Best old friend bonnie raitt biography

American musician (born 1949)

Not to be confused with Bonnie Wright.

Musical artist

Bonnie Lynn Raitt (; born November 8, 1949) is an American singer, guitarist, and songwriter. In 1971, Raitt released her self-titled debut album. Following this, she released a series of critically acclaimed roots-influenced albums that incorporated elements of blues, rock, folk, and country. She was also a frequent session player and collaborator with other artists, including Warren Zevon, Little Feat, Jackson Browne, the Pointer Sisters, John Prine, and Leon Russell.

In 1989, after several years of limited commercial success, she had a major hit with her tenth studio album, Nick of Time, which included the song "Nick of Time". The album reached number one on the Billboard 200 chart, and won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year. It has since been selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the United States National Recording Registry. Her following two albums, Luck of the Draw (1991) and Longing in Their Hearts (1994), were multimillion sellers, generating several hit singles, including "Something to Talk About", "Love Sneakin' Up On You", and the ballad "I Can't Make You Love Me" (with Bruce Hornsby on piano). Her 2022 single "Just Like That" won the Grammy Award for Song of the Year.

As of 2023, Raitt has received 13 competitive Grammy Awards, from 30 nominations, as well as a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. She ranked No. 50 on Rolling Stone's list of the "100 Greatest Singers of All Time" and ranked No. 89 on the magazine's list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time." 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."

In 2000, Raitt was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. She has received the Icon Award from the Billboard

Lydia Hutchinson | November 8, 2011

When Bonnie Raitt was 14 years old, she heard the album Blues at Newport and it lit her flame for slide guitar, blues music and the legendary masters who played it. By the time she was in her 20s she was the opening act for these legends, soaking up music lessons as well as life lessons. As a matter of fact, Sippie Wallace, Son House, Mississippi Fred McDowell, Muddy Waters and John Lee Hooker all played a part in raising this fiery-haired blueswoman.

It’s easy to see the profound influence they had on Bonnie Raitt, who to this day carries with her an unmatched soulfulness in all aspects of her life. “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,” she says.

One of the most admirable qualities Bonnie Raitt possesses is her unwavering commitment to people and causes she believes in. She doesn’t just talk the talk, she digs in and walks the walk. When she was made aware of the injustice in financial compensation to the blues musicians who had made millions for the recording industry, Bonnie joined forces with other like-minded souls and co-founded the Rhythm & Blues Foundation. Since its formation in 1988, the organization has launched programs and services to educate the public and provide financial assistance to those R&B community members in need.

For Bonnie Raitt’s birthday today, I’m shining a spotlight on the Rhythm & Blues Foundation with a conversation I had with her in 2000 about the program’s beginnings and the impact those blues giants had on her life. Thank you so much, Bonnie, for passing those lessons along to us, and for a lifetime of paying it forward. You’ve made such a difference in this world, and we’re so happy

Word spread quickly of the young red-haired blueswoman, her soulful, unaffected way of singing, and her uncanny insights into blues guitar. Warner Bros. tracked her down, signed her up, and in 1971 released her debut album, Bonnie Raitt. Her interpretations of classic blues by Robert Johnson and Sippie Wallace made a powerful critical impression, but the presence of intriguing tunes by contemporary songwriters, as well as several examples of her own writing, indicated that this artist would not be restricted to any one pigeonhole or style.

Over the next seven years she would record six albums. Give It Up, Takin’ My Time, Streetlights, and Home Plate were followed in 1977 by Sweet Forgiveness, which featured her first hit single, a gritty Memphis/R&B arrangement of Del Shannon’s “Runaway.” Three Grammy nominations followed in the 1980s, as she released The Glow, Green Light, and Nine Lives. A compilation of highlights from these Warner Bros. albums (plus two previously unreleased live duets) was released as The Bonnie Raitt Collection in 1990. All of these Warner albums have been digitally remastered and re-released.

In between sessions, when not burning highways on tour with her band, she devoted herself to playing benefits and speaking out in support of an array of worthy causes, campaigning to stop the war in Central America; participating in the Sun City anti-apartheid project; performing at the historic 1980 No Nukes concerts at Madison Square Garden; co-founding MUSE (Musicians United for Safe Energy); and working for environmental protection and for the rights of women and Native Americans.

After forging an alliance with Capitol Records in 1989, Bonnie achieved new levels of popular and critical acclaim. 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. Within weeks, Nick of Time shot to number one (it is now c

Bonnie Raitt, (born November 8, 1949) is an American blues and R&B singer, songwriter, and guitarist who was born in Burbank, California, the daughter of Broadway musical star John Raitt.

Raitt began playing guitar at an early age, something not a lot of her high school girlfriends did. "I had played a little at school and at camp," she later recalled in a July 2002 interview. "My parents would drag me out to perform for my family, like all parents do, but it was a hobby—nothing more…I think people must wonder how a white girl like me became a blues guitarist. The truth is, I never intended to do this for a living. I grew up…in a Quaker family, and for me being Quaker was a political calling rather than a religious one."

In 1967 Raitt continued her pursuit in that path when she 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 notified 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