Bonnie Raitt Talks with David Remnick

The New Yorker Radio Hour

WNYC Studios and The New Yorker

Politics, Arts, News, Wnyc, Books, David, Storytelling, Society & Culture, Yorker, New, Remnick

4.2 • 6.2K Ratings

🗓️ 3 February 2023

⏱️ 22 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

You couldn’t write a history of American music without a solid chapter on Bonnie Raitt. From her roots as a blues guitarist, she’s created a gorgeous melange of rock, R. & B., blues, folk, and country—helping to establish a new category now known as Americana. But she’s far from resting on her laurels; her latest album, “Just Like That . . . ,” is nominated for four Grammy Awards this year, including Song of the Year—a category in which her competition includes Beyoncé and Adele, stars a generation younger than Raitt. She talks with David Remnick about her early career in the blues clubs of Boston; the relationship between older Black artists and the nineteen-sixties generation of younger white afficionados; and the state of the genre today. “The way that blues and R. & B. and soul music [are] interwoven with so many different styles now . . . the cross pollination of influences that streaming has made possible—it means that blues is always at the root of whatever funky music is out at the time,” she says. Raitt also reflects on how finding sobriety in her forties changed her music. “I think a lot of us are busy putting on a big persona—proving ourselves in the world—for the first two decades of our careers,” she says. “I became more who I really am at forty-one than I was at thirty-one.”

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.
0:09.7	Welcome to The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. The upcoming Grammy Awards have got us thinking about music.
0:17.2	Next week, we'll have the rapper Chuck D. in conversation with our own Kelifassane.
0:22.0	And right now, a pioneer in the genre known as Americana.
0:30.1	Now, you couldn't write the history of American music without a solid chapter on Bonnie Rae.
0:37.3	Her body of work is this gorgeous melange of rock,
0:41.4	R&B, blues, folk, and country. And she's a hell of a slide guitarist to boot.
0:52.5	Rather than resting on her laurels after 50 years in music, Bonnie Raid is still productive,
0:58.1	still making records, and she's never strayed very far from the mainstream of pop music.
1:04.5	So, Bonnie, I have to begin by congratulating you on all these Grammy nominations.
1:10.1	Four Grammy nominations, Best Americana Album, Best Americana Performance,
1:14.8	Best American Roots Song, and Song of the Year.
1:18.0	That's pretty amazing.
1:19.6	I was pretty surprised, so thank you so much.
1:22.5	I'm pretty chuffed, as they say, in England, yeah.
1:25.8	Bonnie is nominated alongside some of the biggest stars in pop music today,
1:29.8	and I wanted to get her take on their music,
1:33.0	and we started with Adele.
1:35.8	Okay.
1:38.3	There ain't no gold in this river
1:43.7	that I've been washing my hands in forever
1:50.4	I know there is hope
	...

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