Bonnie Raitt credits Aretha Franklin as one of her heroes. Well, Bonnie Raitt is one of mine. And with this summer's release of her 11th recording, Luck of the Draw (marking her own 20th anniversary since Bonnie Raitt came out in 1971), it's safe to say she gets better with time.
Luck of the Draw, a showcase for Raitt's voice and slide guitar, is at least as good as her 1989 release Nick of Time. As something of a comeback album, with significantly more R&B sound than Nine Lives before it, Nick of Time created a following that seemed to confirm Raitt's return to her blues roots -- it won three 1989 Grammy Awards and sold three million copies. Further recognition came that same evening when Raitt and John Lee Hooker won the Best Traditional Blues Grammy for their duet "I'm In the Mood" on Hooker's The Healer.
So this new release is built around a voice that's more confident, that knows its strengths, that's gained perspective. Throughout her career, Raitt has always been noted for her ability to get more out of a song than the songwriter could. She made her first Top 40 hit in 1977 with a cover of "Runaway" (a Del Shannon/Max Crook song) on Sweet Forgiveness, and she's still remembered for her rendition of John Prine's "Angel of Montgomery" (on her 1974 Streetlights recording and again on 1979's No Nukes). She writes some great songs herself, but she's especially adept at fitting others' tunes to her voice -- and the results are often unforgettable.
I suspect some of these songwriters know her pretty well. Bonnie Hayes created two songs for Raitt to sing on Nick of Time, including the memorable "Have a Heart," which begins, "Hey, shut up/Don't lie to me." On Luck of the Draw, Hayes co-wrote the confident "Slow Ride," with its chorus of "Slide over, baby/Here by my side/I wanna take you on a slow ride." These songs seem as much a part of Raitt's experience as Nick of Time's "The Road's My Middle Name" and "Come to Me," a make-no-apology, "I-got-what-you-need," reggae-beat piece on Luck of the Draw, both of which Raitt wrote herself.
Don Was, who co-produced Luck of the Draw with Raitt and first joined her team with Nick of Time, says of Raitt's process of choosing songs: "More than anyone I've ever worked with, Bonnie has a complete artistic vision. She really knows herself. The cool thing about her is that she's not portraying a character. She'll only sing a song that pertains directly to her life."
Musicians who sing the blues say that you've got to have known the blues to sing them. In her life Bonnie Raitt has known her share of the blues (from alcohol and broken romances). But she's still singing. That's the miracle of this music, from the early spirituals on: singing the blues helps to get you through the blues.
QUITE A COLLECTION OF musicians performs with Bonnie Raitt on Luck of the Draw, each strengthening individual songs. Pianist Bruce Hornsby joins her on the heartbreak ballad "I Can't Make You Love Me," and guitarist Richard Thompson contributes his expertise to Raitt's slide guitar on "Not the Only One" and the title song in a way that highlights both of their styles. Keyboardist Benmont Tench, of Tom Petty's Heartbreakers, plays on several tunes, and John Hiatt contributes background vocals and guitars on "No Business," a song of his own that Raitt has said she prayed he'd decide to leave off his current recording so she could do it.
Delbert McClinton's contribution is especially noteworthy. His voice is a close match for Raitt's in the duet "Good Man, Good Woman," though if the song creates a bit of competition, I'd say she outdoes him on sly determination (her: "It was twelve o'clock in the midnight hour/I heard the door slam, and then the shower"; him: "When I got up, you were already gone/I slipped and fell in the water you left on." "Gotta find a good woman"; "gonna find a good man"). The way she sings those last five words is one of my favorite parts of the whole recording.
The title song, "Luck of the Draw," and several others here that speak of life's challenges, hint at real perseverance, too. The seeming arbitrary nature of events comes up in the title song about a woman working a bar until she gets a break with the screenplays she writes: "These things we do to keep the flame burnin'/And write our fire in the sky/Another day to see the wheel turnin'/Another avenue to try." In Raitt's own "Tangled and Dark," a funky composition about the work of relationships, she sings, "Gonna get into it, baby/gonna give them demons a call."
Relationship is one of Raitt's main preoccupations these days, now that there's what's affectionately known around here as a "Mr. Bonnie Raitt." Michael O'Keefe is listed as co-writer with Raitt of "One Part Be My Lover," a song based on a poem he wrote and proving they have a pretty good idea what marriage means: "So if you know how/Why don't you say 'em a prayer/They're gonna need all the help they can get/They remember too much about what went wrong/It might be they should learn to forget."
Bonnie Raitt is known as a "singer's singer," and she's a central figure in a community of musicians that supports each other's work, performs on one another's recordings, and joins forces for concerts that benefit political causes. She sings songs about the real issues in life, and she takes stands for things she cares about.
In 1979, Raitt helped organize the Musicians United for Safe Energy Concerts for a Non-nuclear Future in Madison Square Garden -- along with Jackson Browne, Graham Nash, and John Hallwhich -- which resulted in the No Nukes recording. And since then she's participated in the 1985 Sun City video and album against apartheid in South Africa, as well as Farm Aid and Amnesty International concerts, and organized Countdown '87 to Stop Contra Aid, in Los Angeles.
Her success has allowed her to promote other R&B artists even more than in the past -- her 1990 tour performances included pianist Charles Brown (warmly and personally introduced by Raitt at the beginning of the concert), and she's very involved in the Rhythm and Blues Foundation. Her attitude toward fame seems to be one of simple graciousness. She says in a recent Musician magazine interview: "I'll be glad to share this good fortune. You really do have to give it away. It's the only way you can handle it."
Bonnie Raitt seems to be handling it. And that gives great hope to others of us also finding our voice.
Karen Lattea is the Vice President of Human Resources at Sojourners.
Luck of the Draw. By Bonnie Raitt. Capitol Records. 1991.
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