Author Archives: Annie

The Irish Times: Bonnie Raitt in Vicar Street: a healing night of welcome warmth and real soul

6 June 2025

Reviewed by Pat Carty for The Irish Times
Wed Jun 04 2025
Photograph: Erika Goldring/Getty Images for Americana Music Association

Bonnie Raitt
Vicar Street
★★★★☆
“Ireland in any weather is beautiful to me.” Bonnie Raitt is telling Vicar Street about the nine-day break she took here, surrounded by sheep, before playing Belfast on Sunday night. The rest surely did her good because she’s in rare form tonight.

She hits an early highlight with the rattling, barrelhouse groove of Thing Called Love, a song originally on John Hiatt’s Bring The Family. That album featured the slide guitar of Ry Cooder but even he’d have to bow to Raitt’s playing as she tosses off an effortless swamp porch solo, knife blade sharp and smooth as molasses, from the battered Stratocaster she apparently bought for $120 back in 1969. And she’s got that voice to go with it.

Take Mabel John’s 1966 classic Your Good Thing (Is About To End). Raitt, brimming over with pleading soul, stretches out vowels, holds notes until her vibrato is on the verge of cracking, and when that voice has finally had enough of the uncaring man in the lyric, her slide guitar takes over to show him the door.

An almost supernaturally intuitive interpreter of songs, Raitt delivers an achingly beautiful take on Richard Thompson’s Dimming Of The Day, a called-for Angel Of Montgomery by John Prine (“Nobody cut through like John”), and twists Dylan’s Million Miles inside out with a glint in her eye as she implores her baby to “rock me for a couple of months”. Then she bests them all by bringing the house to its feet with the encore’s I Can’t Make You Love Me, a tale of broken love familiar to every knocked-about heart.

Raitt makes several bows to old friend Paul Brady, in the audience having the same good time as the rest of us. First she claims she’s nervous with him watching, then declares it an honour. When asked to sit in he allegedly replied, “You can’t afford me,” but with the greatest respect to the man from Strabane, she doesn’t need him as she commandeers his Not The Only One and Steal Your Heart Away, making them her own.

But Raitt also knows how to write a song. Nick Of Time, the title track from the 1989 album that finally made her an overnight success 18 years after her debut, is one thing with its great lyric about getting on a bit (“Those lines are pretty hard to take when they’re staring back at you”). Just Like That is something else entirely.

To the surprise of many, including the other nominees and Raitt herself, she won the Grammy for Song Of The Year with it a few years back but the judges were right, for once. A woman who lost her son is visited by the man who lives on thanks to her child’s transplanted heart. It’s moving on record but it’s devastating live. In that inexplicable way a song you’ve heard before can sneak back up on you, Raitt gets to the line where she lays her head on his chest and she’s with her boy again and you’re gutted by the lyric’s power. “They say Jesus brings you peace and grace, well he ain’t found me yet,” has a similar effect.

Raitt calls her show “a healing experience in this suffering, hard-assed world” and that’s what it is, whether she and her superlative four-piece band are transforming the room into a rambunctious roadhouse or a hushed confessional. A night of welcome warmth and real soul. There aren’t many like her.

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Berkshire Magazine on Bonnie’s return to Tanglewood this summer

21 May 2025

By Anastasia Stanmeyer

Bonnie was interviewed for the May/June 2025 Summer cultural issue of Berkshire Magazine to preview her August 31st performance at Tanglewood Music Center in Lenox. MA! Read an excerpt here and pick up a copy on newsstands in Massachusetts this month!

https://www.bonnieraitt.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Preview-only-Berkshire-Magazine-Summer-2025-feature-30-31.pdf

Tanglewood tickets available at https://www.bso.org/events/bonnie-raitt-2025

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Backstage in Memphis…

13 May 2025

What an incredible, soulful reunion we had at our Memphis show Friday night (May 9, 2025!)

The day after the annual Blues Foundation awards, Taj Mahal,  Keb Mo, Jim Pugh and others were in town and came by and sat in for our encore. Carla Thomas, Charles Hodges, Tony Braunagel and others came too. Jon Cleary and his band crushed their  opening set and he sat in with us in ours. What a night!

In this photo, BOTTOM ROW (L to R) Boo Mitchell, son of Willie and carrying on the Hi Records and studio legacy, producing lots of hits still. Jim Pugh, Taj Mahal, Carla Thomas and Keb. TOP ROW (L to R): Pat McMakin, Tony Braunagel, Pedro Segundo, Jon Cleary, Bonnie, Charles Hodges, Ricky Fataar and James “Hutch” Hutchinson. So great to see everyone! — Bonnie

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Win a SIGNED Just Like That… LP!

25 April 2025

It’s been three years since Bonnie’s album Just Like That… was released on her independent label, Redwing Records. In honor of this anniversary and in celebration of #EarthDay, we would like to support the giving economy and offer a SIGNED Just Like That…limited-edition, 180GM Teal Vinyl (Indie Exclusive) to one lucky winner.

Enter the contest at https://www.bonnieraitt.com/members/. We will be accepting entries until May 15, 2025 at 11:59 pm EST. Good luck to all!

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Earth Day 2025: “Buy Nothing” and reduce waste!

22 April 2025

This Earth Day, we wanted to recommend a great local community resource called “Buy Nothing” that gives neighbors a means to share items they no longer have use for. Rather than tossing those items into the trash, join your local “Buy Nothing” group (via their app) and post the item you would like to give away. Chances are there are more than a few people in the neighborhood who would be thrilled to take that sweater, kid’s bike or box of old art supplies off your hands.

Reducing waste in landfills is one benefit of sharing resources and another is how you will feel when your unneeded item makes its way into the hands of someone who actually wants it! It’s a very satisfying loop unlike that of the “open-loop recycling” of plastic, where recycled materials are mixed with new raw materials and down-cycled into lower-quality products. Recycling of plastic is costly and does not stem the production of virgin plastic product (Source: Plastic Pollution Coalition.)

We love the idea of “Buy Nothing” as it’s a hyper-local solution that has the power to make an impact on a grander scale by limiting consumerism of new products as well as reducing waste. Learn more about how you can participate in the giving economy via https://buynothingproject.org

Let’s honor the Earth every day!
— Bonnie and BRHQ 🌎

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Justin Vernon’s shout out on Fallon

8 April 2025

Was great to see Justin Vernon of Bon Iver on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon last week. I’m a big fan and was so touched by his deep appreciation of my music. Years ago he sang a gorgeous live version of “I Can’t Make You Love Me,” adding a bit of my “Nick of Time” at the end. That sparked a friendship and I was so happy when he and Charli XCX asked to sample my recording for their great remix of Brat’s “I Think About It All the Time.” Love his new album and look forward to more collaborations in the future. — Bonnie

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Dallas Observer concert review

3 April 2025

Bonnie Raitt Bends Time at the Winspear Opera House
The Grammy-winning singer-songwriter pulled from her most recent album and entranced a capacity crowd.

By Preston Jones
March 24, 2025

“Every moment there’s a chance for redemption,” Bonnie Raitt said Sunday, adjusting the acoustic guitar slung across her body.

Her fingers teasing fleeting notes from the fretboard, the 75-year-old singer-songwriter was about to perform the title track of her most recent studio album, 2022’s Just Like That … and her observation — simple and well-worn though it may be — was about the fictional woman at the center of the song’s narrative.

READ THE FULL REVIEW HERE: https://www.dallasobserver.com/music/dallas-winspear-opera-house-bonnie-raitt-concert-review-21985430

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New John Raitt rarities CD release!

1 April 2025

I’m excited to share this new remarkable collection of rarities from my Dad’s recordings. A lot of love and curating went into putting this together and I’m very grateful to Tim at Stage Door Records and Nick Van Hoogstraten, our other Raitt family ‘brother,’ for their ongoing efforts to keep Dad’s legacy alive.
Hope you enjoy too!
-Bonnie

Stage Door are pleased to present their second retrospective collection dedicated to the recordings of John Raitt with ‘Songs of the Open Road and Other Rarities’. This new anthology collates 20 rare studio and broadcast recordings made between 1946 and 1959, showcasing the brilliant baritone of John Raitt, arguably one of the most iconic voices in Broadway history.

Selections include songs from The Vagabond King, New Moon and Great Day, two rarities from the film, Because You’re Mine, and ten priceless live and television performances from the late fifties.

SONGS OF THE OPEN ROAD can now be ordered in the US via the Triton Gallery website:
https://broadwayposters.com/triton/posters/johnraittcd2.htm

And in the UK at https://www.stagedoorrecords.com/stage9107.html

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On the passing of Jesse Colin Young…

19 March 2025

We are heartbroken to hear of the passing of our dear friend, Jesse Colin Young. A beloved singer/songwriter and longtime ally in our social and environmental activism since the mid-seventies, Jesse had a voice as sweet and soulful as he was. He looked and sounded great when we joined him on “Get Together,” for the finale at Tom Campbell’s memorial in L.A. last December. Another brother gone too soon.
We send our deep condolences to Connie and his family and let’s keep his beautiful music and light shining always. — Bonnie

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2025 News Archive: Page 1 of 16