changing again, “just like that,” as she lays her head on the man’s chest and feels herself coming out of the “darkness” as she listens to the sound of her son’s heart beating once more.

Is “Just Like That” based on a true story?

Since the release of her album, Raitt has opened up about the meaning behind “Just Like That.” In an interview, she explained that the inspiration for the song came in 2018, as she watched a news segment about a mother who donated her child’s organs and was preparing to meet the man who received her son’s heart. The segment had a profound impact on Raitt who said, “I just lost it. It was the most moving and surprising thing. I wasn’t expecting it. I vowed right then that I wanted to write a song about what that would take.”

With “Just Like That,” Raitt didn’t just want to retell the story she heard; she wanted it to convey the incredible love and compassion it takes for a family to choose to donate the organs of a loved one, especially a child. She also wanted to explore the perspective of a recipient and what it means for them to receive the product of a family’s compassion amid unimaginable loss.

During Raitt’s acceptance speech, she revealed that the late John Prine also inspired her song. Prine sadly passed away in 2020 due to complications from COVID-19. The legendary singer-songwriter also once wrote a powerful song on organ donation called “Please Don’t Bury Me.” Not only is Raitt’s song infused with the memory of Prine, but it is also a beautiful and heart-wrenching tribute to organ donors and their families.

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Source: © Copyright The Mary Sue

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