Two by Bonnie Raitt

November 26, 2017 • 4:00 pm

The younger folk, I’ve learned, don’t know who Bonnie Raitt is, which is not only a damn shame, but makes me feel old: Raitt was born just a month before me, and I gauge how I’m doing by how she’s doing. (Does anybody else do that? Meryl Streep is about my age as well.). At any rate, I went back and found live versions of my two favorite Bonnie Raitt songs, which I’ll put up because I can.

A poignant song from 1989 about getting older; it’s her own composition:

 

In this 1991 song, written by Mike Reid and Allen Shamblin, Raitt’s accompanied on piano by Bruce Hornsby. What feeling she packs into this song! It’s essentially perfect: no superfluous words or forced rhymes, a wonderful melody and poignant words, emotional maturity, and expressing something many of us have felt.

37 thoughts on “Two by Bonnie Raitt”

  1. I wish that I had interacted with her freshman year, she at Radcliffe and me at Harvard; perhaps we were in a class together. I wish that I had discovered her singing at the local clubs as well. Have always loved her music.

    1. Bonnie Raitt is six days older than me, and I’m 46 days older than Dr. Coyne.

      The cool thing about our ages is that when you start forgetting how old you are, you just have to add or subtract 50 from whatever year it is.

      1. Exactly. Being born early in 1950 makes the math easy. My grandfather was born in late Dec. 1899 so he was really easy.

  4. The first time I saw (or heard of) Bruce Springsteen was when he opened for Bonnie Raitt at the Harvard Square Theatre (before they carved it up into a multi-screen cineplex). This would have been circa 1973.

  5. Saw Bonnie Raitt with James Taylor just a few months ago as they toured together. She was excellent as a soloist and harmonized well with JT as a duo — or should I say that JT harmonized well with her! And if you don’t own the two albums Nick of Time and Luck Of The Draw, you should get them, like now. Or put them on your Xmas list.

  6. Goldie Hawn and Helen Mirren are within a few weeks of my age. I think they look pretty good for ’45ers.
    Bonnie Raitt is one of the greats, for sure.

    1. Actually, I think as things go on you should marry an older woman – 4 or 5 years at least.

        1. Yes, I figured since I did it, must be the way to go. And the absolute opposite of the Trump way…

      1. A not insignificant role should also play the years of competition in professional life, also because it is not unusual to counteract the stress with alcohol or tobacco.
        One should not forget: monks almost reach the same age as nuns.

  10. One of my favorite memories was seeing her at Wolf Trap when I was a teenager. I talked my mother into taking me. We actually slipped in without tickets half way through the concert. Maybe not moral- but it sure was fun!

  11. For once I have scooped JAC 🙂 [or great minds…] I recently posted about Raitt and the Nick of Time. As far as I am concerned, she is one of the GOATs!!

      1. Example GOATs…

        Muhammad Ali is GOAT
        Lionel Messi is GOAT
        PJ Harvey is GOAT

        [Greatest Of All Time]

  12. As a fellow recovering alcoholic, and my age, she is very special to me . . . I went to see her in a small venue in Sandpoint, ID, when she started performing again after she quit drinking . . . just watched her and John Lee Hooker in “in the mood” video, WOW!

  13. I’ve never met anybody doesn’t love Bonnie Raitt, and never want to. She can play slide guitar like nobody’s business.

    1. I absolutely loath “The Blues” (my version of hell would be sentenced to listen to that music forever).

      But!….

      She can really play! That was fun to watch.

  15. Well, I’ll throw in one of my favs; her cover of John Prine’s Angel from Montgomery. Hard to believe that song was written by a young male (see Kris Kristofferson’s notes on his debut LP), but a female vocalist such as Bonnie Raitt gives it way more emotional intensity.

  16. In songs like “I Can’t Make You Love Me” Bonnie Rait sings my pain. You should add two additional songs to the list, “Wounded Heart”, and “Feels Like Home”.

    1. Certainly agree about “Feels Like Home.” My brother-in-law and I played guitar and our niece sang this at our daughter’s wedding – it will always be a special song.

  17. I’d never paid attention to Bonnie Rait until I saw her sing with Alicia Keys on the Grammys several years ago. I was truck by her strong, simple, beautiful, soulful and TASTEFUL singing (not easy to find on the Grammy stage that night, so many singers wanting to show off).

    It was tough for a moment in the first video to get back the cheesy, ubiquitous late 80’s keyboard sound, but Rait’s vocal talent and the song won the day.

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