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Raitt in recline, holding her guitar by its neck.

An Interview with Bonnie Raitt

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Just honored by the Kennedy Center for her contributions to music, the legendary Bonnie Raitt saw her seminal album “Nick of Time” (1989) added to the Library of Congress’s National Recording Registry in 2022.  In August of last year, she sat down with the Library of Congress to discuss that album and its making.  The transcript is below.

Raitt with guitar
Bonnie Raitt WB Promo – 1982

 

Library of Congress:  In some ways, when you went to do “Nick of Time,” it was kind of a make-or-break album for you. Did you have that on your mind as you went in to make the album, or was it just about the music and this is what I’m doing?

Bonnie Raitt:  You know, I didn’t have any doubt that I would find some label that was a little bit more enthusiastic than my previous one, which had summarily dumped me, Van Morrison, and T-Bone Burnett; a bunch of us who weren’t bringing in the big bucks. The business had changed; there was a lot of consolidation of big companies, and bean counters were kind of running things. So, I was probably looking at Rounder Records or one of these more boutique labels, and I was really thrilled to just go into this record with the support of a big label. It was thrilling to have Don Was to partner with, and I told him about Ed Cherney, an engineer that I always admired and wanted to work with, so the three of us together just went into the project with so much enthusiasm and gratitude because the staff at my new label–many of whom were at Warners for years–moved over to Capitol. In fact, I was signed to Capitol by the same Joe Smith that signed me to Warners in 1971. It was a win-win situation, I didn’t feel like I was coming from behind too much, but I wasn’t expecting a major label to sign me.

LC: How did you and Don Was cross paths?

BR: That was very kismet. The great Hal Willner, who does all these wonderful compilation albums, put us together. He thought…[he] had the great idea of me singing “Baby Mine” from “Dumbo” with some of the guys from Was (Not Was) for the Disney “Stay Awake” tribute album, and that’s when I met Don briefly, crossing paths in a studio while we were both working on other projects. Then we started working together, and he was so surprised that I was a fan of Was (Not Was), and I was completely surprised that he knew my early stuff because he’s quite a bit younger than me. So it was really two mutual musician fans, and we had mutual respect and great enthusiasm.

LC:  Do you think that’s why you connected and worked so well together?

BR:  I think because we were veterans at that point, and neither one of us had had a lot of commercial success, which was not heartbreaking for us; it was kind of expected but also frustrating. So we weren’t going into it to make a big hit album; we were just working together for artistic reasons, wanted to get together because we were two like-minded fans of soul music and so much of the same kind of music. That affinity is what I’m always looking for in a partner in the studio, and I would say that the chemistry, because of the kind of person he is and the depth of his knowledge musically and his musicianship, just appealed to me so much. I was the most excited to work with someone that was a musician I really admired.

LC:  Speaking of musicianship, you are known for your extraordinary musicianship but I don’t think you always get enough credit for your vocals. Who do you try to sound like or emulate, or who do you look up to as a vocalist and singer?

BR:  Well, first of all, let me thank you for that. I appreciate it.

LC:  You’re very welcome.

BR:  As we know, art is not a contest, so mostly we’re just the sum of all the wonderful music and influences that we grew up with. In my case, I had a double barrel of great singing with my dad being one of the great Broadway singers. So I had a house where I was exposed with Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald and so many wonderful singers on that end. Then I fell in love with folk music with Joan Baez, but I would say that specifically my biggest influences were, and will always be, Aretha Franklin, and I loved Etta James’s records. In terms of the folkier side of what I do, Judy Collins was someone that I felt was so influential to me when I was first a teenager singing in my room and putting together who I was going to be. I didn’t have any plans to be a singer, but I just knew what I liked. So I would say Aretha and Etta and Judy Collins,

LC:  And that’s kind of a spectrum there, from Aretha to Judy–

BR:  And I have a wide spectrum of music that I do and I think it’s because I really couldn’t choose. Even Sandy Denny from Fairport Convention, if I had to pick between Aretha and Etta, it would be very hard to do.

LC:  Don’t worry, I won’t make you pick….  How did you come to record John Hiatt’s “Thing Called Love”? It became sort of a front piece for the album. How did you come to that particular song?

BR:  I knew that we were going to probably have that be the first single, and one of my favorite all-time albums is “Bring the Family” by the great John Hiatt, who wrote “Thing Called Love,” and that album, together with Ry Cooder, was some of the funkiest tunes I’d ever heard. I knew that I wanted to record it just so I could sing it every night, and that’s how I pick most of my songs, I fall in love with them. I tour all the time, so that was something I was so happy to be able to do my own version of it. It’s hard to top the John Hiatt version because “Bring the Family” to this day is one of my top three albums.

LC:  Did you know the minute that you recorded that, that was going to be the single?

BR:  I did know, and I also had the idea of asking Dennis Quaid to play my boyfriend in the video. I knew MTV wasn’t going to play a 40-year-old woman, but they had just started VH1, and I said, “You know what, if I get Dennis to play my boyfriend, I’ll bet you they’ll play it,” and that’s what they did, so that helped us a lot.

LC:  That’s some good marketing there. Were you pressed for time when you made the album? That’s what I read.

BR:  I’m a really good businesswoman and I knew that every penny we spend in any album studio or promotional campaign, they were going to charge back to me eventually. Being Scottish and Quaker, I’m pretty frugal, so I knew that we didn’t have a big budget, but I also really like recording live. Ever since my “Green Light” album in ’81, I really switched to that style of recording where you get everything on the first or second take with very little rehearsal.

It’s expensive to bring musicians and rent the studio, so we got two songs a day across a couple of weeks, between the overdubs of guitars and maybe some background parts and percussion. I’ve recorded like that ever since. We were kind of trying to keep the budget down, but that wasn’t the driving force.

LC:  Why do you think it connected with audiences and critics so powerfully, and obviously with the GRAMMYs® as well, because you were always on that stage that night.

BR:  That was as surprising a night as I’ve ever had, only matched by years later getting the Grammy Award for Song of the Year in 2023.  I had the same expression on my face when I got that….

I think there was a reserve of affection and respect for me which I had built up. Looking back, it felt at the time that the record had gotten a great response even before the nomination for the GRAMMY®. I think having a brand-new enthusiastic record company, coupled with a better version of my record, I’ve made some good ones in the past, but this was a better album. I’d been sober a couple of years and my heart was healed up from a bad relationship, and I had just a kind of a rebirth, really. So I think that writing a song like “Nick of Time” was so much a cornerstone for it. It was an unusual topic for a pop song, and people like Stephen Holden and other critics gave a lot of space to when the album came out. They were so glad to see me rejuvenated. We had great promotion because those people who had something to prove. The record company said, “You weren’t treated right, watch this.” I had a lot of people in my corner, but the proof had to be in the music, and I think there was a particularly inspired group of songs. I had a bunch of years to call them down and a partner in Don Was, a great band, and a great engineer, so all those things worked together. If you take away VH1 or Don Was, I don’t think this would have happened.

LC:  What do you remember most about the recording sessions?

BR:  I felt so comfortable. Normally it’s kind of hairy because I don’t know as much about making records. In the ’80s, I really got more sophisticated in terms of where to put the mics on the drums, why certain songs that I love the sound of weren’t sounding like that when I got in the studio.

So I picked the right people in the room, along with Don as well. We had a terrific band and a great engineer.  I think what I remember most is the wisdom and experience of all those 21 years, I think both all of us in the studio; musicians, engineer, and Don included, we were tried-and-true. We could just relax. So what I remember is how exciting and how much fun it was, and how smoothly it was going. I felt confident in my own abilities and very clear-headed. I think I was really comfortable that Don had me in a nice basket of fantastic taste and he knew how to get the best out of me. I was completely comfortable and [in] safe arms.

LC:  You wrote some of the songs on the album, like the final song “The Road’s My Middle Name” and “Nick of Time.” Here’s a pure craft question:  when do you write?

BR: I tend to write when I tour because I tour so much which I love to do. I kind of make records so I can tour, not the other way around. When it’s time to make a record, it’s usually when I have eight or nine possible songs that are not mine, and then I take a look at the topics that I want to cover that I didn’t cover in previous records, and what’s missing, either in terms of musical groove or a topic. And that’s when I sit down and write something custom for that group of songs.

LC:  That’s interesting. You almost begin with an agenda. “Agenda” might not be the right word but with an idea rather just wait for inspiration. That’s very interesting.

BR:  Well, I start with the songs. I don’t even think about making a record until I have a handful of songs that knock me out. And I’m certainly not going to write it if there’s a topic that appeals to me that someone else wrote about, [and] it’s something I can’t cover myself. So I have to find both the grooves and the topic. I’ve got really good taste in music, so if Jackson Browne or Randy Newman have already said it better, I’m over there in the corner going, “What can I possibly say that these guys haven’t said better?”

LC:  Do you think you’re a good critic when it comes to your own work and your own writing?

BR:  Probably like most artists, we’re probably a little hard on ourselves. There might have been some reticence to play it in front of other people because I didn’t have as much confidence. Again, I was comparing myself to some of the greatest songwriters over the years that I’ve covered. There’s no way I could compete. So if I could find my own voice, I really eventually know that this is the right style and I don’t even play it for anyone else until I’m pretty sure it’s the right thing to put there.

LC:  You’re taking a break now. You said, for a little bit?

BR:  Well, no, just for a bit between the spring tour and the fall tour.

LC:  But I’m wondering what you’re thinking of—topic-wise–to cover in the next album?

BR:  We’re on tour this year and then all of next year so I haven’t really had time off since this record [“Just Like That…”] came out. It’s a big world out there to play by the time we get to Australia and across Canada and go to Europe a couple of times. So I’m really enjoying playing and picking tunes out of my 21 albums. I’ve got a lot of material. So I have some songs stored up, but I’m not in a big hurry to do that big promotion campaign because that is nowhere near as much fun as just playing.

So it’ll be a while before I get back into the studio. But, you know, I got a couple of duets that are out now that I did, that are released by other people that I collaborated with. I’ll just probably take my time until I find something really worth saying.

 

Comments

  1. Big fan of both BR and LC. Glad to see you together.

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