Singer, songwriter, guitarist

Bonnie Raitt first garnered acclaim and attention with her self-titled debut album in 1971. Performing in the rock-blues traditions, many felt she would meet with the same level of success that pop-country phenomenon Linda Ronstadt achieved during the 1970s. But despite Raitt's maintaining a faithful following of fans, she did not obtain truly widespread popularity until the release of her tenth album, Nick of Time. Both the title track and the single "Thing Called Love" scored hits for her.

Raitt was born on November 8, 1949, to musical parents. Her father, John Raitt, was a Broadway singing star famed for performing the male lead in "Carousel," and her mother, Marjorie, was a talented pianist. Raitt taught herself to play guitar when she was only nine years old; she confided to Kim Hubbard in People that her choice of instrument was influenced by her belief that "I'd never be as good on piano as my mother." As Raitt grew older, supported by her politically active, Quaker parents, she became interested in protest music. She played political songs in parks and "thought [folk and protest singer] Joan Baez was just about God," she told Hubbard.

Her interest in both politics and music continued when she matriculated at Radcliffe College. In addition to protesting the Vietnam War, Raitt studied African culture with the goal of becoming a social worker in Tanzania. But she also played in coffeehouses near Radcliffe, and became acquainted with many well-known blues artists, including Junior Wells. As Raitt said to Hubbard, she was "hangin' out with 70-year-old blues guys who drank at 10 in the morning. My parents were a little concerned."

Eventually Raitt's love for music proved stronger than her will to work in Africa, and she dropped out of Radcliffe without graduating. Not long afterwards, she signed with Warner Brothers Records. Her first album, Bonnie Raitt, was primarily composed of traditional blues standards, and was well received, bringing her favorable comparisons with early 1970s peers like Ronstadt and Maria Muldaur. Raitt followed with other successes, 1972's Give It Up and 1973's Takin' My Time, but afterwards, though she remained at least somewhat popular with folk and blues fans, she put out six albums that Hubbard avowed "left critics lukewarm." Even so, many of the negative reviews blamed Raitt's material and the records' production rather than the singer's talent. While complaining that on an entire side of her 1986 album Nine Lives "the mix is off," James Hunter in Rolling Stone praised the "powerfully lucid traces of [rhythm and blues] in her voice" and admitted that Raitt's singing "at its best . . . [blows] away both her influences and her competition." In the same vein, a People reviewer groused about Nine Lives' "numbing similarity of tempo across most of the LP's 10 tracks," while affirming that "Raitt is still a vibrant, aggressive singer."

Apparently the decline of Raitt's albums in critical favor coincided with struggle in her personal life. After devoting herself during the late 1970s to playing for causes such as the anti-nuclear movement, she found herself "depressed by how conservative [the United States] had become," according to Ron Givens in Newsweek. In addition, she ended a longtime love relationship, drank heavily, and put on weight. Raitt explained to Hubbard: "I wasn't kicking and screaming into dementia, but I did have a complete emotional, physical and spiritual breakdown."

But in 1987 Raitt agreed to work on a project with pop superstar Prince, one that included making a video. She was ashamed of her weight, and this inspired her to get her life into better order. "It's one thing to go onstage if you're a little chunky," Raitt told Hubbard, "it's another to make a video with a guy who's known for looking foxy. I decided to lose weight, which you can't do if you're drinking all the time." Though the project with Prince was never completed, Raitt continued with her good intentions, joining Alcoholics Anonymous. "I still stay up and jam," she explained to Givens. "It's just that I can remember everything I did the next day and I don't have to feel sick."

Paralleling Raitt's personal achievements, her 1989 effort Nick of Time not only won back critical favor for her but brought her greater popularity than she had ever experienced before. When the word "comeback" came up, she quipped to Givens: "I never had a hit record, so how can I come back?" But now she has several, including the album's title track, a song about coping with the aging process. A People reviewer lauded the entire disc, saying that "throughout, the sound is intimate, clear, honest." Though thrilled with her newfound success, Raitt is more pleased with her potential for longevity. "I think my fans will follow me into our combined old age," she told Hubbard. "Real musicians and real fans stay together for a long, long time."

—Elizabeth Thomas