Bonnie Raitt - Classic or Dud?

(and I reach my point): Nor would I do Bonnie Raitt such a disservice. She has earned the right to be a classic. Bonnie rocks!!!!!

otm - the song & the performance & the production all work together to make an incredibly sad, cutting, terribly real-feeling song

Thanks so much for this recommendation Josh. Great album.

I guess it's fairly clear I vote "classic".

CLASSIC. put her on today and nothing could have felt more right

"i can't make you love me" is certainly devestating. her voice, the feel. even her cover of "burnin down the house" sounds good to me.

So's her cover of "You Got It."

she is awesome! My fave 'discovery' of the last year. Every album up through The Glow is solid. I wish I liked Green Light a little better, since it has my main man Ian MacLagan all over it (!!), but that record is sort of where i get off the bus.

she is one of my mom's all time absolute favorites. if only for the simple fact that she's been a badass chick with a guitar and a killer voice for so long, i must say classic.

finally got Luck of the Draw. It sounds like the end of an era --the last of the expensive L.A. studio-rock productions -- but also sounds like the very best that the era could produce.

http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=O2Kf-BZw1eI Been Too Long At The Fair on The Old Grey Whistle Test 1976. A gorgeous performance.

thats so hot

her first s/t album is pretty sick, huh?

it kind of makes me sad that anyone could call bonnie's music a dud. even if it's not always the most original, the dedication and simplicity that she brings to her work is comforting, beautiful and timeless.

the last of the expensive L.A. studio-rock productions

i really like this description, alfred

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQ7ERxMwBW8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDUHq26FmrA

(whole show available on YouTube, onv. so good)

never heard her 'angel from montgomery" before. kinda hits it good.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhe3vb0z7mY

oh yeah, it does. I like it better than Prine's, actually

I mean, it kinda needs a female voice! i think even JP probably feels great that she embraced the song

the other youtube one is even better ... is it 'Old Grey Whistle Test'?

yeah, it was on the 'Old Grey Whistle Test', but it looks like the You Tube bastards deleted it. the version on there rules so hard, if I had the DVD, i'd just go ahead and re-up right now. oh well, here is Bonnie from the same segment doing Joni

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2Kf-BZw1eI

yeah, between that and hearing megan mullaly's 'far from me' it's been a good week of finding great fem-fronted Prine versions

actually ... I'm totally off base .. "Too Long at the Fair" ain't a Joni song at all, it's by some guy i never heard of .. not sure why I thought it was JM (kinda sounds like her!)

Luck of the Draw is almost a great album; it might have been if she hadn't encased L.A. blooze approximations in amber. The more songs she writes herself, the better the results. "All At Once" brings tears to my eyes.

oh -- Nick of Time's title song really nails middle-age.

"nick of time" is an all-time jam in my opinion & "have a heart" is underrated - that "hey! don't lie to me" opening is great and her "or don't you have a heart?" delivery in the chorus is A+

My problem with "Have a Heart" is the stranded synthesizer.

Homeplate was one of my top ten in the 70s alternative poll thingy earlier this year. She's one of my favorite singers.

She's doing right by me this evening. Not gonna lie.

THIS IS WEIRD. I was going to revive this because I heard "Not the Only One" this morning and remembered, again, what a good example of geezer-rock Luck of the Draw is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4eEG597kME

damn she rules

suck it, hipsters!

One more vote for Give It Up, one of my personal 10 best from the '70s. Rootsy, bluesy, folky, emotive, and chock full of great songs (some her own, and some covers, including the definitive version of "Love Has No Pride", the album closer).

Later-period hits were good too. I still like it whenever "Something to Talk About" comes on the radio.

"Not the Only One" is a beautiful song.

^yes

thirded

I love Luck of the Draw - an almost perfect studio-rock album.

The mighty fine Jonathan Bogart killing it with this overview here:

http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2012/04/bonnie-raitts-amazing-omnivorous-adult-contemporary-career/255684/

yeah good read

Bonnie Raitt
Great American Music Hall, San Francisco, CA
1976-05-24 (see notes)

01 //Sweet Home Kokomo
02 Love Me Like A Man
03 Run Like A Thief
04 Thank You
05 Give It Up Or Let Me Go*
06 Sugar Mama
07 Good Enough
08 Walk Out The Front Door
09 My First Night Alone Without You
10 What Do You Want The Boy To Do?
-- Encore
11 Under the Falling Sky
* w/ Freebo on Tuba

The Band:
Jeff Labis - Piano
Will McFarland - Guitar
Dennis Wooded - Drums
Freebo - Bass & Tuba
Begining track 7:
Peter Bonnetta
Roosevelt Sikes

Source: FM > LP(?) > unknown > DAT
Transfer: DAT>Tascam DA-20mkII > coax > Delta Dio 2496 > Wavelab 4.0a (@ 24/48)
Mastering: Wavelab 4.0a > X-Noise (23.1 dB threshold & 85% reduction) + Waves L1-Ultramaximzer (-1 dB left channel + 4 dB threshold increase) > conversion to 16/44.1 > WAV > FLAC
Track 1 begins muddy and indistinct, but improves quickly.
Original uploader's notes:

Broadcast on KSAN. This recording came to me dated "??-??-73." It contains songs that appear on the 1975 album Home Plate and the band here also played on 1977's Sweet Forgiveness, so 1973 is almost certainly wrong.

There are several hints about the correct date. Bonnie Raitt says that Taj Mahal is played at the Boarding House (also in San Francisco) that night and that Chris Smither played at the same venue, which is "my favorite club," about one year ago in February. Unfortunately, neither of those hints has helped me to find a definative date. Bonnie Raitt also says that "We just got off the road, we've been on the road since March 15, and, uh, went to England, had a [great?] time . . . and then spent the last 10 days w/ Little Feat, down through the Southeast . . . ." Finally, at the end of track 9, Bonnie Raitt mentions that there are other fans waiting outside to get into the venue, which suggests that this is an early show and that there was a second performance that night.

According to the liner notes on a Bonnie Raitt bootleg called "Collections" owned by a collector in Europe, this was recorded on 05.24.76 at the Great American Music Hall and broadcast on 05.26.76, (That bootleg contains two songs that are missing from this source: Women Be Wise and You Got To Know How.) So, that's how I've dated this performance. If anyone knows for sure, please let the world know, too.

Mastering Notes:

The original DAT was quite noisy, though not really hissy like an analog tape. There are, here and there, tiny pops and ticks that sound very much like an LP playback, including a few rough boundaries where the recording tape started and stopped. There is also some distortion in the right channel at certain frequencies (check out the piano at the begining of My First Night Without You). None of this is very serious compared to the overall quality of the recording.

I believe that this is an LP > DAT or something similar, and the background noise is a line noise added by the stereo equipment. Whatever it was, I removed it using the X-noise plugin, which required relatively a lot of reduction (23.1 dB threshold, 85% reduction). As for pops and ticks, none of them are loud and you won't notice them unless you're listening to the spaces between songs.

(the "me" in the above is not me.)

KSAN seems to hold on to a lot of pre-broadcast masters so that may exist somewhere. (IIRC a lot of them leaked out some years ago, mostly dating from 1977.)

Here's a great show from a year later - pre-FM master source, though it's missing the opening number.
https://www.guitars101.com/threads/bonnie-raitt-1977-04-23-new-orleans-la-pre-fm-flac.730293/

Thanks TSF, somehow I heard "Labis" and "Wooded" but my brain refused to trust my ears or vice-versa, because they weren't familiar and maybe "lacked" more common syllables or other parts, also didn't hear "Peter Bonnetta" at all (?), but knew about those other guys(used to have quite a nice early 70s LP by Roosevelt Sykes). Thanks bird, will try to nose around that site for link again later; a basketball video just now kept following me around on there (Web Sheriff in disguise?)

Raitt receiving Kennedy Center Honors, w Grateful Dead, jazzman Arturo Sandoval(Hope's Dad), also Francis Coppola---maybe he'll show some footage as the others jam (presume that there will be a presentation-performance on PBS, though better hurry up before increasingly likely new regime):
https://www.npr.org/2024/07/17/nx-s1-5043409/2024-kennedy-center-honors

Raitt at Honors, what was said: https://www.aol.com/trump-return-dc-looms-over-114337352.html

from WaPo (not paywalled!)

Raitt was the first artist honored Sunday, with well-known musicians tackling some of her biggest hits as an interpreter of country, blues and rock-and-roll: Dave Matthews and Emmylou Harris sang “Angel From Montgomery”; Keb’ Mo’ and Susan Tedeschi did “Walking Blues”; Brandi Carlile and Sheryl Crow played “I Can’t Make You Love Me”; and Jackson Browne, James Taylor, Arnold McCuller and Crow performed “Nick of Time.”

Julia Louis-Dreyfus, an avowed Raitt fan, praised the artist as “all red hair and no bulls---.” Of Raitt’s activism, the comedian said, “It really makes you feel like crap, but in a really good way.” Browne said that when he first met Raitt, she “looked like Little Orphan Annie and sounded like Mae West.”

(In one charmingly impromptu moment, Matthews grabbed the mic to tell Raitt that he read in The Washington Post that she was raised a Quaker — exciting news to him since he was also raised a Quaker.)

The music continued with the tribute to Sandoval, and the volume jumped up a notch. Trombone Shorty, Chris Botti and Cimafunk blasted Afro-Cuban melodies on their horns. The audience feasted on flamenco dancing while listening to a tapestry of tumbling rhythms and funky beats, all set against an almost neon background that illuminated the Opera House as the crowd danced in their chairs.

Quakers, name your reasons why they are so bad and hated

Charli XCX remix hopefully got her some royalties.

Saw the last 30 min of this 2024 Austin City Limits last night on cable, will have to watch all 53:56 as posted on PBS.org (might have to get the free PBS app, but it's right here)---amazing, duh, with a bunch of second-half songs I'd never heard before, also recent ones and "Nick of Time," which fit in, though you could tell it was a younger (middle-aging) woman's POV, looking past the crossroads:
https://www.pbs.org/video/bonnie-raitt-ux4qzn/