Sunday Diva/Three From The Hip:
Bonnie Raitt
One such
Bonnie Raitt
Her music goes down smoother than a Long Island ice tea.
A true journeyman, this diva burst on the scene and the rock press was head over heals. Live, she was a firecracker, but on vinyl... well, something was frequently missing.
Her answer? To look for it at the bottom of a bottle.
After her label dropped her, she hit rock bottom, but didn't stay there long. She quickly righted the ship and kept on touring - but sober, now.
During this time period, she became known as an activist.
And though it took her a few years, she eventually found, not only what was missing, but a whole new audience, one that has remained with her to this day.
Grammy's followed - her most recent for Song of The Year in 2023 - demonstrating that this diva's work remains as vital as ever.
For her? The road is never-ending.
The gospel according to her?
Well, here are three from the hip, dropping from her lips.
The topic? Becoming An Artistic Heavyweight
"I think my fans will follow me into our combined old age. Real musicians and real fans stay together for a long, long time."
"I've watched my peers get better with age and hoped that would happen with me."
"I think it's our job to write about what we're going through at the moment, and being 41, I'm not going to write about the same things I wrote about at 20. I don't think artists should be farmed out to pasture just because they're in rock n' roll."
"Elvis might have compromised his musical style a bit towards the end, but that doesn't mean that artists from the rock n' roll/folk-roots culture - of which he was not really a part - shouldn't get better as they get older, like the great jazz or blues artists."
"I was always drawn to the blues. Alberta Hunter at the Cookery was a life-changing experience. I only wanted to get enriched as a performer as I got older, to have an audience which got older, too, and would come to see me when I'm 80."
"I like to think I get better with age, but maybe absence makes the heart grow fonder."
"There's nothing like living a long time to create a depth and soulfulness in your music."
"The great thing about the arts, and especially popular music, is that it really does cut across genres and races and classes."
"I never saw music in terms of men and women or black and white. There was just cool and uncool."
"In blues, classical and jazz, you get more revered with age."
"I'm sure I would have been considered a more significant artist if I was a singer-songwriter. It's just not the way I roll. I love being a curator and a musicologist. People write me letters and thank me for turning them on to Fred McDowell and Sippie Wallace, and that's partly my job this time around."
"I'm certain that it was an incredible gift for me to not only be friends with some of the greatest blues people who've ever lived, but to learn how they played, how they sang, how they lived their lives, ran their marriages, and talked to their kids."
"I've been lucky enough that I can gather all sorts of experiences and find inspiration by traveling around and by spending time with people I admire."
"I just play the music that I love with musicians that I respect, and fortunately, I'm in a position where people are willing to play with me, and perhaps I can do something to help them."
It is still a surprise when people tell me that I've had an influence on them, particularly when it's someone I really respect.
"One of the biggest obstacles I've overcome in my life was thinking I didn't deserve to be successful. Artistically I'm not as much of a heavyweight as someone like Paul Simon or Joni Mitchell, because I'm not a creator of original music, and I worried about that for years."
"Not being a natural songwriter... for me the appreciation of a great song and the writers came early on, growing up in a musical family. My dad got to sing songs by some of the greatest writers of all time, Rodgers and Hammerstein."
"Finding great songs is the hard part of my gig - it's not as hard as songwriting, that's much more daunting - but I love playing other people's music."
"When you find a song that you love, you just have to do it - why would I try to match it? When I wrote more of the songs in the '90s - Nick of Time and other songs I was surprised I came up with - it was because nobody else was saying what I wanted to say."
"I grew up in Los Angeles in a Quaker family, and for me being Quaker was a political calling rather than a religious one."
"Religion is for people who are scared to go to hell. Spirituality is for people who have already been there."
"Quakers are known for wanting to give back. Ban the bomb and the civil rights movement and the native American struggle for justice - those things were very, very front-burner in my childhood, as were the ideas of working for peace and if you have more than you need, then you share it with people who don't."
"I think my fans will follow me into our combined old age. Real musicians and real fans stay together for a long, long time."
"I've watched my peers get better with age and hoped that would happen with me."
"I think it's our job to write about what we're going through at the moment, and being 41, I'm not going to write about the same things I wrote about at 20. I don't think artists should be farmed out to pasture just because they're in rock n' roll."
"Elvis might have compromised his musical style a bit towards the end, but that doesn't mean that artists from the rock n' roll/folk-roots culture - of which he was not really a part - shouldn't get better as they get older, like the great jazz or blues artists."
"I was always drawn to the blues. Alberta Hunter at the Cookery was a life-changing experience. I only wanted to get enriched as a performer as I got older, to have an audience which got older, too, and would come to see me when I'm 80."
"I like to think I get better with age, but maybe absence makes the heart grow fonder."
"There's nothing like living a long time to create a depth and soulfulness in your music."
"The great thing about the arts, and especially popular music, is that it really does cut across genres and races and classes."
"I never saw music in terms of men and women or black and white. There was just cool and uncool."
"In blues, classical and jazz, you get more revered with age."
"I'm sure I would have been considered a more significant artist if I was a singer-songwriter. It's just not the way I roll. I love being a curator and a musicologist. People write me letters and thank me for turning them on to Fred McDowell and Sippie Wallace, and that's partly my job this time around."
"I'm certain that it was an incredible gift for me to not only be friends with some of the greatest blues people who've ever lived, but to learn how they played, how they sang, how they lived their lives, ran their marriages, and talked to their kids."
"I've been lucky enough that I can gather all sorts of experiences and find inspiration by traveling around and by spending time with people I admire."
"I just play the music that I love with musicians that I respect, and fortunately, I'm in a position where people are willing to play with me, and perhaps I can do something to help them."
It is still a surprise when people tell me that I've had an influence on them, particularly when it's someone I really respect.
"One of the biggest obstacles I've overcome in my life was thinking I didn't deserve to be successful. Artistically I'm not as much of a heavyweight as someone like Paul Simon or Joni Mitchell, because I'm not a creator of original music, and I worried about that for years."
"Not being a natural songwriter... for me the appreciation of a great song and the writers came early on, growing up in a musical family. My dad got to sing songs by some of the greatest writers of all time, Rodgers and Hammerstein."
"Finding great songs is the hard part of my gig - it's not as hard as songwriting, that's much more daunting - but I love playing other people's music."
"When you find a song that you love, you just have to do it - why would I try to match it? When I wrote more of the songs in the '90s - Nick of Time and other songs I was surprised I came up with - it was because nobody else was saying what I wanted to say."
Runaway - Bonnie Raitt
Nick Of Time - Bonnie Raitt
Just Like That - Bonnie Raitt
"Religion is for people who are scared to go to hell. Spirituality is for people who have already been there."
"Quakers are known for wanting to give back. Ban the bomb and the civil rights movement and the native American struggle for justice - those things were very, very front-burner in my childhood, as were the ideas of working for peace and if you have more than you need, then you share it with people who don't."
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1 comment:
You've featured another of my all-time favorites though my one wee complaint is you didn't feature Angel From Montgomery!
But I'll take some Bonnike any day.
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