magazine

All posts tagged magazine

Bonnie Raitt breaks through (Again)
The redheaded singer-slide guitarist who once idolized and emulated blues legends s now one herself.

on November 20, 2013 No comments

By Lori Hoffman • feedback@acweekly.com

In the late 1960s-early 70s Bonnie Raitt was a young artist on the college/folk music circuit who idolized the African American blues legends whose music she emulated — people like Mississippi Fred McDowell, Sippie Wallace, Muddy Waters and Ruth Brown. Sometimes she opened for them in concert all the while developing a distinctive blues rock and pop style all her own.

For many years that made Raitt a cult favorite with albums that included Give It Up, Takin My Time, Streetlights and Green Light. This was until a magical period in 1989 through the mid-1990s when Raitt became a bonafide star thanks to the commercial and multi-Grammy winning albums Nick of Time and Luck of the Draw and hit songs such as “Nick of Time,” “A Thing Called Love,” “Something to Talk About” and “I Can’t Make You Love Me.”

In the years since, Raitt has continued to deliver critically acclaimed albums and become a beloved music icon for younger artists like Adele, Bon Iver and Katy Perry, who have all covered “I Can t Make You Love Me.”

In 2012 she released her first album in seven years, Slipstream, another gem featuring her still powerful vocals and dynamic bottleneck guitar picking. The final leg of her Slipstream tour stops at Caesars Atlantic City, Saturday. Nov. 23. Prior to that visit, Atlantic City Weekly had a chance to chat with Raitt

“In a climate that sells less CDs, it’s a good investment to have your own label”

You’ve had a career that has come full circle. You once idolized great blues artists like Fred McDowell and Sippie Wallace and now young artists like Adele and Bon Iver are covering your songs. How do you feel about that?
My heart is warmed. I’m excited. I was very happy to have a new crop of fans coming to my concerts and more interest in my music whether it is shows like The Voice or American Idol that cover “Something to Talk About” or “I Can t Make You Love Me” and I hear about it, Justin Vernon of Bon Iver and Adele, to have people of their caliber cover that song [“I Can t Make You Love Me”] has been wonderful. To reach this point where Muddy and John Lee and Sippie Wallace were when I started out. You are at that point where you don’t have to look over your shoulder to see if your next record will be received well. I have a little bit of security and I thank my fans for that.

Slipstream is a terrific album earning a Grammy award for a newer category, Americana.
It was great that they came up with that umbrella. People like to put music in little boxes. There is such a wide range that fits in Americana [roots blues folk].

You self-released Slipstream on your Redwing Records. What made you decide to start a record label? Was it a necessity because of the current record business?
No not at all. I had a lot of interest from some labels. For me as a legacy artist who is established, the math works really well if you have the stomach and the staff to put together a great distribution, PR and management team. I have three wonderful women who are great at accounting, social media and my social activism side. Managing a label is very daunting task and those three are fantastic. In a climate that sells less CDs, it’s a good investment to have your own label.

How comfortable are you with the way records are released and promoted with social media?
It is certainly a great way to get the information out starting with the Web site. It’s a great way to communicate directly with fans and the fact that we can sell digitally is another reason for having our own label. Unfortunately, like bookstores the mom and pop record stores are [nearly gone]. It’s just a reality of the business.

You came out on stage with Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones in San Jose to sing “Let It Bleed.” That must have been amazing.
It was wonderful. I’ve known [Jagger] since I was 19 and I hung out a lot with those guys over the years. We’ve opened for the Stones a few times and I was actually on their last DVD. It’s an honor to be included and a lot of fun. I’m such a big fan.

With your early success in the Philadelphia region, you should have a great audience here in Atlantic City, not a typical casino crowd.
We did almost 100 dates in the U.S. and we were two months Down Under and two months in the U.K. and Europe earlier this year. These 40 dates are really to pick up the fans that didn t get a chance to see us last time. It’s a continuation of the Slipstream tour with a lot of songs from the new album and other songs from my previous catalog I switch around depending on how I’m feeling that night. Playing with Marc Cohn is such a treat. We did a lot of shows with him and with Mavis Staples last year. As for the casino audience verses regular venues, by the time the lights go down and I come out there on the stage I’m just grateful to have a heated venue with great lighting, a showroom with comfortable seats and great sight lines. With my fans there it just feels like another Bonnie Raitt concert.

Will you be working on a new album after this tour? You took seven years between albums last time.
With all the preparation before recording the album it has been a three-year cycle and I think I deserve a break. But I’ve definitely got some ideas in mind and I’m hunting for new songs. I haven’t really had any time at home in the last couple years. It will be nice to settle for a bit and unpack my suitcase and not repack it right away.

You are well known for being passionate about various charitable and political causes over the years. What’s your current passion?
Getting money out of politics Whether you are left or right or the middle. I hope that is something we can all agree on going forward. It is just a travesty what has happened to what we call democracy. It is really an auction instead of an election these days. And clearly the energy and climate situation, whether its Hurricane Sandy or the fires out west we [need] to keep pushing for safer alternatives to nuclear energy, coal and fracking. Those alternatives are available and we can bring the price down. The energy situation, the campaign reform and Wall Street reform, those are high on my list ■

EVENT INFO – Saturday Nov 23. 9pm Caesars Circus Maximus. Atlantic City – $67.50, $89, $99

But wait, there's more!

Queen of the Blues
Bonnie Raitt still reigns supreme after four decades

on May 16, 2013 No comments

BY STRATTON LAWRENCE
Special to The Post and Courier

The instinct to help people is ingrained in Bonnie Raitt’s DNA, likely somewhere near the gene that gives her the ability to play a mean blues guitar and sing like a soulful angel.
   Even before the release of her 1971 eponymous debut, Raitt’s career track was oriented toward service. A social relations and African studies major at Raddiffe College in Boston, Harvard’s sister school, Raitt began playing the slide guitar and singing the blues as an evening hobby.
   Fortunately for her legions of fans, Raitt found herself in the right place at the right time.
With the backing of a local blues promoter whom she befriended, Raitt began sitting in with greats like Howlin’ Wolf, Mississippi Fred McDowell and Sippie Wallace, a female blues great. She soon put her dreams of a service career in Africa aside, following her musical muse instead.
   Over the four decades since first establishing herself as a blues singer, Raitt has dedicated her life to music and activism, maintaining a strong voice in the antinuclear, environmental and human rights movements. In Charleston, she has worked closely with the Coastal Conservation League, raising as much as $80,000 through two performances in the 1990s to benefit the organization.
   “She is a dedicated environmentalist and a generous and gracious person,” said Dana Beach, executive director of the Coastal Conservation League, citing Raitt’s work to provide support for elderly blues musicians. “It is hard to imagine anyone giving back more to the musical community and the environment than she has.”
   From organizing concerts against nuclear power in the 1970s to fighting South African apartheid in the 1980s and her continued commitment to donate proceeds from every concert she performs to local charities in the region, Raitt has never lost sight of her ideals, leveraging her fame to help individuals and the planet at every step along the way.

‘Nick of Time’
   Now 63, Raitt, daughter of late Broadway musical star John Raitt, has cemented her legacy as one of the all-time greats in blues music. Rolling Stone includes her on both its lists of the top 100 singers and guitarists of all-time, thanks to her biting slide work on the guitar and her poignant lyrical delivery.
   Irish songwriter Danny Ellis first heard Raitt’s music in 1989, when she released the classic album “Nick of Time.”
   “My wife and I met around that time, and that was our go-to album when we were courting,” recalls Ellis, who opens Raitt’s concert on Friday at the North Charleston Performing Arts Center. “Bonnie has an expression to her voice that really takes a lyric to a whole ‘nother place. When she sings a song, the lyrics go home to where the writer meant for them to go.”
   Raitt’s ability to express herself and “get inside of a lyric when she sings” helped to inspire Ellis as he transformed himself from a pop and R&B songwriter into a singer writing personal songs with only a guitar to accompany him. In his own musical development, Ellis first emulated Dixieland jazz and the hit American bands of the ’70s, traveling with various groups around the European continent and to the United States.
   It wasn’t until he settled in Asheville, N.C., that Ellis came to terms with his difficult childhood. At 8, his mother handed him and his four siblings over to the care of the state. He was raised in an orphanage that doubled as a correctional school until he was 16, exposing him to “thieves, tinkers, bullies and blackguards.”
   In 2009, Ellis released “800 Voices,” a “devastatingly personal” album that traces his story growing up in the Irish orphanage. Ellis’ friend and fellow songwriter, David Wilcox, gave a copy of the disc to Nashville, Tenn., songwriter Beth Nielsen Chapman, who played it for Raitt during a vacation together in Malibu, Calif. Soon thereafter, Raitt reached out to Ellis in an email to let him know she was a fan and to invite him to her upcoming show in Asheville.
   “I was over the moon. You can imagine how that would impact you,” recalls Ellis. “When my wife and I first met her and told her we had courted to ‘Nick of Time,’ she was genuinely bowled over and touched. She’s a really down-to-earth, straight-talking person.”

“Bonnie has an expression to her voice that really takes a lyric to a whole ‘nother place. When she sings a song, the lyrics go home to where the writer meant for them to go.”

– Danny Ellis

After booking this week’s date in Charleston, Raitt again reached out to Ellis, inviting him to perform. The timing worked out nicely; Ellis released his newest album, “Rest Yourself,” this month, blending his folk songwriting with the natural Celtic influence that permeates all of his work.
“When the Irish influence started to creep back into my music, it really felt like something was coming home,” said Ellis.

But wait, there's more!

Celebrating Songwriters at the Ryman

on May 15, 2012 No comments

by Lydia Hutchinson

Bonnie Raitt is the Fairy Godmother of songwriters, turning dreams into reality one song at a time. And last Saturday night at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium—where a city of hopeful and accomplished tunesmiths filled the pews of the Mother Church—her magical powers were on full display.

A week into the tour for her flawless new release, Slipstream, Bonnie brought it home to the people she has championed for over 40 years and 19 albums—all the songwriters she claims changed her life. But any writer will tell you the other side of that equation: When Bonnie chooses one of their songs it’s an unequaled validation of their work, and the trajectory of their life is forever changed.

After strolling onto the stage with her Fender strat slung across her chest, Bonnie sprinkled her funky, bluesy, soulful fairy dust all over the new batch of songs, never failing to give a shout-out to the writer before the first note was played. She tore into Randall Bramblett’s “Used to Rule the World,” then sent the album’s single, “Right Down the Line” up to the late, great Gerry Rafferty. Hit songwriter “Big Al” Anderson, a cult icon from his NRBQ days, weaves in and out of Slipstream with his guitar-playing and songs co-written with Gary Nicholson (“Split Decision”), Bonnie Bramlett (“Ain’t Gonna Let You Go”) and newcomer Bonnie Bishop, to whom Raitt gave a shout-out before delivering the gorgeous “Not ‘Cause I Wanted To.”

Bob Dylan got a nod with “Million Miles” and “Standing in the Doorway” (“…That Bobby Dylan. Yeah, I think he’s gonna make somethin’ of himself.”), as did her ex-husband, Michael O’Keefe, who co-wrote “Marriage Made in Hollywood” with the great Paul Brady. The album’s co-producer, Joe Henry, contributed the bluesy ballad “You Can’t Fail Me Now,” written with Loudon Wainwright III, as well as the breathtaking closing track “God Only Knows.” Nashville’s Gordon Kennedy and Wayne Kirkpatrick (of “Change the World” fame) along with Kelly Price contributed another album highlight, “Take My Love With You.”

Sharing the stage with her family of band mates (guitarist George Marinelli, bassist Hutch Hutchinson, drummer Ricky Fataar and keyboardist Mike Finnegan), Raitt kept it loose, huddling with the guys on several occasions to mess with the set list (“Just talk amongst yourselves” she laughed.) She congratulated Marinelli’s son, Sam, who graduated from Vanderbilt the previous night and then launched into “Down to You,” a song she co-wrote with Marinelli and Bramblett. Afterward she passed the spotlight to Mike Finnegan and his B3 for a lesson in how to serve up R&B with a side of holy hot sauce on his rousing version of Ray Charles’ “I’ve Got News for You.”

Bonnie Raitt – Right Down The Line (Official Music Video)

In addition to the new tunes, Bonnie delivered favorites like Bonnie Hayes’ “Have a Heart,” “Something to Talk About” (“I had a cassette of Shirley Eikhard’s in a box for a long time waiting to record this song.”), and “Angel From Montgomery” which she dedicated to John Prine and his long-time manager Al Bunetta, as well as to her late mother and grandmother in honor of Mother’s Day (“I can’t talk too much about them because I’ll get choked up”). Her delivery on that classic was absolutely stunning and earned her first of several standing ovations of the night.

The evening’s highlight came with her first encore: the Mike Reid and Allen Shamblin-penned “I Can’t Make You Love Me.” Citing it as—along with “Angel From Montgomery”—the biggest gift of her career, she dedicated it to Reid who was in the audience with his son. It was a perfect few minutes, with Bonnie sitting on a stool bathed in lavender light, pitch perfect and hitting all the right notes. The audience was rapt and silent until she drew out the high notes on “and I will give up this fight,” making it all but impossible not to cheer her and this timeless song across the finish line.

Bonnie Raitt – I Can’t Make You Love Me – 34th Grammy Awards 1992

The night ended with a couple of blazing 12-bar blues shuffles after she called on old friend Rick Vito who hoisted himself onstage to grab a guitar and join her, followed by an impromptu Steve Winwood-penned “Can’t Find My Way Home” —the perfect choice for someone who had so clearly found her way home to the Nashville songwriting community and given it the gift of an unforgettable evening.

After the show Bonnie’s friends gathered upstairs for a quick visit and a few hugs. She happily greeted Songwriting Hall of Fame member Matraca Berg and her husband Jeff Hanna of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Irish vocalist Maura O’Connell, Pat McLaughlin, Gary Nicholson and Al Bunetta. Mike Reid, after talking about what a moment it was when Bonnie sang “I Can’t Make You Love Me,” stood with his arm around her and told her it was something he would never, ever get tired of.

Then Raitt saw newcomer Bonnie Bishop hanging back behind everyone else. With a big smile she walked over and hugged her as Bishop told her how much the evening meant, and that she cried throughout the performance of her song. The look on her face was the same one seen on every songwriter’s whose work has been validated by Raitt. Then she introduced Bishop to everyone around, making sure we knew her name—just as she had made sure we knew the names of Maia Sharpe, Liz Rose, Chris Smither, Stephen Bruton, Larry Jon McNally, Paul Brady, Richard Thompson and scores of other songwriters whose songs Raitt has given voice to over the years.

And just like that, Bonnie Raitt sprinkled a little more of her magic onto the life of another songwriter.