Bonnie Raitt has long been involved with the environmental movement, doing concerts to support forest, oil, mining and water protection since the mid-'70s. Her tour bus runs on biofuel.
Raitt writes some of her own songs ("
Nick Of Time," for example) but mostly records songs written by others. She's gone out of her way to credit these writers, who are often musicians as well, to raise their profiles. For example, she talked up Larry John McNally, who wrote her songs "
Nobody's Girl" and "
Slow Ride," calling him "an undersung, underrated brilliant artist."
"I can't say enough good about Bonnie,"
McNally told Songfacts. "She's smart and funny and caring and charismatic. She's a killer guitar player and singer. She goes out of her way to give credit to the songwriters and musicians around her and lends a helping hand to those on the way up that she believes in."
Her father is the celebrated Broadway singer John Raitt (Carousel, Oklahoma!, The Pajama Game) and her mother is the accomplished pianist/singer Marge Goddard. The best advice her dad gave her: "Make every night opening night."
Early in her career, she opened for various blues legends. From Mississippi Fred McDowell, Sippie Wallace, Son House, Muddy Waters, and John Lee Hooker she learned firsthand lessons of life as well as invaluable techniques of performance.
She won four Grammy Awards in 1990, three for her Nick of Time album and one for her duet with John Lee Hooker on his breakthrough album The Healer. The double platinum Longing in Their Hearts, released in 1994, featured the hit single "Love Sneakin' Up On You" and was honored with a Grammy for Best Pop Album.
On March 6, 2000, Bonnie was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Raitt has a great deal of festival appeal - she's played the Telluride Bluegrass Festival, the Indy Jazz Fest and the Bonnaroo festival.
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Suggestion credit:
Bertrand - Paris, France
She was married to the actor Michael O'Keefe (The Great Santini, Against The Law) from 1991-1999; they met on the set of a video shoot for a charity supporting the homeless in Los Angeles.
Bonnie Raitt was raised a Quaker and spent eight childhood summers attending a Quaker camp in the Adirondack Mountains of New York State. "It changed my life," she told Billboard magazine. "It's where I got a lot of my humanism, my appreciation for nature, my love of folk music and social justice. The camp experience allows you to blossom out of your nuclear family role in a way that doesn't happen anywhere else."
Bonnie Raitt's first musical instrument was a Stella guitar given to her at Christmas when she was eight.
As one of the founding members of the Rhythm and Blues Foundation, she continues to work for increased recognition, health benefits and royalty reform for the pioneer generation of R&B artists to whom we owe so much.
Raitt was signed to Warner Bros. Records, which worked out well until they dropped her (along with Van Morrison) in a 1979 shakeup. Raitt re-signed with the label about a year later, but it was rough - they didn't promote her well and even declined one of her albums. They dropped her for good in 1987 but Capitol Records picked her up and were rewarded with Nick Of Time, her 1989 album that won four Grammy Awards and sold over 5 million copies in America. Her next album Luck Of The Draw in 1991, was even more successful.
