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Bonnie Raitt

Bonnie Raitt performing live in 2007
Background information
Birth name Bonnie Lynn Raitt
Born (1949-11-08) November 8, 1949 (age 62)
Burbank, California, United States
Genres Blues, country, folk-rock
Occupations Singer-songwriter, musician, political activist, philanthropist
Instruments Vocals, guitar, slide guitar
Years active 1971–present
Labels Warner, Capitol
Website bonnieraitt.com

Bonnie Lynn Raitt (born November 8, 1949) is an American blues singer-songwriter and a renowned slide guitar player. During the 1970s, Raitt released a series of acclaimed roots-influenced albums which incorporated elements of blues, rock, folk and country, but she is perhaps best known for her more commercially accessible recordings in the 1990s including "Nick of Time", "Something to Talk About", "Love Sneakin' Up on You", and the slow ballad "I Can't Make You Love Me". Raitt has received nine Grammy Awards in her career and is a lifelong political activist.

Contents

Biography [link]

Early life [link]

Raitt, the daughter of Broadway musical star John Raitt and his first wife, pianist Marjorie Haydock, began playing guitar at an early age, something few of her high school female friends did. Later she would become famous for her bottleneck-style guitar playing. "I had played a little at school and at camp", she later recalled in a July 2002 interview. The camp Raitt refers to is Camp Regis-Applejack, located in the heart of the Adirondacks.

Pre-recording career [link]

After graduating from Oakwood Friends School in Poughkeepsie, New York, in 1967 Raitt entered Harvard's Radcliffe College as a freshman, majoring in African Studies. "My plan was to travel to Tanzania, where President Julius Nyerere was creating a government based on democracy and socialism", Raitt recalled. "I wanted to help undo the damage that Western colonialism had done to native cultures around the world. Cambridge was a hotbed of this kind of thinking, and I was thrilled."

One day, Raitt was told by a friend that blues promoter Dick Waterman was giving an interview at WHRB, Harvard's college radio station. An important figure in the blues revival of the 1960s, Waterman was also a resident of Cambridge. Raitt went to see Waterman, and the two soon became friends, "much to the chagrin of my parents, who didn't expect their freshman daughter to be running around with 65-year-old bluesmen," recalled Raitt. "I was amazed by his passion for the music and the integrity with which he managed the musicians."

During Raitt's sophomore year, Waterman relocated to Philadelphia, and a number of local musicians he counted among his friends went with him. Raitt had become a strong part of that community, recalling that "... these people had become my friends, my mentors, and though I had every intention of graduating, I decided to take the semester off and move to Philadelphia .... It was an opportunity that young white girls just don't get, and as it turns out, an opportunity that changed everything."

By now, Raitt was also playing folk and rhythm and blues clubs in the Boston area, performing alongside established blues legends such as Howlin' Wolf, Sippie Wallace, and Mississippi Fred McDowell, all of whom she met through Waterman.

Signing with Warner Bros. [link]

In the fall of 1970, while opening for McDowell at the Gaslight Cafe in New York, she was seen by a reporter from Newsweek Magazine, who began to spread word of her performance. Scouts from major record companies were soon attending her shows to watch her play. She eventually accepted an offer with Warner Bros. who soon released her debut album, Bonnie Raitt, in 1971. The album was warmly received by the music press, many of whom praised her skills as an interpreter and as a bottleneck guitarist; at the time, very few women in popular music had strong reputations as guitarists.

While admired by those who saw her perform, and respected by her peers, Raitt gained little public acclaim for her work. Her critical stature continued to grow but record sales remained modest. Her second album, Give It Up, was released in 1972 to universal acclaim; though many critics still regard it as her best work, it did not change her commercial fortunes. 1973's Takin' My Time was also met with critical acclaim, but these notices were not matched by the sales.

Raitt was beginning to receive greater press coverage, including a 1975 cover story for Rolling Stone Magazine, but with 1974's Streetlights, reviews for her work were becoming increasingly mixed. By now, Raitt was already experimenting with different producers and different styles, and she began to adopt a more mainstream sound that continued through 1975's Home Plate.

In 1976, Raitt made an appearance on Warren Zevon's eponymous album with his friend Jackson Browne and Fleetwood Mac's Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks.

Commercial success [link]

Berkeley Community Theater, 1976-1977

1977's Sweet Forgiveness gave Raitt her first commercial breakthrough when it yielded a hit single in her cover of 's "Runaway." Recast as a heavy R&B recording based on a rhythmic groove inspired by Al Green, Raitt's version of "Runaway" was disparaged by many critics, but its commercial success prompted a bidding war between Warner Bros. and Columbia Records. "There was this big Columbia – Warner war going on at the time", recalled Raitt in a 1990 interview. "James Taylor had just left Warner Bros. and made a big album for Columbia...And then, Warner signed Paul Simon away from Columbia, and they didn't want me to have a hit record for Columbia — no matter what! So, I renegotiated my contract, and they basically matched Columbia's offer. Frankly the deal was a really big deal."

Warner Bros. held higher expectations for Raitt's next album, 1979's The Glow, but it was released to poor reviews as well as modest sales. Raitt would have one commercial success in 1979 when she helped organize the five MUSE (Musicians United for Safe Energy) concerts at Madison Square Garden. The shows spawned a three-record gold album as well as a Warner Bros. feature film, No Nukes. The shows featured co-founders Jackson Browne, Graham Nash, John Hall, and Raitt as well as Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, The Doobie Brothers, Carly Simon, James Taylor, Gil Scott-Heron, and numerous others.

For her next record, 1982's Green Light, Raitt made a conscious attempt to revisit the sound of her earlier records, but to her surprise, many of her peers and members of the press would compare her new sound to the burgeoning New Wave movement. The album received her strongest reviews in years, but her sales did not improve and this would have a severe impact on her relationship with Warner Bros.

Drop from Warner Bros. [link]

In 1983, as Raitt was finishing work on her follow-up album, entitled Tongue & Groove, Warner Bros. "cleaned house", dropping a number of major artists from their roster. Van Morrison and Arlo Guthrie were two of the most high-profile cases, and the day after mastering was completed on Tongue & Groove, Raitt was notified that she was to be dropped too. The album was shelved indefinitely, and Raitt was left without a label. By then, Raitt was also struggling with alcohol and drug abuse.[1]

Despite her personal and professional problems, Raitt continued to tour and participate in political activism. In 1985, she sang and appeared in the video of "Sun City", the anti-apartheid record written and produced by Steven Van Zandt. Along with her participation in Farm Aid and Amnesty International concerts, Raitt would later travel to Moscow in 1987 as part of the first joint Soviet/American Peace Concert later shown on Showtime television. Also in 1987, Raitt would organize a benefit in Los Angeles, for Countdown '87 to Stop Contra Aid, featuring herself, Don Henley, Herbie Hancock, Holly Near and others.

[edit] Tongue and Groove's name change and release

Bonnie Raitt at 1990 Grammy Awards

Two years after dropping her from their label, Warner Bros. notified Raitt of their plans to release Tongue & Groove. "I said it wasn't really fair," recalled Raitt. "I think at this point they felt kind of bad. I mean, I was out there touring on my savings to keep my name up, and my ability to draw was less and less. So they agreed to let me go in and recut half of it, and that's when it came out as Nine Lives." A critical and commercial disappointment, 1986's Nine Lives would be Raitt's last new recording for Warner Bros.

In late 1987, she joined k.d. lang and Jennifer Warnes as female background vocals for Roy Orbison's television special, Roy Orbison and Friends, A Black and White Night. Following this highly acclaimed broadcast, she began working on new material. By then, Raitt was clean and sober, having broken her substance abuse — for which she credited Stevie Ray Vaughan in a Minnesota State Fair concert[2] the night after Vaughan's 1990 death. During this time, Raitt considered signing with Prince's own label, Paisley Park, but negotiations ultimately fell through. Instead she began recording a bluesy mix of pop and rock under the production guidance of Don Was at Capitol Records.

Raitt had met Was through Hal Wilner, who was putting together Stay Awake, a tribute album to Disney music for A&M. Was and Wilner both wanted Raitt to sing lead on an adult-contemporary arrangement created by Was for "Baby Mine", the lullaby from Dumbo. Raitt was very pleased with the sessions, and she asked Don to produce her next album.

Peak commercial success [link]

After nearly 20 years, Bonnie Raitt achieved belated commercial success with her tenth album, Nick of Time. Released in the spring of 1989, Nick of Time went to the top of the U.S. charts following Raitt's Grammy sweep in early 1990. At the same time, she walked away with a fourth Grammy Award for her duet "In the Mood" with John Lee Hooker on his album The Healer. Nick of Time was also the first of many of her recordings to feature her longtime rhythm section of Ricky Fataar and James "Hutch" Hutchinson (Although previously Fataar had played on her Green Light album and Hutchinson had worked on Nine Lives). Nick of Time has sold over six million copies in the US alone.

She followed up this success with three more Grammy Awards for her 1991 album, Luck of the Draw which has currently sold nearly 8 million copies in the United States. Three years later, in 1994, she added two more Grammys with her album Longing In Their Hearts, her second no. 1 album. Both of these albums were multi-platinum successes. Raitt's collaboration with Was would amicably come to an end with 1995's live release, Road Tested. Released to solid reviews, it sold well enough to be certified gold.

For her next studio album, Raitt hired Mitchell Froom and Tchad Blake as her producers. "I loved working with Don Was but I wanted to give myself and my fans a stretch and do something different," Raitt said. Her work with Froom and Blake was released on Fundamental in 1998.

Current era [link]

Raitt performing onstage in 2004

In March 2000, Raitt was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Silver Lining was released in 2002 while Souls Alike was released in September 2005.

Australian Country Music Artist Graeme Connors has said, "Bonnie Raitt does something with a lyric no one else can do; she bends it and twists it right into your heart." (ABC Radio NSW Australia interview with Interviewer Chris Coleman on 18 January 2007)[3]

In 2007, she accepted an invitation to contribute to Goin' Home: A Tribute to Fats Domino. With Jon Cleary, she sang a medley of "I'm in Love Again" and "All by Myself".

Raitt appeared on the June 7, 2008 broadcast of Garrison Keillor's radio program "A Prairie Home Companion". She performed two blues songs with Kevin "Keb' Mo'" Moore: "No Getting Over You" and "There Ain't Nothin' in Ramblin'." Raitt also sang Dimming of the Day with Richard Thompson. This show, along with another on which Raitt with her band in October 2006, is archived on the Prairie Home Companion web site.

In February 2012, Raitt performed a duet with Alicia Keys at the 2012 Grammys honoring Etta James.[4]

In April 2012, Raitt released her first studio album since Souls Alike in 2005. Entitled Slipstream, the new album was released in North America on April 10. Slipstream has been praised as "her best album in years and one of the best of her 40-year career" by American Songwriter Magazine.[5]

Political activism [link]

Raitt's political involvement goes back to the early seventies. Her 1972 album "Give it up" had a dedication "to the people of North Vietnam ..." printed on the back.

Raitt's web site urges fans to learn more about preserving the environment. She was a founding member of Musicians United for Safe Energy in 1979 and a catalyst for the larger anti-nuclear movement, becoming involved with groups like the Abalone Alliance and Alliance for Survival.

In 1994 at the urging of Dick Waterman, Raitt funded the replacement of a headstone for one of her mentors, Fred McDowell through the Mt. Zion Memorial Fund. Raitt would later finance memorial headstones in Mississippi for Memphis Minnie, Sam Chatmon, and Tommy Johnson again with the Mt. Zion Memorial Fund.

At the Stockholm Jazz Festival in July 2004, she dedicated a classic to sitting (and later re-elected) U.S. President George W. Bush. She was quoted as saying, "We're gonna sing this for George Bush because he's out of here, people!" before she launched into the opening licks of "Your Good Thing (Is About to End)", a cover that was featured on her 1979 album The Glow. In 2002, she signed on as an official supporter of Little Kids Rock, a nonprofit organization that provides free musical instruments and free lessons to children in public schools throughout the U.S.A. She has visited children in the program and sits on the organization's board of directors as an honorary member.

In 2008, she donated a song to Aid Still Required's CD to assist with the restoration of the devastation done to Southeast Asia from the 2004 Tsunami.

Raitt worked with Reverb, a non-profit environmental organization, for her 2005 Fall/Winter and 2006 Spring/Summer/Fall tours.[6]

Raitt is part of the No Nukes group which is against the expansion of nuclear power. In 2007 the group recorded a music video of a new version of the Buffalo Springfield song "For What It's Worth".[7][8][9]

During the 2008 Democratic primary campaign Raitt, along with Jackson Browne and bassist James "Hutch" Hutchinson, performed at campaign appearances for candidate John Edwards.

Personal life [link]

Raitt and actor Michael O'Keefe were married on April 27, 1991, and announced their divorce on November 9, 1999.[10]

Discography [link]

Main article: Bonnie Raitt discography

References [link]

  1. ^ Benjamin, Scott (2009-02-18). "Bonnie Raitt Will Not Be Broken". CBS News. https://www.cbsnews.com/2100-3445_162-1209936.html. Retrieved 2012-04-13. 
  2. ^ Jon Bream (August 22, 2002). "Grand stands: A longtime fairgoer's most unforgettable shows". StarTribune.com. https://replay.waybackmachine.org/20070828220833/https://www.startribune.com/457/v-print/story/38243.html. Retrieved 2011-04-07. 
  3. ^ Chris Coleman (January 18, 2008). "Summer Conversations January 2008". ABC New South Wales. (Australian Broadcasting Corporation). https://replay.waybackmachine.org/20080201182827/https://www.abc.net.au/nsw/stories/s2137964.htm?nsw. Retrieved 2011-04-07. 
  4. ^ [1]
  5. ^ "Bonnie Raitt: Slipstream". American Songwriter. https://www.americansongwriter.com/2012/04/bonnie-raitt-slipstream. Retrieved 10 April 2012. 
  6. ^ "Bonnie Raitt's 2006 tour". Reverb. https://www.reverb.org/projects/2006/49/Bonnie-Raitt/56. Retrieved 2011-04-07. 
  7. ^ Daniel Kreps. ""For What It’s Worth," No Nukes Reunite After Thirty Years". NukeFree.org. https://www.nukefree.org/node/96. Retrieved 2011-04-07. 
  8. ^ "Support Musicians Acting to Stop New Reactors". Nuclear Information and Resource Service. October 12, 2007. https://www.nirs.org/alerts/10-12-2007/1. Retrieved 2011-04-07. 
  9. ^ "Raitt to rock against new reactors". Charleston Regional Business Journal. January 13, 2009. https://www.charlestonbusiness.com/news/26138-raitt-to-rock-against-new-reactors?rss=0. Retrieved 2011-04-07. 
  10. ^ "Bonnie Raitt and Michael O'Keefe Divorcing". Entertainment Wire. Business Wire. 9 November 1999. https://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EIN/is_1999_Nov_9/ai_57433327/?tag=content;col1. Retrieved 15 April 2011. 

External links [link]

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https://wn.com/Bonnie_Raitt

Bonnie Raitt (album)

Bonnie Raitt is the self-titled debut album by Bonnie Raitt, released in 1971 (see 1971 in music). A straight-blues affair, it was recorded at an empty summer camp on Enchanted Island, about 30 miles west of Minneapolis on Lake Minnetonka. "We recorded live on four tracks because we wanted a more spontaneous and natural feeling in the music", Raitt wrote in the album's liner notes, "a feeling often sacrificed when the musicians know they can overdub their part on a separate track until it's perfect."

Though album sales were modest, Bonnie Raitt was warmly received by rock critics. "[A]n unusual collection of songs performed by an unusual assortment of musicians", wrote Rolling Stone. "Raitt is a folkie by history but not by aesthetic", wrote Robert Christgau in his Consumer Guide column. "She includes songs from Steve Stills, the Marvelettes, and a classic feminist blues singer named Sippie Wallace because she knows the world doesn't end with acoustic song-poems and Fred McDowell. An adult repertoire that rocks with a steady roll, and she's all of twenty-one years old."

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This page contains text from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia - https://wn.com/Bonnie_Raitt_(album)

Love letter

A love letter is a romantic way to express feelings of love in written form. Whether delivered by hand, mail, carrier pigeon, or romantically left in a secret location, the letter may be anything from a short and simple message of love to a lengthy explanation of feelings, which could be tiring to read if it is too long. But it could go either way. Love letters may 'move through the widest range of emotions - devotion, disappointment, grief and indignation, self-confidence, ambition, impatience, self-reproach and resignation'.

Historical sketch

Examples from Ancient Egypt range from the most formal - 'the royal widow...Ankhesenamun wrote a letter to the king of the Hittites, Egypt's old enemy, begging him to send one of his sons to Egypt to marry her' - to the down-to-earth: let me 'bathe in thy presence, that I may let thee see my beauty in my tunic of finest linen, when it is wet'. Imperial China might demand a higher degree of literary skill: when a heroine, faced with an arranged marriage, wrote to her childhood sweetheart, he exclaimed, 'what choice talent speaks in her well-chosen words...everything breathes the style of a Li T'ai Po. How on earth can anyone want to marry her off to some humdrum clod?'.

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This page contains text from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia - https://wn.com/Love_letter

Love Letter (1953 film)

Love Letter (恋文 Koibumi) is a 1953 black-and-white Japanese romance film, the first film directed by the actress Kinuyo Tanaka, who was the second woman to have a career as a film director in Japan. It was entered into the 1954 Cannes Film Festival.

Cast

  • Masayuki Mori as Reikichi Mayumi
  • Yoshiko Kuga as Michiko Kubota
  • Jūkichi Uno as Naoto Yamaji
  • Kyōko Kagawa as Yasuko
  • Shizue Natsukawa as Reikichi's mother
  • Kinuyo Tanaka as landlady
  • Chieko Seki as office lady
  • Ranko Hanai as restaurant owner
  • Chieko Nakakita as woman at restaurant

    • References

    External links

  • Love Letter at the Internet Movie Database


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    This page contains text from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia - https://wn.com/Love_Letter_(1953_film)

    Love Letter (Gackt song)

    "Love Letter" is a single released by Gackt on March 1, 2006. It peaked at ninth place on the Oricon weekly chart and charted for seven weeks. The A-side and B-side were used in the Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam movie Love is the Pulse of the Stars, as opening and ending themes, respectively. "Dybbuk" also previously appeared on Gackt's 2003 album Crescent.

    Track listing

  • "Love Letter" – 5:01
  • "Dybbuk" (remix version) – 3:33

    • References

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    This page contains text from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia - https://wn.com/Love_Letter_(Gackt_song)

    Podcasts:

    Bonnie Raitt

    ALBUMS

    Slipstream

    Released 2012

    Bonnie Raitt: Opus Collection

    Released 2011

    Bonnie Raitt and Friends

    Released 2006

    Souls Alike

    Released 2005

    Takin My Time

    Released 2002

    The Glow

    Released 2002

    Silver Lining

    Released 2002

    Bonnie Raitt

    Released 2001

    Fundamental

    Released 1998

    Tour Sampler

    Released 1994

    Longing in Their Hearts

    Released 1994

    Air Play Sampler

    Released 1993

    Springsteen, Raitt and Browne

    Released 1991

    Luck of the Draw

    Released 1991

    The Bonnie Raitt Collection

    Released 1990

    Nick of Time

    Released 1990

    Give It Up

    Released 1987

    Nine Lives

    Released 1986

    Sweet Forgiveness

    Released 1977

    Home Plate

    Released 1975

    Streetlights

    Released 1974

    The Lost Broadcast - Philadelphia 1972

    I Ain't Blue (1971 Bootleg)

    Sofa Blues

    The Best of Bonnie Raitt

    Green Light

    Road Tested

    Email this Page Play all in Full Screen Show More Related Videos
    PLAYLIST TIME:

    God Only Knows

    by: Bonnie Raitt

    Darkness settles on the ground
    Leaves the day stumbling blind
    Coming to a quiet close
    And maybe just in time
    We almost lost the heart to know
    How to keep our best in mind
    We almost lost the heart to know
    How to keep our best in mind
    Time has turned an angry face
    Throws a dark eye back to sea
    What will pass for mercy now
    We practice unforgivingly
    As if might and will make right
    Or either one will make us free
    As if might and will make right
    Or either one will make us free
    Lovers laugh and cross this way
    Weaving out and into the street
    It seems we never were so young
    Or it was never quite so sweet
    But the world is always beautiful
    When it's seen in full retreat
    The worst of life is beautiful
    As it slips away in full retreat
    God only knows that we can we do
    No more or less than he'll allow
    God only knows that we mean well
    God knows that we just don't know how
    But I'll try to be your light in love
    And pray that is enough for now
    I'll try to be your light in love
    And pray that is enough for now
    I'll pray that is enough for now
    I'll pray that is enough for now
    I'll pray that is enough for now




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