At the age of twenty, Bonnie Lynn Raitt (born November 8, 1949), the daughter of famed musical theatre actor John Raitt, put a career in the political arena on hold to tour with The Rolling Stones and never looked back.
The Grammy-winning guitar player and vocalist has been a fixture in the music industry since the early 70's, releasing critically acclaimed (if not terribly commercially successful) albums throughout that decade and into the next before a cold streak in the mid eighties threatened to derail her career for good. The self-styled comeback effort Nick of Time did all that and more, not only regaining her critical standing but setting the stage for a run as one of the most popular acts of the early-to-mid-1990s. The 1991 follow-up, Luck of the Draw featured her two most famous songs, "Something To Talk About" and "I Can't Make You Love Me".
Rolling Stone readers voted her to their lists of the greatest singers (50th) and guitarists (89th) of all time.
Discography (get ready for a Long List):
- Bonnie Raitt (1971)
- Give It Up (1972)
- Takin' My Time (1973)
- Streetlights (1974)
- Home Plate (1975)
- Sweet Forgiveness (1977)
- The Glow (1979)
- Green Light (1982)
- Nine Lives (1986)
- Nick of Time (1989)
- Luck of the Draw (1991)
- Longing In Their Hearts (1994)
- Road Tested (1995)
- Fundamental (1998)
- Silver Lining (2002)
- Souls Alike (2005)
- Decades Rock Live: Bonnie Raitt & Friends (2006)
- Slipstream (2012)
- Dig in Deep (2016)
- Just Like That... (2022)
Let's give 'em something to talk about - how about tropes, tropes, tropes?
- Ace Custom: Raitt is the only female guitarist with a signature series Stratocaster to her name. Her tour guitar (pictured) is also a custom model, bought secondhand early in her career.
- Break-Up Song: "I Can't Make You Love Me", fittingly one of Adele's recurring covers.
- The Cameo: Bonnie briefly appears in The Country Bears.
- Cover Version: While Raitt has found success as a songwriter, she's primarily an interpretive artist who can remake anything from 1920s Sippie Wallace numbers to New Wave Music in her folk-blues style.
- Determinator: "I Will Not Be Denied"
- Distinct Double Album: Slipstream is a downplayed version - half the album was recorded with Joe Henry's session players and the other half recorded with her touring band.
- Everyone Can See It: "Something To Talk About"
- Everything Is an Instrument: "Nick Of Time" features a miked sandbag for its "heartbeat" percussion.
- I Call It "Vera": The creatively-named brown touring guitar, "Brownie".
- Intercourse with You: Raitt was prone to these often during her early career. "Love Me Like A Man" is probably the clearest example.They all want me to rock them/Like my back ain't got no bone/I want a man to rock me/Like my back bone was his own/Darlin', I know you can..
- I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: "I Can't Make You Love Me," again. In a particularly heart-wrenching play on the trope, it's implied that she has to break up with her lover because he can't bring himself to do it, even though she can tell he doesn't feel for her the way she feels for him.I'll close my eyes, then I won't see
The love you don't feel when you're holdin' me
Mornin' will come, and I'll do what's right
Just give me 'til then to give up this fight
And I will give up this fight - Live Album: Road Tested and the Decades Rock Live appearance.
- Love Revelation Epiphany: The second verse of "Something To Talk About"I feel so foolish, I never noticed
You'd act so nervous
Could you be falling for me?
It took a rumor to make me wonder
Now I'm convinced I'm going under... - "Metaphor" Is My Middle Name: "The Road's My Middle Name"
- Self-Titled Album: Her first album, released in 1971.
- Something Blues: "Walking Blues"
