Bonnie Raitt - Classic or Dud?

Indeed, He's OTM about Froom and "Spit of Love." Raitt's one of those artists whose two albums I own I love passionately but always forget to investigate further.

really great job from Jonathan.

A chunk of her catalog bores me tbh. Not her singing and playing, which are often forceful and declarative in the way Jonathan argues, but the choice of material. But when she's coaxed by the right song she's like a cool aunt. She was by far the highlight at this year's Grammys.

That's a good list above, but no "Pride" no credibility.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbqXMQCq59U

cool article!

this is quite sly i must say: "Modern adult-contemporary musicians like Faith Hill or Neko Case..."

Always forget it's Bruce Hornsby playing the majestic organ line in "I Can't Make You Love Me." It even reduces Phil Collins to tears:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ve6-BCoT7C0&feature=related

So far digging the new album. Here's what I posted on Rolling Country (because we'd been talking about Joe Henry and because I'd just listened to Slipstream twice straight through)
True that xpost Joe Henry can stuff some boredom into tracks, but he does great w with the ones he produces and writes and co-writes on Bonnia Raitt's new Slipstream. The co-write's with Loudon Wainwright, melds with the real good Dylan-written track before it, which he also produced, so Raitt's playing with Bill Frisell and Greg Leiz, no ambient 'llowed, not in the usual elevator sense anyway, just some eloquent picking. She and ex NRBQ/long-time Nashville cat Al Anderson play great elsewhere (she produced most of the set, sounds like she and Al may have co-written some too)They even squeeze and slap some juice out of "On Down The Line," basically a boring-ass yacht rock barnacle. The only other song choice I'd quarrel with so far is one about a Hollywood marriage as run through the evil media blah blah, but some musical diversion there too. So far seems like if you jumped from her 70s peaks to this, you'd be on the same level, or close enough to keep your balance--streaming here for nownhttp://www.bonnieraitt.com/slipstream

― dow, Wednesday, April 11, 2012 12:32 AM (10 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Player's in the right rail, despite blank in the middle of page.

― dow, Wednesday, April 11, 2012 12:35 AM (9 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Oops, sorry here's the activated link, and w much better sound than the NPR stream, at least on my machine (with ILX headphones star Koss Proplus, available at v non-audiophile prices, be good to your ears and music, brothers and sisters)
http://www.bonnieraitt.com/slipstream

ILX headphones threads star/frequent choice, that is.

*ahem*

"Stripped down both lyrically and structurally, but revved up in energy and dynamics, the Dave Edmunds cover "Me and the Boys" formed the centerpiece of what would be called her "new wave" album, Green Light."

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

Cool. Yeah, Green Light's real good, one of her most rocking. For some reason, I stopped keeping up after that, but everything from her first decade of recording is worth checking out.

Wouldn't call it "new wave" though, unless "Tumblin' Dice"-type Stones, NRBQ, Rockpile were new wave--even so, no synths, no skinny ties materialize when I listen (more like bike rides along and down Thrill Hill, past the woods and toward the reservoir)

Ha, I think Scott was noting the error in calling it a Dave Edmunds cover when it was in fact NRBQ...

Yeah, but her stripped-down version does have kind of a Rockpile thing too, ditto some other stuff on the album, so the tour guide at least made an appropriate mistake.

Very happy for her that she's scored her biggest hit in years: Starbucks rock that's cool.

what hit?

goddamn I love the way the chorus hits on this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krF6LpUXODc

New album is damn good. I've waited my whole life for a Bonnie Raitt cover of INXS' "Need You Tonight."

Also like the fast Los Lobos cover, more LL please ma'am (wonder what she thinks of the Blasters, also Dave and Phil, solo and together). The prowley blues-rock grooves remind me of Little Feat backing her on "I Feel The Same," and she turned up on some or at least one of their albums, right? There were rumors that she was asked to join the band, before and/or after Lowell George died. I'd request covers of him as well, but might be too many memories involved. Meanwhile, I'm also digging the elements I associate with Philly soul, and the no-b.s. piano ballads, the self-written and the Joe Henry song she credits with luring her back; she'd lived that one too.
Good interview w David Ritz here:
http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/magazine-feature/6882567/bonnie-raitt-new-album-bernie-sanders-adele

And check YouTube for her Grammys performance of "The Thrill Is Gone" with Gary Clark Jr. and Chris Stapleton.

My playlist.

listening to the Streetlights album, feel like it's categorized as singer/songwriter/rock, but really it's a great soul album

I love the progress of this thread. Starts out all "eh" and "meh" and develops into almost unanimous "PRAISE BONNIE" by the end.

For the record, PRAISE BONNIE.

Nick of Time is one of the best songs ever by anyone

The first post here is so gross. "Nick of Time" is a great song, though, isn't it?

"Not the Only One" is a beautiful song.

― Clarke B., Saturday, June 18, 2011 10:33 AM (seven years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Just heard this for the first time in awhile, and it's possibly the best fake Christine McVie EVAH--and with Richard Thompson on guitar!

Adore this lady

mandatory listening

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4tJiyU_gjY
Can't Find My Way Home - Bonnie Raitt & Lowell George & John Hammond Jr & Freebo

PRAISE BONNIE

Just stumbled upon this - I remember when her videos were a regular staple on VH1, but I didn't know she had one on to MTV when she was much younger and far less popular. What you'd expect from an early '80s video, it even has a random twist at the end. And I believe that's Ian McLagan of Small Faces/Faces on piano.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHQLg0APKlQ

From Green Light - a pretty good album, the highlight is "River of Tears," her duet with Richard Manuel. (This past Thursday was actually the anniversary of his death.)

Happy birthday, good lady.

This video, seriously

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NoA_f7H-g1Y

Yas yall!
David Wild asked for our fave BRalbums on Twitter tonight:
Mine is GIVE IT UP since the Summer ov '72.
The track that comes into my head most often, and demanded to be in my lifetime Top 50 on rockcritics.com
is "I Feel The Same"--another one w Lowell George; she was said to be currently harsh on her own playing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYfJkSY3_Po

Frequently in my head, it very eventually turns into "The Thrill is Gone":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plk7PdnoHqQ

"I Feel The Same" is of course from her '73 Takin' My Time, also excellent, despite one Eric Justin Kaz trudge (yes, he co-wrote all-time "Love Has No Pride," killer finale ofGIU, and shoulda worked even more w Libby Titus--what's up with her, anyway? Married to Levon, right? Some other good songs here and there, never saw a whole LT record, incl. single).

Sweet and Shiny Eyes FTW

^^This. I just spent a little bit on Spotify trying to find that wonderful boozy sing-along final track on an album of hers which I'd forgotten the important stuff about, and yup, that was it.

Yeah Give It Up is my favorite too. Those first three LP's in general are still my favorites.

Good call on "Sweet and Shiny Eyes" too, one of my favorites off of that one.

A lot of her interviews from the mid-'90s to the '00s mention a box set she was hoping to put together - like the classic three or four-disc career retrospective with choice rarities, etc. Given where the market's at now, I guess that's never gonna happen.

Maybe on vinyl? Meanwhile, we'll just have to grow our own. Mine might start with "I Know," end with "I Knew." She certainly had me for the first 11 years, right through '82's Green Light, wnich as xgau observed, was her most rocking and worst selling of that era, maybe ever. Why? Just a more consistently emphatic beat than before, even a Stonesy riff for Eric Freakin Justin Kaz's "River of Tears"! It all worked in sufficiently Raittesque terms, I htought. Wiki quotes her plausible thinking on this:

What I wanted this time out was a combination of the music I've been listening to recently," Raitt said in 1982, "Billy Burnette, the Blasters, Rockpile, and the rock-a-billy New Wave scene. I knew I had to get away from the slick sound I had with the Peter Asher record...I was a little stung by the lack of response to The Glow. And I was disappointed by not being able to make a record that sounded the way I wanted it to sound. Moving to Shangri-la, I wanted to get back to the roots and to the funkiness I had on earlier records, even though I'm not crazy about how they sound. They sound like I was having a lot more fun than I really was. Green Light is the first album I actually had fun doing."
Was covering NRBQ a bridge too far?
"Well, a lot of my friends thought I had moved to the beach and turned into Gidget. But it's not like I suddenly became an airhead. I needed to lighten up a bit, that's all. I was laughing all the time, having a lot of fun, hanging out at this funky old studio that had hippie blankets hanging from the ceiling. Now I'm getting some feedback from people who feel the same way that I do about rock and roll. Then there are other, more conservative friends whom I've known for years who still wish I was sitting in a chair playing acoustic guitar."
So she tried some other things---duet w Bryan Adams, covered "Burning Down The House," Irishy sounds---I wasn't following by then, but did love "In The Nick of Time" and some Grammy-Platinum Years album tracks I heard at friends' houses. Heard Fundamental at the mall: trended monotonous, but I only heard it that once---yadda yadda Slipstream brought me back, seemed strong as and songfully compatible to the first 11 years. Need to listen more to Dig In Deep and earlier ones I missed almost entirely.

I saw her do a few online performances in the first week of lockdown--a fundraiser for Austin musicians, a tribute to John Prine. Nice house!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgcfw3BTBIc

Oh yeah!
Somebody mentioned Ian McLagen upthread: he was in her Bump Band, and def. on The Green Light, though she's also shading the rowdiness with guests incl. Jackson Browne, Richard Manuel---Vince Gill, even (never heard a solo track of his I liked, but he's good w the harmonies, also in Emmylou Harris's line-ups of that era. Have not heard him with the Eagles).

xxp I like Green Light, and it's a shame that for a while it was her career-killer, or rather the lack of commercial success was.

The Grammy-era Raitt was the first one I knew. I just remember "Something to Talk About" et al being all over adult contemporary anything, romantic comedy movie trailers, etc. I actually thought it was pleasant stuff, but I wasn't really diving into music past top 40 radio. It was a nice surprise to find out she had almost 20 years of stuff that no one played.

I remember Fundamental when it came out. IIRC she was on Oprah promoting it and gave a guitar away to a girl in the audience (maybe middle school age or jr. high?). She played something that I mistook for a Babyface song and I thought the rest would be the same. Then years later, on xgau's old recommendation, I checked it out again. I don't rate it as highly as he does, but there's surprisingly some good stuff on there, a few of which wouldn't sound out of place on a Los Lobos or Latin Playboys album, specifically the J.B. Lenoir tune (which is basically Raitt with Los Lobos) and "Cure for Love." I like "Spit of Love" too.

Luck of the Draw is my favorite Raitt.

expert mom-rock

Yeah, it's really good. If you think of mom-rock not as a derogatory term but the pop music equivalent of, say, what used to be called (somewhat derogatorily) "women's films," you can't do much better. Getting older, family (parents passing away, raising children or grandchildren), they're universal topics, and she does them right and honestly.

I saw her in 2017 and after "Nick of Time" she said "I wrote that when I was afraid of turning 40....HUH." LMAO

“Love Letter” and “Thing Called Love” and “Something to Talk About” all kind of set her up as the female counterpart to John Hiatt. (I assumed until checking now that he wrote all of these!) I’d like to dig deeper into what she does beyond this era.

Warner Bros. should be your next stop then. That will cover her entire career before her unlikely "comeback" at Capitol. First three albums are probably her best. After that the albums get much more uneven, but nearly all of them have some good stuff on them.

In terms of the worst, that's easily the last WB album Nine Lives, completed under desultory conditions. (I like the Toots Hibbert cover though - it was a single.) The Glow isn't good either, but it does have a great Stax/Volt cover, "Your Good Thing (Is About To End)."

"Something to Talk About" was such a unexpected phenomenon. A year and a half after her Grammys comeback, she earns a top fiver played alongside Karyn White and Jesus Jones and Marky Mark. Fully earned too -- she sings and plays the shit out of it.

That's for sure. I didn't realize how miraculous Bonnie Raitt's popularity was until years later.

FWIW Billboard did an oral history on Nick of Time for its anniversary: https://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/rock/8503466/bonnie-raitt-nick-of-time-oral-history-30th-anniversary/

It's a good read for fans and really emphasizes how much she bottomed out and how low the expectations were, even by the people who signed her Capitol (and they liked her). NOBODY in their right mind would've bet on a hit.

I kind of wish she pulled off an album with Prince, but given his luck with everyone else on his label, it probably worked out for the best.

XP ...and then a few years later it gave a name to a now largely-forgotten Julia Roberts/Dennis Quaid romcom!

It's even in the trailer!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxbLkx8A1WI

nice to see all the love for Give It Up and Green Light, HBD rock legend