Bonnie Raitt Archives - Ramblin' with Roger

47th Kennedy Center Honors

Francis Ford Coppola; Grateful Dead; Bonnie Raitt; Arturo Sandoval; Apollo Theater

One of the more random items I have ever blogged about is a song called Mill Valley. It led to a video by an “obscure young director named Francis Ford Coppola, who, two years later, would direct the film that would win the Oscar for Best Movie, The Godfather.”

In 2008, I did a quiz for The Director Who Films Your Life Test, and it turned out to be Coppola. This is interesting in that I’ve only seen a handful of his films: the original Godfather in 1972 (I even remember with whom I saw it and where, in Syracuse, NY); The Conversation (1974), which I saw on television in 2006; The Outsiders (1983); and Peggy Sue Got Married (1986).

This 2020 interview was quite enlightening.

Grateful Dead

I never saw the Grateful Dead perform, although I saw a Dead-adjacent concert in 1975, which included Bill Kreutzmann and Bobby Weir.

Grateful Dead albums I enjoy include American Beauty and Working Man’s Dead. I should note that these albums are available in full on their YouTube channel; that’s no way to operate capitalism. Then there’s at least one I hate, which is on a list of the worst albums ever: Dylan and the Dead.

I’m also fond of Deadicated – A Tribute to the Grateful Dead from 1991. Mickey Hart put out Music To Be Born By, which I listen to occasionally.

Note that the KCH only selects the members of a group who are still alive at the time of the selection, so no Jerry Garcia, Pigpen, et al. Phil Lesh died in October, but he had been chosen before that.

I’ve mentioned the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee several times in this blog, most notably when she turned 70. My friend Mary sent me an article from the Washington Post, which is behind a paywall. I’ll give you just a flavor of it.

“In the late 1960s during her sophomore year, Bonnie Raitt took a leave from Radcliffe. Her intention was to hang with blues legends Mississippi Fred McDowell, Son House, Buddy Guy and Junior Wells, who were managed by her then-boyfriend Dick Waterman, inhaling the sort of storied education that wasn’t offered at Harvard… [She] has helmed a rock, folk and blues odyssey that is as improbable as it is lengthy, 21 albums and 54 years of touring punctuated by triumphs that erupted decades apart in an industry that tends to Vitamix its young.”

I continue to buy her albums. Wikipedia: Just Like That… is the title track of her eighteenth studio album, Just Like That…, which was released on April 22, 2022, by Redwing Records. The song was written and produced by Raitt and lyrically details the story of a woman who is visited by the recipient of her son’s heart, which he received in a life-saving organ donation operation. The song won Best American Roots Song and Song of the Year at the 65th Annual Grammy Awards, with the latter award regarded as an upset over several higher-charting songs,” much to her obvious shock.

However, I never made the connection between John Raitt, the singer on many movie musicals, with whom I was somewhat familiar, and his daughter Bonnie until several years after she entered the music scene.

Arturo Sandoval

The Cuban-American jazz trumpeter was one of those performers who I’ve seen several times on television programs but don’t own any of his music. He has won several Grammys, recently for Dear Diz (Every Day I Think Of You). It is dedicated to the late Dizzy Gillespie who helped Sandoval defect from his native country while on tour with the United Nations Orchestra in 1977.

“Sandoval became an American naturalized citizen in 1998. His life was the subject of the film For Love or Country: The Arturo Sandoval Story (2000) starring Andy García.”

The Apollo

The theater was/is the mecca of music for nine decades, from Bessie Smith’s four-week run in the 1930s to Miles, Coltrane, and Monk in the 1950s, the legendary James Brown performance, and the Motortown review in the 1960s, Aretha in the 1970s, and much more.

Yet I had never been there. So when I got an invitation to see Lonnie Bunch there – I am a charter member of the National Museum of African American History and Culture – I was THERE.

The presentation was on Sunday, December 8, 2024. Celebrate the 47th Honors, hosted by Queen Latifah. CBS Broadcast: Sun. Dec. 22, 2024 at 8:30/7:30c.

Musical discovery in 2022

Francis Albert Sinatra

There’s a blogger who does this EOY thing. I’m going just to pick off the music categories right now.

What was your greatest musical discovery in 2022?

It was weird. I bought more music than in the previous two years combined. Almost none were from artists who first started recording in the 21st century.

I just received this. Janis Joplin and Jorma Kaukonen – The Legendary Typewriter Tape: 6/25/64 at Jorma’s House. Haven’t given it a sufficient listen, but I will.
Nobody Loves You When You’re Down And Out

One item I got was a boxed set. Twelve CDs of Steeleye Span. I think I MIGHT have one LP of theirs. But it was the fact that it was relatively inexpensive (c. $60) that sealed the deal.
Gaudete
Thomas The Rhymer

I bought a new Elvis Costello album, The Boy Named If. This is another one with the Imposters. I have about a third of Elvis’ 30-odd albums. It’s always hard to hear old music by older artists without comparing them with other works in their oeuvre. I’ll need to listen to it some more.
The Death Of Magic Thinking

The same is largely true of Bonnie Raitt’s first album in six years, Just Like That… It’s never less than solid, but it’ll need a few more spins.
Down The Hall

Perhaps the most interesting album I listened to was from a guy who died in 1998. Frank Sinatra put out Watertown, a concept album, in late 1969. The main composer of the album is Bob Gaudio of Four Seasons fame. It was re-released in 2022 with additional tracks. I think it works.
Watertown

I did get SOME newer music. I enjoyed Jon Batiste’s 2022 Grammy Award-winning album, WE ARE. Cry

Older tunes

And there are some other older albums I picked up. After seeing the Broadway production of David Byrne’s American Utopia on television, I bought the Broadway Original Cast Recording. While not as good as viewing it, it was mighty fine.
I Should Watch TV

The 1992 album Partners by accordion player Flaco Jimenez features a lot of guests, including Stephen Stills, Dwight Yoakam, Emmylou Harris, and Linda Ronstadt
Don’t Worry Baby, featuring Los Lobos

Of course, I listened to a lot of extant music. Recently, my wife asked me how many CDs I had. I guesstimated about 2000. Then I counted them. And by counting, I tabulated the number in a drawer and multiplied because math. It’s closer to 3000. And if you HAVE that many CDs, you ought to PLAY them. And I do.

Every generation throws a hero up the pop charts

Quote a song lyric that sums up your year

First, a story that I might have told before in part. After the Paul Simon album Graceland came out, there was a 12-inch version of Boy In The Bubble that came out. I heard it on the radio, probably the local Q104, and I loved it. So I ran to my nearest record store and asked to order it. For whatever reason, it never arrived. I did record my friend Rocco’s vinyl onto a cassette, which is probably still in my attic somewhere.

I bought the Paul Simon box set at some point, hoping it would be on there. No luck. Then after 2011, I bought the 25th-anniversary version; surely, IT would contain the track I sought. Alas, no. BTW, I sent my old copy of the CD to some blogger who wasn’t familiar with Graceland.

Finally, this year, Rocco downloaded the track and burned me a CD.
Boy In The Bubble (12-inch)
Some lyrics:

The way we look to a distant constellation
That’s dying in a corner of the sky…
Staccato signals of constant information
A loose affiliation of millionaires
And billionaires and baby
These are the days of miracle and wonder
This is the long-distance call
The way the camera follows us in slo-mo
The way we look to us all, oh yeah

Singer/guitarist Bonnie Raitt is 70

The Road’s My Middle Name

Because I hitchhiked to New Paltz, I first heard of Bonnie Raitt. I had traveled from Binghamton to visit my girlfriend in May 1971. But when I got there, she had decided to break up with me. I was devastated.

There wasn’t enough daylight to hitch back home. Instead, I went to visit my friend Steve in Poughkeepsie, in the next county over. We had gone to Binghamton Central High School before he moved.

Steve talked at length about this great bluesy singer and guitarist named Bonnie Raitt, who I had never heard of. He predicted great things of her. Her eponymous first album, which came out in November 1971 sold poorly, though it reviewed well. I never bought it.

Bonnie’s second album, Give It Up, I LOVED. It got all the way up to #138 on the US album charts. The subsequent albums improved commercially up to 1977’s Sweet Forgiveness at #25. But her next albums sank, never improving on the charts.

Warner purge

In 1983, the year after I saw her at the No Nukes concert, “There was a corporate sweep at Warner’s… and they needed to trim the fat,’ Raitt recalled in 1990. ‘I just had completed an album called Tongue & Groove… I don’t think they maliciously said, ‘Let’s let her finish her album and get the tour all lined up and print the covers and hire the people to do the video and then drop her.’ You know, ha, ha, ha. But that’s what they did.

“‘It was literally the day after I had finished mastering it… They dropped me and pulled the rug out from under my tour. I thought the way they did it was real crummy. They sent a letter. I think I suffered from not having a relationship with the A&R department there, because I had an independent production deal…’

“The material for Tongue & Groove was shelved until two years later when ‘Warner’s suddenly said they were going to put the record out,’ Raitt recalled… I mean, I was out there touring on my savings to keep my name up, and my ability to draw was less and less. So they agreed to let me go in and recut half of it.’ The result was Nine Lives, which was finally released in 1986” to tepid reviews and worse sales.

Capitol signing

After seeing her perform, Prince “offered Bonnie Raitt a recording contract on his own label, Paisley Park Records. Raitt agreed and traveled to Minneapolis. Before she recorded any material, she suffered a skiing accident and was hospitalized for two months.” The Paisley Park deal fell through.

Then Capitol Records signed her after over a dozen other labels passed on her. She put out the Nick of Time album in 1989, which went to #1 on the US album charts, sold over five million copies and was named Album of the Year by the Grammys.

The followup album in 1991, Luck of the Draw, went to #2 in the US, sold seven million copies and generated a Top 10 single. 1994’s Longing in Their Hearts went to #1, sold two million copies and contained a Top 20 single. Five subsequent albums, all of which I own, have each reached the Top 20 on the album charts.

LISTEN

Sugar Mama (5)
No Way to Treat A Lady (9), a Bryan Adams song
The Road’s My Middle Name (10), a Bonnie Raitt song about how she survived
I Can’t Make You Love Me (11), #18 in 1992

Runaway (6), the Del Shannon hit, #57 in 1977
You (12), #92 in 1994
Angel From Montgomery (4), the John Prine song they’ve done live together

Love Me Like a Man (2); lyrics adapted by Raitt
Love Has No Pride (2)
My, there are a lot of “love” songs on this list!
Love Letter (10), one of two Bonnie Hayes songs on the list

Love Sneakin’ Up On You (12), #19 in 1994
Thing Called Love (10), a John Hiatt song
Something to Talk About (11), #5 in 1991

Too Long at the Fair (2)
Have a Heart (10), the other Bonnie Hayes song, #49 in 1990. It has one of my favorite first lines in any song. “Hey, shut up. Don’t lie to me.”
Dimming of the Day (12), a Richard Thompson song
Give It Up Or Let Me Go (2), a Bonnie Raitt song
The last four are probably my top 4; the last seven are probably my top 7.

(2) Give It Up; (4) Streetlights; (5) Home Plate; (6) Sweet Forgiveness; (9) Nine Lives; (10) Nick of Time; (11) Luck of the Draw; (12) Longing in Their Hearts