just like that tour 2022

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New album, fresh accolades fuel Bonnie Raitt’s year

on July 15, 2022 No comments

By Gary G r aff | For MediaNews Group

After more than 50 years of recording, a dozen Grammy Awards and a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction, Bonnie Raitt has plenty of laurels to rest on.

But that didn’t make the pandemic shutdown easy to live through.

“You can imagine how we all are — we’re so thrilled to be back playing live after two, two and a half years,” Raitt, 72, says by phone from her home in California during a break in her current tour supporting her latest album, “Just Like That…” “I mean, I did some recording, some remote (performances), a lot of fundraisers. It was fun to go back to playing by myself, but I really missed playing loud and playing with drums.

So, yeah, I’m excited to be back. Godwilling we’ll stay safe and be able to play all these shows the rest of the year.”

Even with five and a half months left in the year, however, Raitt has had a pretty fulfilling 2022.

“Just Like That…,” her 18th studio album and first in six years, came out April 22 and spent 12 weeks at No. 1 on the American Radio Album Chart, with her rendition of the Brothers Landreth’s “Made Up Mind” holding for 17 weeks near the top of the Americana Radio Singles Chart. That was just the start, however.

Earlier this year Raitt received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, as well as an Icon Award at the Billboard Women in Music Awards. And her Grammy-winning 1989 album “Nick of Time” was added to the Library of Congress’ National Recording Registry.

*Raitt received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award earlier this year, as well as an Icon Award at the Billboard Women in Music Awards.* (Photo by Marina Chavez)

“And none of that was expected,” says the Burbank-born Raitt, whose father John Raitt was a Broadway actor and her mother, Marge Goddard, a pianist. Raitt studied at Harvard University’s Radcliffe College and became part of the Boston folk club scene before being signed to a recording contract in 1970. In addition to the music — and hits such as “Something to Talk About,” “I Can’t Make You Love Me” and John Hiatt’s “Thing Called Love” — Raitt also built a history of political and environmental activism that included co-founding Musicians United for Safe Energy (M.U.S.E.) in 1979.

“It’s like, wow, just the timing of it all. I knew I was gonna release the record after the Grammys, and all of a sudden they called me in December, and it was unbelievable. And then the other stuff…

“I mean, listen, none of us expected when we were 20 that we’d be rocking this hard when we were in our 70s. And then I look at Tony Bennett and B.B. King and Mick (Jagger) and Keith (Richards) and Paul McCartney…There’s no sign of slowing down, artistically and energetically. We all got the message that if we were lucky enough to be taking better care of ourselves…we could keep doing this.”

Raitt adds that the long interim between “Just Like That…” and 2016’s “Dig In Deep” should not be interpreted as any kind of slowing down, either. Since the mid-90s she’s routinely taken three and seven years between albums, gaps that she pointed out included lengthy tours and careful song selection processes, writing her own and finding others’ that she felt inspired to record.

“We’re really on schedule,” Raitt explains. “It takes five or six years ’til I’m ready to put a record out and tour again and commit to two years on the road. And this one was a little longer because I added two years (touring) with James Taylor, ’cause I knew that wasn’t going to happen again.

“The opportunity to play to 16,000, 18,000 people a night with one of my oldest friends, and we’d talked about touring together for so long, I couldn’t pass that up. And it was one of the most fun experiences I’ve had.”

That, in turn, gave Raitt more time to conceive “Just Like That..,” which she waited to record until vaccines became prevalent during 2021 to allow her and her band to hit the studio together. She came well-armed, too; she had “Made Up Mind” on her list since hearing the original version in 2013, while Jonah B. Smith’s “When We Say Goodnight” had been on her list since 2009. Then there’s “Something’s Got a Hold of My Heart,” a song by NRBQ alumnus Al Anderson that Raitt says she’s been wanting to record for 30 years. “I just hadn’t found the right record to put it on,” she says.

“It’s a matter of which songs I love the most and which songs fit together and give me something fresh and some musical grooves I haven’t been doing lately,” Raitt adds. “Then I’ll write my songs according to feels I think are missing from the record or the live shows, like if I need a new blues shuffle or I need a new kind of electric, open-tuning thing.”

Her rocking “Livin’ For the Ones,” meanwhile, came from guitarist George Marinelli and was lyrically inspired by losses in Raitt’s life — from her brother Steve to brain cancer in 2009 to the passing of more recent friends such as John Prine and Toots Hibbert, whose “Love So Strong” she also covers on “Just Like That…”

“I really wanted to write about what we’ve been through the last two years,” says Raitt, who dedicated the record to 14 people who died during the past two years. “I was just stunned by how much loss of significant people in my life the last couple years has brought.

“When my brother passed away…I just said: ‘I’m never gonna whine again. I’m gonna open my eyes and be so grateful I can see and I can stand up and walk any time I want to and just live for the people who aren’t here. I don’t take that for granted.”

Raitt laughs when asked if the next album is yet in the works. She plans to tour into 2023 for “Just Like That…” and is particularly stoked about the next leg, with longtime friend Mavis Staples opening shows. And she maintains a high bar for whatever she does, which means nothing will happen until the timing and quality are right.

“My level of standards does not diminish as I get older,” she says. “As long as I still have my marbles and my chops I’m gonna stay out there on the road, ’cause it’s just too much fun.

“And it’s wonderful to represent all these different genres of music, especially roots music, and also to be a optical activist and a woman lead guitar player and a band leader — those four things all together are part and parcel of why I think people are recognizing me, not just ’cause I sing. I think it has to do with who I am as an artist and a person, and that makes me feel really good.”

Bonnie Raitt and Mavis Staples perform at 8 p.m. Friday, July 22 at the Meadow Brook Amphitheatre on the campus of Oakland University, Rochester Hills. $30.50 and up. 313-471-7000 or 313Presents.com.

About The Author

Gary Graff

Contributing writer Gary Graff is an award-winning music journalist based in metro Detroit.

In addition to Loudwire, he contributes regularly to Billboard, Ultimate Classic Rock, Media News Group, the Cleveland Plain-Dealer/Cleveland.com, Consequence, Music Connection, VenuesNow, United Stations Radio Networks and others. He reports every Friday on music news with Bob & Brian in the Morning on WHQG-FM in Milwaukee and periodically with the Drew & Mike podcast out of Detroit. He is the co-founder and co-producer of the Emmy Award-winning Detroit Music Awards. He was the founding editor of the MusicHound Essential Album Guide series and has co-written and edited books about Neil Young, Bob Seger, Bruce Springsteen, Rock & Roll Myths and, forthcoming, Alice Cooper.

Source: © Copyright The Oakland Press

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8 Great Moments From Bonnie Raitt’s Steamy Summer Solstice Return to New York City at a New Peak in Her Six-Decade Career
"I love coming back to the Beacon," declared Raitt, opening a two-night stand at the Manhattan theater, touring behind her new charttopping album `Just Like That...'

on June 22, 2022 No comments

by Thom Duffy

On the evening of the summer solstice, the longest day of the year, Bonnie Raitt opened a two-night stand at New York’s Beacon Theatre Tuesday (June 21) with a performance packed with its own superlatives. It was the most funky, fierce, fun and heartfelt show you could ask for — from an artist who has just reached a new pinnacle in her six-decade career, with the April release of her most recent album, Just Like That….

Like the blues artists who became her lifelong inspiration, Raitt offered a set of songs that celebrated love, romantic and sexual; challenged death and the passage of time; and exuded resilience and joy. It is no wonder that she is revered by her fans, emulated by younger artists, like Brandi Carlile, and embraced by veterans, like Mavis Staples, with whom she has shared dates on this tour.

Bonnie Raitt

Beacon Theatre
New York City, New York
June 21-22, 2022

Here are eight great moments from Raitt’s return to New York City.

The causes come first

“It’s activists I’m singing for — that’s my job,” Raitt told Billboard during her 2019 tour. Before a single note sounded Tuesday, fans in the theater lobby encountered organizers from the local chapter of the Sierra Club, the environmental organization with its roots in Raitt’s home state of California. They gathered signatures calling for greater action by New York State to fight climate change. Their presence was fitting. Raitt has credited her lifelong environmental activism, in part, to childhood summers she spent at a sleep-away camp in New York’s Adirondack Mountains, during the years when her father, actor John Raitt, was performing on Broadway.

A triumphant opening set

On this tour booked by Raitt’s representatives at the Creative Artists Agency, the opening artists include Staples, Marc Cohn and, for recent dates, Lucinda Williams, who is Raitt’s spiritual sister in the blues. At the Beacon, Williams’ band Buick 6 gave full bore backing to her vocals, which sounded as compelling as ever — despite the stroke Williams suffered in November 2020. The stroke has taken away her ability to play the guitar, for now, she told the crowd. “But that’s going to come back,” she declared, concluding her powerful set to an emotional, extended, standing ovation.

A magnificent red-haired presence

“I love coming back to the Beacon,” declared Raitt, as she took the stage with her five piece band to open with “Made Up Mind,” the lead single from Just Like That…, followed by “Waitin’ For You to Blow,” also from the new album that “we’re all really proud of,” said Raitt. The 72-year-old singer looked simply magnificent, with her trademark cascade of red hair, fronted by a white forelock, wearing a luminous blue shirt and black jeans. “All of us who are still out on the road… we stopped trashing ourselves in our 30s, just about,” Raitt told Billboard earlier this year when she was named the Icon Award honoree at Billboard’s 2022 Women in Music event. “You can’t keep up this pace if you don’t do yoga or hike or get some exercise.”

*Bonnie Raitt at the Beacon Theatre New York City June 2022* © Paige Schector

Those who bring the funk

“All right, no more Mrs. Nice Guy,” quipped Raitt as she and the band powered into John Hiatt’s “No Business,” which she recorded on her 1991 album Luck of the Draw. Raitt’s signature sound is a mix of her bluesy vocals, her stinging slide guitar and the deep grooves of her stellar backing band. She took a moment early in the show to introduce her two new recruits —guitarist Duke Levine, who has backed Peter Wolf among many others, and keyboardist Glenn Patscha, whose B3 organ playing highlighted several songs — as well as her longtime colleagues, guitarist George Marinelli and “one of the baddest rhythm sections in the world,” bassist James “Hutch” Hutchinson and drummer Ricky Fataar. In front of Fataar, the drum riser was draped with the blue and gold Ukrainian flag. “That’s to remind us not to forget,” said Raitt.

*Bonnie Raitt at The Beacon Theatre, NY June 2022* © Beacon Theatre

“Scared to run out of time”

Raitt sat beside Patscha to play the lead electric piano on “Nick of Time,” the title song from her massively successful 1989 breakthrough album, which led her to win three Grammy Awards (including album of the year) in 1990. “It’s hard to believe it’s been 30 years,” said Raitt. With the passage of time and the loss of loved ones, the lyrics she wrote and sang three decades ago were even more poignant: “Life gets mighty precious, when there’s less of it to waste.”

Empathy as deep as the groove

Raitt is not a prolific songwriter, but as evidenced by “Nick of Time,” when she does compose a song, it really counts. She absorbed the songwriting technique of creating, then deeply empathizing with characters in her song from her dear friend, the late John Prine — whose “unimaginable” loss was the greatest heartache of the pandemic for her, she told the crowd. Raitt credited Prine as she took up her acoustic guitar to perform “Just Like That…,” the title song of her album. It is a richly detailed lyric of a heartbroken mother who has lost her son — then meets the man who received the son’s heart in a transplant. “I lay my head upon his chest and I was with my boy again,” she sang. Prine would have been proud.

The pandemic’s shadow

The emotional toll of the pandemic sounded like a resonating chord through Raitt’s set, but often in counterpoint. Her new song, “Livin’ For the Ones,” co-written with Marinelli, was a rave up, a throw down and a shout out from a survivor:

“Livin’ for the onеs who didn’t make it

Cut down through no fault of their own

Just keep ’em in mind, all the chances denied

If you ever start to bitch and moan.”

“The healing power of music”

Prine’s classic “Angel From Montgomery” was his enduring gift to Raitt, which she has repaid by performing it as she did Tuesday night — with such emotion it was as if she were singing it for the first time. Raitt is a masterful interpreter of others’ compositions, as she proved once more in the closing songs of the show: a sensual drive through “Need You Tonight” from INXS; a fiery rendition of the Talking Heads classic “Burning Down The House” by David Byrne; and then a pair of songs she’d long since made her own — a soft torch-song take on “I Can’t Make You Love Me,” originally co-written by Mike Reid and Allen Shamblin, and the upbeat show-closing “Not the Only One,” from Irish singer/songwriter Paul Brady.

The common thread throughout Tuesday night was the artistry of this beloved musician who had returned to celebrate life in this moment with her longtime fans and friends.

“The healing power of music is an amazing thing,” said Raitt. “To have that experience with you again means more than I could ever say.”

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About The Author

Thom Duffy

Thom Duffy is Billboard’s executive director of special features and power lists. He has covered all sectors of the music industry for the magazine for more than three decades. Thom was Billboard’s first American editor based in London and reported during the 1990s from Europe, Asia and Australia. He has created annual Billboard features including 40 Under 40, Indie Power Players, Top Business Managers and Women in Music and edits executive features including its annual Power List. He has specialized in reporting on the intersection of activism and music, covering organizations including March for Our Lives, God’s Love We Deliver, Pete Seeger’s Clearwater and Willie Nelson’s Farm Aid. Off hours, he is an aspiring Adirondack “46er” and has climbed 32 of the 46 highest 4,000-foot peaks in New York’s Adirondack Mountains.

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At Leader Bank Pavilion, Bonnie Raitt’s excellence is no surprise

on June 18, 2022 No comments

Bonnie Raitt is nothing if not generous, and during her 90 minutes onstage at Leader Bank Pavilion Friday night, that characteristic showed up again and again. She made sure the audience knew who was playing with her by introducing her band (including Boston’s own guitar master Duke Levine — ”hometown team!,” Raitt exclaimed) after the second song instead of toward the show’s end. She gave shout-outs by name to some of her longtime Boston friends and to former Globe music critic Steve Morse. And she paid tribute to musical contemporaries, particularly to John Prine (“I miss him every day”) before playing a hushed version of the Prine song she has made her own, “Angel from Montgomery.”

As usual, she also gave flashes of her characteristic outspokenness and compassion. She made sure to point out the Ukrainian flag displayed onstage and went on to characterize Vladimir Putin with a choice epithet and to remark that what he was inflicting on Ukraine had a level of cruelty and barbarism that she’d never seen before.

And, as usual, she offered a set that didn’t veer radically from her wont. She is touring behind her latest album, “Just Like That . . . ,” so she gave a good sampling of the record, leading things off with “Made Up Mind” and then the plenty funky anthropomorphization of addiction, “Waitin’ for You to Blow.” The title track, which she sat down and took to acoustic guitar to play, was a beautiful musical display of her compassion. “Livin’ for the Ones,” her memorial to pandemic losses, had a touch of early Bonnie and rocked as hard as anything she’s ever done, while the soulful “Blame It on Me” indicated that the ravages of time have not visited themselves upon the places she is able to take her powerful voice.

Alongside the new was the tried-and-true: “Angel from Montgomery,” “Something to Talk About,” the reggae-tinted “Have a Heart,” break-out song “Nick of Time,” and “No Business,” which gave the evening’s first taste of Raitt’s singular bottleneck whine.

There were a couple of forays off the beaten track, notably for “Back Around,” her cowrite with Malian griot Habib Koité, which she called a “concoction” of Malian blues and John Lee Hooker; she played it on resonator guitar, paired with Levine’s acoustic, to marvelous effect. But by and large, this was a familiar performance, and it showed Raitt still doing what she does best.

Taking a bow after a superb show last night @bonnieraittofficial whose powerful, soulful voice remains unaffected by age OR the #covid_19 enforced “break” and kudos to @glennpatscha on (mostly) #hammondb3 and #boston favorite son and #guitar master @thedukelevine they stirred up a deep #memphis influenced #soul stew #dukelevine #bonnieraitt #glennpatscha
video by Peter Jason Riley

Thank you Boston!!! #leaderbankpavilion © James “Hutch” Hutchinson (@brbassman)

The effects of the stroke that opener Lucinda Williams suffered in November 2020 were clearly evident during her time onstage (and she talked about them), but what was also evident was that she has overcome whatever effects it had on her singing voice, which seemed stronger than ever. A simmering, extended take on her “Are You Down” was a highlight of her hour-long set.

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