Bonnie Raitt biography

Synopsis

Early Career

Bonnie Lynn Raitt was born in Los Angeles, California, on November 8, 1949, to Broadway singer John Raitt and pianist Marge Goddard. The daughter of bohemian parents, Raitt was raised in the Quaker tradition and from an early age showed an interest in social activism as well as music. When she was only eight, the soon-to-be blues musician was given a Stella guitar for Christmas. Despite her natural talent for the instrument, Raitt had a wide variety of interests as a teenager. She headed to the East Coast for college at Radcliffe, eager to leap into the social turmoil of the 1960s. She once said, "I couldn't wait to get back to where there were folkies and the antiwar and Civil Rights movements. There were so many great music and political scenes going on in the late '60s in Cambridge."

Alongside her interest in social issues of the day, Raitt kept up with her music and often played at local coffeehouses between classes, fine-tuning her signature style — a gritty, passionate voice coupled with skillful interpretations on the bottleneck guitar. Soon a staple of the Boston folk-and-blues circuit, she met blues promoter Dick Waterman, who would in turn introduce her to the likes of Sippie Wallace, Son House and Muddy Waters. It wasn't long before her reputation and insights into the blues guitar attracted the attention of record executives at Warner Bros.

By 1971, Raitt had released her self-titled debut album, which consisted mostly of carefully chosen covers. Her contemporary interpretations of songs like Del Shannon's "Runaway" and others by Randy Newman, John Prine and Eric Kaz impressed critics who hailed her as a prodigy. Despite her newfound status as a critical darling, Raitt struggled to find commercial success. It wasn't until 1977's Sweet Forgiveness that the singer had a hit. Soon thereafter, Warner Bros. and Columbia Records were locked in a bidding war to sign the rising star.

In the early 1980s, Raitt played a number of benefits that appealed to her long-held Quaker ideals. From nuclear war to apartheid, the guitarist would play for hundreds of causes throughout the years. She would go on to share bills with the likes of the Doobie Brothers, James Taylor and Jackson Browne.

Commercial Success

Still lacking the commercial success to match her critical acclaim, Raitt continued to experiment musically. It wasn't until 1989 that she would really make her commercial breakthrough. Working with a new label (Capitol Records), Raitt hit her stride, smoothing out the kinks in her style to strike a successful balance between commercial and critical success. Nick of Time earned the songstress three Grammy Awards in 1990, and she won another award for a duet with John Lee Hooker. The album rose all the way to the top of the charts, selling 4 million copies. Three years