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Bonnie Raitt

Bonnie Raitt

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Bonnie Raitt: Home Plate (Warner Bros.)

Review by Penny Valentine, Sounds, November 1975

BONNIE RAITT is an intriguing talent, firmly rooted in the music of men like Otis Rush and Fred McDowell whom she met and worked with ...

Bonnie Raitt: The Bonnie Raitt Collection

Review by Mark Cooper, Q, September 1990

THE RELEASE OF this 20-track retrospective of her nine Warners albums must be sweet revenge for Bonnie Raitt. ...

Audio interviews

Bonnie Raitt (1977)

Interview by John Tobler, Rock's Backpages audio, 28 July 1977

The singer/slide-guitarist talks about how she got into blues; about her albums from her first to her most recent, Sweet Forgiveness, via Takin' My Time and Home Plate; about producers John Hall and Jerry Ragovoy; about politics, feminism and women in music; and about the process of finding songs and not writing anymore. Read a transcript of this interview.

File format: mp3; file size: 30.2mb, interview length: 31' 30" sound quality: *****

List of articles in the library

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J.J. Cale, Bonnie Raitt: The Ash Grove, Los Angeles CA

Live Review by Richard Cromelin, Los Angeles Times, 17 March 1972

J. J. Cale on Stage at Ash Grove ...

Music Makers: Bonnie Raitt

Profile and Interview by Michael Oberman, Evening Star, The (Washington DC), 4 November 1972

ONE OF the strongest shows in recent months has been booked into the Cellar Door starting Monday. John Prine and Bonnie Raitt open for one ...

Troubadours: Why Bonnie Raitt Wants a Break

Interview by Judith Sims, Rolling Stone, 9 November 1972

LOS ANGELES — "Freebo, my bass player, he's a jock, he sits in his hotel room watching football games on television." Bonnie Raitt gestured in ...

Bonnie Raitt: Give It Up (Warner Bros.)

Review by Loraine Alterman, The New York Times, 10 December 1972

Bonnie Branches Out ...

"I Don't Want to Be a Star," Says Blues Singer Bonnie Raitt

Interview by Joel Selvin, San Francisco Chronicle, 31 December 1972

DON'T LET her looks fool you. Behind that golden-haired, dimpled face lurks a lusty, rowdy blues mama. So what if she went to Radcliffe, her ...

Bonnie Raitt Gives It Back

Interview by David Rensin, Crawdaddy!, March 1973

LOS ANGELES – Bonnie Raitt is by nature a purposeful woman. On a personal level, she is attempting to forge a new ethic reaching beyond ...

Beck, Bogert & Appice: Felt Forum; Bonnie Raitt, Little Feat: Max's Kansas City; Andy Bown: Max's Kansas City; the Brats: 54 Bleecker Street, NYC NY

Live Review by Dan Nooger, The Village Voice, 19 April 1973

SPARKLING PLENTY ...

Bonnie Raitt, Danny O'Keefe: The Troubadour, Los Angeles CA

Live Review by Richard Cromelin, Los Angeles Times, 2 November 1973

Bonnie Raitt Leans Heavily on the Blues ...

Bonnie Raitt: The Troubadour, Los Angeles

Live Review by Steven Rosen, Sounds, 17 November 1973

IT WAS a unique week in Hollywood recently when female performers simultaneously headlined three clubs. The Ash Grove hosted Tret Fure, The Roxy offered Linda ...

Bonnie Raitt: Takin' My Time

Review by Noe Gold, Crawdaddy!, January 1974

SPUNKY, THAT'S got to be the word for it. A hybrid of spicy and funky. ...

Bonnie Raitt: Takin' My Time

Review by Bob Woffinden, New Musical Express, 2 February 1974

THE COVER of this album has real style. Bonnie Raitt is photographed in one of those cavernous early-twentieth century railway stations, slumped in a large ...

Jackson Browne, Bonnie Raitt: Berkeley Community Theater, Berkeley CA

Live Review by Philip Elwood, The San Francisco Examiner, 26 September 1974

Browne-Raitt concert lifts the usual to new heights ...

Bonnie Raitt: Streetlights (Warner Bros.)

Review by Colman Andrews, Creem, January 1975

BONNIE RAITT has become, if we are to take Streetlights as proper indication, much more polished and slightly less interesting than she used to be. ...

Bonnie Raitt: Bonnie Comes Marching Home

Report and Interview by Penny Valentine, Sounds, 12 July 1975

When Bonnie Raitt comes marching home to pack Carnegie Hall, Penny Valentine is there to talk to "the one woman who is a pure musician ...

Bonnie Raitt: Bonnie's Blues

Profile and Interview by Penny Valentine, Let It Rock, August 1975

WHEN SHE SINGS 15 year old girls run out of the audience, down the auditorium, arms raised in a two fisted salute. What they are ...

Bonnie Raitt: Home Plate (Warner Bros.)

Review by Penny Valentine, Street Life, 1 November 1975

BONNIE RAITT is an intriguing talent, firmly rooted in the music of men like Otis Rush and Fred McDowell whom she met and worked with ...

Bonnie Raitt: Home Plate

Review by John Morthland, Rolling Stone, 4 December 1975

DESPITE ITS UNEVENNESS, this is a vast improvement over Street Lights and accomplishes much of what that LP set out to do in the first ...

Raitt place, Raitt time

Interview by Chris Charlesworth, Melody Maker, 10 January 1976

BONNIE RAITT juggled happily between the various lines on the desk telephone in an office at Warner Brothers' New York headquarters. She seemed to be ...

Bonnie Raitt: A Bonnie Lass

Profile and Interview by Robin Katz, Sounds, 27 March 1976

Bonnie Raitt (talking and singing 2000 words a minute) and Robin Katz (just talking 2500 words a minute) discuss men, music and the pursuit of happiness. ...

Bonnie Raitt

Interview by Max Bell, New Musical Express, 3 April 1976

AT FIRST SIGHT, Bonnie Raitt isn't the world's most startling human being. In fact, she seems pretty damn ordinary. Quiet; medium height; plain; unkempt red ...

Bonnie Raitt: New Victoria, London

Live Review by Robin Katz, Sounds, 3 April 1976

AS GLADYS Knight and co would say, this was perfection in performance — a pip. Bonnie Raitt and her loyal musical storm-troopers were ready to ...

Bonnie Raitt

Profile and Interview by Penny Valentine, Street Life, 1 May 1976

FREEBO’S SHAGGY, morose head appears through the doors of the van: "There is no truth in the rumour," he shouts, "that when Bonnie Raitt arrived ...

At Home with Bonnie Raitt

Interview by John Tobler, ZigZag, June 1976

ON EXAMINING her albums, of which there are five to date, I drew various conclusions about Bonnie Raitt's recording career. ...

Bonnie Raitt: Bonnie Raitt; Give it up; Takin' My Time (Warner Bros.)

Review by David Hepworth, New Musical Express, 19 June 1976

IT'S ALL very well Warner Bros. making magnanimous noises about re-releasing these albums, Bonnie's first three. ...

Bonnie Raitt

Profile by Don Snowden, Rock Around The World, 15 March 1977

ON THE EVE of the release of her sixth album, Sweet Forgiveness, Bonnie Raitt still remains something of an anomaly in a music biz that ...

Bonnie Raitt (1977) [transcript]

Audio transcript of interview by John Tobler, Rock's Backpages transcripts, 28 July 1977

This is a transcript of John's audio interview with Bonnie. Listen to the audio of this interview. ...

Bonnie Raitt: Freebo's Travels With Bonnie

Interview by John Mendelsohn, Rolling Stone, 20 April 1978

LOS ANGELES – AT AN age when most rock musicians are superstars in decline, prosperous session players, or in their fifth or so year of ...

Lowell George: Festive Wake for an Enigma

Report and Interview by Richard Cromelin, Los Angeles Times, 4 August 1979

"I FEEL LIKE I'm in an old MGM photo," cracked Bonnie Raitt as she and the other participants in tonight's "Tribute to Lowell George" concert ...

"Tribute to Lowell George" — Little Feat, Jackson Browne, Linda Ronstadt, Bonnie Raitt et al: Forum, Inglewood CA

Live Review by Richard Cromelin, Los Angeles Times, 6 August 1979

Concert Tribute to Lowell George ...

Linda Ronstadt, Jackson Browne, Bonnie Raitt et al: Lowell George Benefit Concert, The Forum, Los Angeles CA

Live Review by Mark Williams, Melody Maker, 11 August 1979

IT'S IRONIC that Little Feat were never adjudged sufficiently commercial to have headlined a concert at Los Angeles' massive Forum, since the place was bursting ...

Bonnie Raitt Plus a Surprise Co-Star

Live Review by Don Snowden, Los Angeles Times, 18 December 1979

Bonnie Raitt: Santa Monica Civic, Los Angeles ...

Backbeat: Bonnie Raitt Lightens Up

Interview by Steven X Rea, High Fidelity, June 1982

Her new album is straight-ahead rock & roll. Has the California air gone to her head? ...

Bonnie Raitt: Nick Of Time (Capitol LP/Cassette/CD)

Review by Simon Witter, New Musical Express, 6 May 1989

NICK OF Time, the LA slide blues songstress' 10th album, is a peach and a half. Ripened to perfection through years of cultivation. There is ...

Bonnie Raitt: Nick Of Time (Capitol)

Review by Caroline Sullivan, Melody Maker, 13 May 1989

BONNIE RAITT was a compatriot of Janis Joplin's; the pair were the Sixties' premier hard-drinking, hard-loving white blues chicks. Raitts's music has continued in this ...

Life Lessons: Bonnie Raitt and Jackson Browne

Interview by Mark Rowland, Musician, August 1989

Jackson Browne and Bonnie Raitt find hope in a hard world. ...

Bonnie Raitt: High Raittings

Live Review by Tim Riley, The Boston Phoenix, Spring 1989

Bonnie rebounds with the blues ...

Bonnie Raitt: Raitt's Progress

Interview by Mark Cooper, Daily Telegraph, 26 May 1990

Twenty years ago Bonnie Raitt was a cult success. The Eighties treated her badly but now, aged 40, she has become an overnight sensation. MARK ...

Bonnie Raitt's Ace of Hearts

Interview by Mark Rowland, Musician, July 1991

THE 'NICK OF Time' baby has arrived. "Everyone thought I was singing that song about me," Bonnie Raitt is saying. "But it was happening to ...

Bonnie Raitt

Interview by Andy Gill, Q, September 1991

Collectors of happy endings, look no further. Bonnie Raitt's career was dumper-bound until a P45 from her record company inspired her to rediscover her musical ...

Frontwoman: Bonnie Raitt

Interview by Mark Rowland, Musician, April 1994

FOR YOU, how does Longing in Their Hearts differ or break new ground from Nick of Time and Luck of the Draw? ...

Bonnie Raitt: Labatt's Apollo, London

Live Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, August 1994

SORTEDBonnie Raitt: she knows where she's going and she knows where she's been. ...

Don Was & Glyn Johns: Speaking for the Record

Interview by Mark Rowland, Musician, August 1994

From Get Back to Backbeat Glyn Johns and Don Was Have Produced a Rock 'n'Roll Hall of Fame. ...

Bonnie Raitt: Still Burning Down The House

Interview by Steven P. Wheeler, Music Connection, October 1995

This redheaded Grammy Queen is back with the first live album of her long career – an album that harkens back to her grittier pre-platinum ...

Bonnie Raitt: Fundamental (Capitol)

Review by Marc Weingarten, Los Angeles Times, 5 April 1998

Throwing Dirt on Raitt's Pristine Sound ...

Bonnie Raitt: Fundamental (Capitol)

Review by Andy Gill, MOJO, May 1998

First album in four years from the premier bluesmeistress. ...

Jackson Browne and Bonnie Raitt: Rock for Java

Live Review by Charles Bermant, Rolling Stone, 4 June 2001

BACK IN THE 1970s, when Jackson Browne and Bonnie Raitt became notorious for spearheading benefit concerts, the issues were, well, more clear cut: Vote for ...

Bonnie Raitt: Apollo, Manchester

Live Review by Dave Simpson, The Guardian, 21 June 2003

IF SHE HADN'T SOLD MILLIONS of country-blues-rock records and won a stetson-full of Grammies, Bonnie Raitt could have had a career peddling the secrets of ...

Last Night A Record Changed My Life - Bonnie Raitt on Blues At Newport - Recorded Live At The Newport Folk Festival 1964

Memoir by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, August 2003

Tracks and artists: Mississippi John Hurt: Candy Man/Coffee Blues/Stagolee. Brownie McGhee: Long Gone/Key To The Highway. Rev. Gary Davis: Samson And Delilah/I Won't Be Back ...

Bonnie Raitt: Red Hot Mama

Profile by Jason Gross, Creative Loafing, 3 August 2006

ARE THERE ANY active old-school divas that we can still look up to? Cher? Retired. Tina Turner? Retired. Barbara Streisand? Her too. Joni Mitchell? Yep. ...

Bonnie Raitt: Slipstream

Review by Holly Gleason, Paste, 10 April 2012

IT'S BEEN SEVEN YEARS since Bonnie Raitt released Souls Alike, and a lot of life has happened. Losing her parents, brother and a best friend ...

Bonnie Raitt: Slipstream

Review by Charles Shaar Murray, The Word, May 2012

AFTER SEVEN YEARS OFF THE RADAR, Bonnie Raitt takes on a set of sophisticated, often contemporary covers — and wins. ...

Slipstream Effect: Bonnie Raitt

Report and Interview by David Burke, R2/Rock'n'Reel, June 2012

IT'S BEEN A TOUGH seven years for Bonnie Raitt since the release of her last studio album, Souls Alike. She lost both her parents, Broadway ...

Bonnie Raitt interview

Profile and Interview by Rob Hughes, Daily Telegraph, 6 June 2013

SOMETIMES, JUST sometimes, the good ones win out. Ask Bonnie Raitt. In a career now into its fifth decade, and which once appeared to be ...

Capitol at 75

Book Excerpt by Barney Hoskyns, 'Capitol 75' (Taschen), 2016

NOTE: Herewith the full "director's cut" version of the historical essay I contributed to the spectacularly lavish Taschen book marking the 75th anniversary of West ...

Bonnie Raitt: Dig In Deep

Review by Holly Gleason, Paste, 4 March 2016

BONNIE RAITT HAS ALWAYS BEEN a pilot light, powering hard love, broken love, lost love and yes, unrequited love. In the valley of the unfulfilled ...

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