There's a game we play called "Whose Career Would You Like to Have?" Besides a writer here and there, I always say Bonnie Raitt.
Raitt, who plays a sold-out show in Ketchum this Thursday at 7 p.m., is utterly peerless when it comes to style, talent, integrity and longevity. Raitt is American music royalty. Her father John Raitt was a legendary musical star on Broadway and her mother was a pianist and singer. Like Rosanne Cash, who played in the valley last week, she lost both parents in a short span of time. John passed away in early 2005 and her mother, Marge Goddard, died unexpectedly from complications from Alzheimer's just months earlier. Though she grew up in a musical household, it was her ventures outside that comfort zone that shaped her career.
She found the blues and she found it through the masters such as Fred McDowell, Sippie Wallace, Son House, Muddy Waters and John Lee Hooker. Through them she learned first-hand how to imbue her work with the blues and how to make it real.
As Richard Corliss wrote in Time magazine, "Raitt wears tinges of folk and rock, country and pop, but her regular outfit is multihued blue. She makes it so smart that when she sings it, it's everyone's favorite color."
One of the ways she accomplishes this is with her spot-on slide-guitar work that instantly sets any song's mood.
Then there are her roots in Broadway and folk that meander in and out of her work. Though she's been recording since 1971 and released many great albums, her biggest commercial hits were "Nick of Time" released in 1989 and 1991's "Luck of the Draw."
The latter yielded the hits "Something to Talk About" and "I Can't Make You Love Me." After 1994's "Longing in Their Hearts," Raitt was back in 1998 with "Fundamental," with "Silver Lining" in 2002 and with her 18th release, "Souls Alike," in 2005,
In March of 2000, Raitt was inducted into the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame. Her tight-knit touring band includes James 'Hutch' Hutchinson on bass, who has played with her since 1982, George Marinelli on guitar, Jon Cleary on keyboards and Ricky Fataar on drums, who has played with her on and off since 1979.
Accompanying her at River Run this Thursday night is a blues musician not unlike Raitt. Keb' Mo adeptly balances between the Delta blues and a sophisticated pop songwriting style.
Raitt, an outspoken and involved activist, brings another component to her summer tour, the Green Highway Eco-Village. The Green Highway provides a venue at Raitt's concerts for eco-friendly non-profits so they can get their message out about sustainable energy and environmentalism. In the tour's effort to reduce gasoline consumption, their buses and trucks run on B20 (a blend of 20 percent biodiesel and 80 percent petroleum diesel).
The peerless Bonnie Raitt brings multihued blues to Ketchum this Thursday. Photo by Sam Jones
