Bonnie Raitt

The slide guitarist and singer who learned the blues from its elders, made nine albums for Warner Bros., and came back sober in 1989 with Nick of Time and Album of the Year.

Origin
Burbank, California, United States
Years active
1971-present
Genres
blues, blues rock, rock, folk, Americana
Labels
Warner Bros., Capitol, Redwing, Proper

A Broadway family

Bonnie Lynn Raitt was born in Burbank, California, on 8 November 1949, the daughter of John Raitt, the Broadway singer and actor of Carousel and The Pajama Game, and the pianist Marge Goddard. She grew up in Los Angeles in a home shaped by the arts, Quaker traditions and social activism. She got a Stella guitar for Christmas at eight, and at fourteen the album Blues at Newport 1963 turned her toward the blues and slide guitar.

In 1967 she went to Radcliffe College to study social relations and African studies, and left after three years to play music full-time. Early on she opened for and played with Mississippi Fred McDowell, Sippie Wallace, Son House, Muddy Waters and John Lee Hooker. Her customised Fender Stratocaster, known as Brownie, has been with her at every gig since 1969.

Warner Bros.

Warner Bros. signed her, and on friends' advice she made her first record with Willie and the Bees, a band from the West Bank scene in Minneapolis. Bonnie Raitt, produced by Willie Murphy and recorded live on four tracks with no overdubs, came out in November 1971. Alongside songs by Sippie Wallace, Robert Johnson and Stephen Stills it carried two of her own, Thank You and Finest Lovin' Man. Sales were modest and critics were warm. In February 1972 she played a set for the Philadelphia station WMMR at Sigma Sound Studios; the station replayed it many times, building her a following in the city, and it was later issued as The Lost Broadcast.

Give It Up (1972), which critics often prefer to the debut, was followed by Takin' My Time, Streetlights and Home Plate. Sweet Forgiveness (1977) was her first commercial breakthrough, a Top 30 gold record carried by her version of Runaway. In 1979 she made The Glow and co-founded Musicians United for Safe Energy, which staged the No Nukes concerts, and in 1985 she sang on Sun City. Warner dropped her in 1983, the day after Tongue and Groove was mastered, and shelved the album. Her last record for the label, Nine Lives (1986), stalled at No. 115.

Nick of Time

She got sober in 1987, joining AA and starting therapy, and has credited the example of Stevie Ray Vaughan. In 1988 she recorded Baby Mine with Was (Not Was) for the Disney tribute Stay Awake, which led to Don Was producing her. She signed to Capitol, and Nick of Time, her tenth studio album, came out in March 1989 with Ricky Fataar on drums and James "Hutch" Hutchinson on bass, her rhythm section from then on. Its title song, Nick of Time, was about age, time and love.

The album climbed to No. 22 and slipped away. Then at the 32nd Grammys in February 1990 she won four awards, including Album of the Year and a blues award for I'm in the Mood with John Lee Hooker, beating Don Henley, Tom Petty and the Traveling Wilburys; Billboard called it "the biggest upset in Grammy history". Accepting, she said it was her first sober album. Nick of Time reached No. 1 on the Billboard 200 that April and went five times platinum. In July 1990 Warner released The Bonnie Raitt Collection, twenty tracks from 1971 to 1986, opening with an edit of Finest Lovin' Man.

After

Luck of the Draw (1991), her best seller, brought three more Grammys and the songs Something to Talk About and I Can't Make You Love Me. She was MusiCares Person of the Year in 1992, Longing in Their Hearts (1994) won Best Pop Vocal Album, and the live Road Tested followed in 1995. She was married to the actor Michael O'Keefe from 1991 to 1999. Melissa Etheridge inducted her into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2000, praising her blazing fingers and blazing hair.

Slipstream (2012), on her own Redwing Records, sold over a quarter of a million copies and won the Grammy for Best Americana Album. Just Like That... (2022), her 21st studio album, won three more, including Song of the Year for its title track, and the same year she received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and Nick of Time entered the National Recording Registry. She received Kennedy Center Honors in 2024. By 2025 she had won 13 competitive Grammys from 31 nominations, and she is still touring: setlist.fm logs more than 1,900 of her shows, from 1970 to 2026.

Records

Songs

John Lee Hooker, Sippie Wallace, Jackson Browne, Bon Iver, Lake Street Dive

Where to go next

Official

Reference

Discography and data

  • MusicBrainz Every release, including the archival radio broadcasts.
  • Discogs Pressings, catalogue numbers and sleeve notes.

Writing and criticism

Interviews

Live performance archives

Film and video

Sources

  1. Bonnie Raitt, Wikipedia
  2. Bonnie's Story, bonnieraitt.com
  3. Bonnie Raitt's Lake Minnetonka beginning, The Current (2019-07-24)
  4. Mojo Time Machine: Bonnie Raitt returns in the Nick of Time, Mojo (2022)
  5. Bonnie Raitt, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
  6. Bonnie Raitt, MusicBrainz