Bonnie Raitt
speaker
187 appearances
2 recordings
2 series
first heard Dec 2024
last heard Dec 2024
Bonnie Raitt’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
I mean, I feel like I have more agility.
And I know that I have to say when I look at my pals Jackson Brown and, you know, Bruce Hornsby, Bruce Springsteen, like a lot of people, men and women that are touring now, their voices have never been better.
And it's really great because we're not 50. We're like 70. It's fantastic. It's a huge benefit to aging. Yeah. Isn't it? And look at Tony Bennett and Willie and Bebe. I mean, my dad was singing his butt off when he was in his 80s. Incredible. I mean, when people go, are you going to retire? I go, why would I retire?
Yeah.
Well, I'll tell you what was great was that she had all of the... Inherent swagger still, but she was bemused. And I don't think that when you're in your 20s, you're bemused by men's bad behavior. In her case, if somebody should have paid royalties, she was just really happy to be appreciated. And she would just sit and listen to us clowning around in the dressing room.
And I just looked over at her and she was like, not winking, but almost. She was bemused and relaxed and having the time of her life. And I said, man, I want to get to that Yoda place. Muddy was like that. John Lee Hooker was like that a lot. Fred McDowell, Mississippi Fred McDowell, Sippy Wallace.
You know, when you're talking about Ruth Brown, who did get ripped off and built Atlantic Records, she was from a different generation. In the 50s, she kind of built Atlantic Records. She was pissed, so you don't cross her. But Sippy was, for me as a young woman, to get to be with somebody that was so...
wise about men and she said you can make me do what you want to do but you got to know how that was one of the songs of hers I picked her songs because you know the feminists would say what do you mean women be wise keep your mouth shut don't advertise your man that if you talk about yours they're going to come up and steal them well excuse me that's what happens you know women don't do that to each other I go oh really what world are you living in right exactly
You're going to brag on why somebody's such a great lover and then you're surprised when you're on the road and they take a little taste. Come on.
I hope. I hope I reached the Sippy Wallace level of bemusement. Yeah. Because, really, you've got to just sit back and go, it's all... It's out of my control, but I'm going to... I mean, there's a different layer. There's layers of political stuff that are on top of being alive now that I don't know whether any bemusement would be what I would call any... No, I hear that. Right. Yes.
But I'm just saying, in her as a young woman, she was... She was like what I'm aspiring to feel like now. Like, okay. She's okay. She's okay. Yeah. She's like sitting with it all. She's sitting with it all. She can breathe deep. Breathe deep. Funny. Yes. Present.
Bring it when she needs to, you know. Right. She didn't seem to care about what people thought about her. Yes. All that stuff. I mean, we're tyrannized by the weight thing, by the... You know, am I pretty enough? I know. Believe me. What about ageism? Oh. Yeah. Talk about that, Bonnie.
I think in my folk Americana wing of the music business, we only get more legendary and people respect us more as we get older. I don't see the discrimination that leading ladies got in my dad's business when Connie Towers and other people turned 50 and other actresses. They were over, over.
And so in my world, I did not face sexism or ageism, but I did face men in the beginning not liking to be told anything. that I was self-managed, that I was the music director of my albums when I couldn't, you know, that was odd to be told what you were doing not correctly or you'd like somebody to do it differently in the studio when I couldn't play that instrument as well as they could.
So, like, who are you who died and made you the boss? So how did you handle that?
tiptoe around that yeah you know um first of all you try to get make sure you're only in the room with people that have a lot of respect for you and most of that time that was the case there was like one one record where i was with a lot of really heavy hitters in new york and i was only 24 and there was a actual producer jerry ragavoy and so what i would do oftentimes that would be a partnership and when something tricky needed to be said sometimes i would ask him to
rephrase it he'd be like my secretary of state uh-huh my yeah he was the diplomat you he was the u.n ambassador that went in and said what she means to say here is uh-huh sounds great it sounds great but did you ever have any self-doubt
You know, when it comes to music, my ears tell me when something's working. I cannot lie. If it doesn't sound right, if the groove's... too rushed or the playing isn't that track wasn't it. Yeah. I have to be completely honest. And so I've and I trust that implicitly since the beginning. Yeah. I can tell when it's the right take. Yeah.
And pretty much the people that I pick to work with, they feel the same way. So I haven't had a lot of pushback on that. The pushback sometimes is in the record company where they don't like to see a woman represent themselves. And if you say, how come you don't put enough records in the stores after I just sold out that city? They don't like to hear that from the artists.
So they want to have an intermediary, and it's usually a guy.
Showing 81–100 of 187 · page 5 of 10
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