Bonnie Raitt Gettin’ Better With Time

Originally published in the Herald-Times, October 15, 2000. Reprinted here with permission.

Bonnie Raitt relishes the long road that snakes and turns and carries her into uncharted territory. Like the one that transformed her from a little-known coffeehouse blues singer into a multi-Grammy award winner whose success came in the Nick of Time.

There’s the path that connects her Quaker roots to a life of social activism in environmental protection, women’s rights, and most recently, the plight of Native Americans.

It’s been an amazing ride so far, she’ll tell you. But with 15 albums under her belt and nearly 30 years in the music business, there’s so much more waiting around the bend.

You can hear the anticipation in her voice when she talks about the recent Indigo Girls “Honor the Earth Tour,” which took her — along with Joan Baez and the rock band Indigenous — into Montana to encourage Native American voter registration.

You hear it when she mentions her participation in the American Masters Series’ tribute to Muddy Waters — a project designed to educate children on the importance of blues in American history — and even more so when she talks about the Rhythm and Blues Foundation she helped found to improve the financial condition, recognition, and royalty rates of a generation of R&B pioneers.

And it’s especially apparent in her music, which changes in nuance but remains as soulful and bluesy as ever. There’s a vibrance to her voice — a slow-burning passion throughout her. And musically there’s greater depth, resonance, and sexiness with each passing project.

“I’ve got a full life,” she says of a schedule that sounds nerve-shattering in its demand. “It’s not hectic, just full. I do lots of benefits and when I start recording again next year, I’ll be busy with that. I do it because I love my job.”

Even discussions of her recent induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame take a back seat to things more recent.

“That was last spring,” she says, brushing it aside like old news.

She’s more interested in discussing her upcoming concert in Bloomington — and a meeting that didn’t quite happen.

“I was so heartbroken,” Raitt says of missing Zimbabwean pop star Oliver Mtukudzi during his recent U.S. tour. He was scheduled to perform at Bloomington’s Lotus Festival but returned home early after his mother’s death.

Still, Mtukudzi’s presence lives on in her music. Her latest CD, Fundamental, ends with a track called “One Belief Away,” inspired by Mtukudzi’s song “What’s Going On.”

“My bass player Hutch Hutchinson played me this song on the bus,” she recalls.

“I don’t know if you had a song when you were a kid that you played over and over... like when I was 15, I played ‘Satisfaction’ by the Rolling Stones over and over again. Well, this song by Oliver Mtukudzi was just like that. I fell so in love with it.”

Raitt reached out to Mtukudzi, asking to base a song on his music. He agreed.

“It was just very insinuating the way the collaboration happened long distance,” she says. “And he was a real sweetheart to say, ‘You know, I love what you did with it.’”

They met at the W.O.M.A.D. Festival in Seattle and became fast friends.

“I respect his music and who he is so much,” she says softly.

That same spirit of connection drives much of what she does — from her musical collaborations to her activism to the producers she chooses.

“I loved working with Don Was and Ed Cherney on my last four albums,” she says, “but I wanted a change — something different for me and for the fans.”

For Fundamental, she worked with Mitchell Froom and Tchad Blake (of Sheryl Crow and Los Lobos fame). The result was rawer and more textured.

One standout track is “Cure for Love,” written by David Hidalgo and Louis Perez of Los Lobos.

“That’s Los Lobos playing on it,” she says excitedly. “I’m playing guitar but David’s playing almost all the other guitars and the bass on it.”

Another favorite is “Spit of Love,” a gritty, honky-tonk blues song she wrote herself.

“It’s fierce and came out of an acute bunch of feelings,” she says. “Not soft and lyrical like ‘Nick of Time,’ but equally effective.”

Raitt will offer many of these tracks, along with fan favorites, when she performs at Indiana University Auditorium on Tuesday at 7:30 p.m.

Then it’s off again — to the next stage, the next cause, the next adventure.