When Andy told me he loved Bonnie's 3rd album, I had to try and arrange a collab of some sort! I loved Bonnie, in real time, from her 1971 start (I was 16), and even met her the following year!
My expectations were high, but you have exceeded them so much that I am genuinely, truthfully speechless (which doesn't happen very often 😅). It was a tremendous honour to collaborate with you once again. I find it really moving that, across different generations, continents, contexts, life experiences and a million etceteras, we both stumbled upon Bonnie; you, early on in the game, and from the vicinity; me, much later, from far afield. And yet, the fact we both felt comforted, embraced, sort of, by her voice and her music says so much about her brilliance as an artist, musician and peformer (and although I haven't, unlike you, met her, I am pretty confident we can certainly add "person" to the list).
It was particularly interesting and informative for me to learn, in this article, about her early life and her career beginnings, especially her experience opening for blues legends, and what she said about how much she absorbed from them (not only as musicians but also as individuals). Come to think of it, she sounded already SO seasoned on this, her third effort, in genres and in contexts where women had to work twice as hard (sadly still the case, but especially at the time).
Brad, what an absolute pleasure to be your friend, and what a blessing to have met you. Thank you!!!
Thanks so much, Andy! I love your first and third paragraphs for your sweet words para mi, as well as Bonnie's talents! But, your middle paragraph, for me, is why I was so eager to do this with you. I wouldn't have been surprised if you had already known about her "musical altruism," and her decades of lifting up her (and our) R&B forefathers and mothers!
But, because you didn't (or, were "lightly informed"), I was excited to be the one to bring you this heartwarming and inspiring part of what makes her such a treasure! Call it my🎁to you! When we first discovered our mutual Bonnie-love, that's the first thing I thought of....."I wonder if he knows of her love and dedication to the ones who came before!"
And, your extra songs and feelings were the last beautiful thing it all needed to be cohesive, and give it the💖we know Bonnie deserves, after all she's given us! To paraphrase Ivy Jo Hunter's, Clarence Paul's, and William Stevenson's song we both adore, "We've Been In Love [with Bonnie] Too Long" to give her any less!🙏🎵✨
Thank you, Brad! As always your intution was spot on, as I didn't actually know a lot about her background. I have several of her albums on vinyl (including, of course, Takin' My Time), but I'd never actually read a lot about her early days. It's also, undoubtedly, helped me gain a whole new level of appreciation for her and for this record that, as you know, is so close to my heart, and packed with so many personal memories for me.
It was such a good idea to include the selection of songs as it helped me reminisce and connect with it all even more!
We have, indeed, been in love with Bonnie too long... especally you! More than five decades, if my math is correct!
Thanks, Taz! I keep reminding myself to do that more often….there are many here who know nothing of what we published in all of ‘25, and certainly before!
Raitt is an all-time great, not just guitar but vocals and song choices and both of you in your own ways attest to the ways her music finds you, understands you, and leaves you altered.
Thank you so much, Emm! Brad did such a great job coming up with the concept for this post and putting it together. I'm so glad he dug it out of the vault and that it resonated with you. I love the way you described what her music does to you. So true.
Thanks, Andy....I appreciate the "directorial" compliments! I'd really like to do some more Archive featuring....we all have new readers who've never looked beyond last week's/month's posts! I'll highlight some of our Whitney things, too, Andy (I'll leave Wednesday alone, along those lines, as I won't want to pull focus from your IG).
I know, Boobie...and, you're sweet.....but, for one day, I've got lady-posts aplenty I can feature! You'll have your manos full con su escribes (I love using my butchered Spanish)!!! But, you can TELL what I'm saying...however clumsily I say it!!!😍
I loved the humor of the early albums. And the range. And you both get at that from very unique perspectives. Not to mention the way her voice just commands all your attention. I have always thought of her as an underrated singer, but I might be an outlier there.
I wholeheartedly agree. Her singing is a real gem. Clean, genuine, nicely placed sound, right on the centre of the pitch, and let’s not even mention her emotional delivery.
I just fell for Bonnie's warmth and personality (and her dimples!!). For me, that came thru the vinyl, and how that stood her apart (for me) from the shouting Janis's, and the introspective Joni's, Carly's, et al! Especially for teenboy, Brad, who, otherwise was rocking big-time with the Tulls and Deep Purples! I'm just glad I didn't let Bonnie's songs "go by me"!
You were ahead of your time. But you had an advantage. Her voice is a strong part of her appeal, and maybe earlier radio play would have helped. I don't know. I still kind of wish the Prince project had materialized in full. But I don't think she was at her best at that point.
Well, thanks…..but, Bonnie’s a perfect example of the artist communicating thru the vinyl, with her music, voice, and personality! I mean, she (for me) had to break thru all the other music (mostly sharing space with her on her label’s roster!!) that Daddy was bestowing on me, and that was hitting my turntable!
The other Warner female artist who I ended up adoring was Wendy Waldman. I tried like the dickens to make her a star in Baton Rouge, mid-’70s….that story’s here:
Thanks, Emm! I'm glad you read and enjoyed this! All of what you say is what I wanted to compare and contrast.....from across generations and continents, how Bonnie and her talents hit our respective 💘s!
Andy and I love the same things about her as much as there are special things in her songs and musicianship we also might hold singular and dear!
I will admit I was always more into the earlier albums for their humor, their rootsiness, their mix of songs, but more recently came around to the Capitol-era breakthroughs. You may want to check out Ellen McIlwaine, if you haven't. She may be the best guitar player of her generation and was hopscotching blues, folk, rock, etc., like Raitt.
I was on McIlwaine, Emm, with her '70s stuff....getting the promos at the radio stations and record store I was at. She never clicked with me....She seemed to have an unfortunate turn with record labels: In the '70s, her coupla albums were on middlin' (major, but middlin'!) labels like Polydor and UA....not exactly CBS or WB!
Post-'70s, then, she landed with indies or regionals, I'm noticing. All of which would mean little if I truly was drawn to her style/output.....this one comes down to personality....I just SO fell for Bonnie and her persona as she played her music....especially on record, first, and then, meeting her was tops!! Her Capitol output, I followed, but will always love her WB stuff more....but, I was deliriously happy for her success!
Brad, I don't even know if her best album, The Real EM, reached the US. She is a unique talent, vocally and instrumentally. Much looser, even rawer, than her contemporaries. And the way her voice and her guitar interlock is such that it requires a bit of acclimation because it is so fluid that there's no solid ground. So, yeah, she's not for everyone. But she is so underrated and overlooked, and so relegated to regional/small labels that I don't think she'll ever get a proper reconsideration. And that guts me. The way she played, she deserved better than to wind down driving a school bus. But I am that music fan who always roots for the underdogs, so I may be biased :)
No…..her ‘75 “Real” album was only released in Canada and Argentina (per Discogs)!! Argentina’s release, though, was on United Artists, the label that, in the States, released her S/T album in ‘78.
I thought as much. Just so you know, that UA '78 release is a disaster. Everything that made her unique efficiently swept away to make her chart friendly. Anyone who starts with that will likely not walk but run away from her. I know she wanted to put as much distance between herself and that album too.
Wow, this was fantastic! I’m sure I must’ve ready Andy’s piece when he wrote it, but for whatever reason I didn’t check the album out. I’m so glad Brad put this back in my radar as I’m loving what I’m hearing as I work my way through the album. And I loved Andy’s reminiscences, particularly on the ability of music to instantly transport us back to a place and time in our lives and have us reliving those moments, whether good or bad.
I loved the Letterman video, both Bonnie’s solo performance and her performance with Sippie Wallace. I hadn’t been aware of just how much Raitt had worked with some of the foundational Blues artists in her youth.
Somewhat embarrassingly, I only heard of Bonnie Raitt for the first time in 1989 when I went to university in Canada and her Nick of Time album was everywhere. My musical universe was still quite small in those days and I didn’t really have an appreciation of the blues or their impact on the development of rock and roll and R&B. But I remember really enjoying the bigger hits from that album and that was the beginning of a five year stretch where my musical universe expanded exponentially.
Thank you so much, Mark! Brad did a brilliant job, as always, crafting the narrative, telling the story, filling in the gaps and, what I loved the most about this post (his idea, to which I gladly jumped in!) was how he contrasted his experience discovering Bonnie in the early days with my experience of basically just stumbling upon her early 70s work pretty much by accident!
Indeed music connects us, helps us heal, and takes us places, literally and figuratively. I struggle to think of anything more powerful than music, to be honest (maybe love, but that's just about it... and they're intertwined).
Thanks, Mark! This was really a gas to put together with Andy! So many people picked up on Bonnie with her late-'80s and beyond Capitol Records output....chiefly because of the hits....and, I couldn't be happier for her! But, that popularity seemed to forever bury her '70s Warner Bros. sides (at least, for many '90s listeners). Had her low-sales-'70s and hit-'90s been on the same label, you'd have no problem with, say, Capitol re-releasing the low-selling '70s product, or, in compilations, re-issue them!
But, as her career was largely split into those two corporate elements (low sales on one label, with hits, sales, and Grammys for the other label), the "hardest work" for either "camp" would have to be by the Capitol-era fans to dig and search for her earlier work. If you only knew and cherished Bonnie's Warners work, you couldn't avoid her hit '90s decade as it was happening....radio wouldn't let you!
Again, good for Bonnie! It took her several decades, but both of those parts of her career put her in the rare corner of artists who have earned legit critical praise for her singing, guitar playing and recorded songs, as well as having earned latter-career massive sales with numerous awards!
It’s great that Warner let her continue to make records that weren’t hits. Can’t see any labels doing that nowadays. She could so easily have slipped into obscurity if she’d been on another label that didn’t have the commitment and patience.
You're right about the differences in label "tolerance" from this century to the last, Mark! And, even within THAT dynamic (as mentioned somewhere else here), the differences in label philosophies was (or could be) radically different: Warners' artist-friendly "do what you want, Bonnie, we'll make our $ on Deep Purple and Black Sabbath!" was so rare and eagerly coveted by artists!
On the other hand, a label monolith like Columbia....as an artist, you knew you had the clout and dough of their distribution network and army of local and regional reps to help get your singles heard on AM (and albums delivered to FM), but none of that helped poor '70s-era artists like Columbia's Jules & The Polar Bears, Artful Dodger, Cecilio & Kapono (and, those were all on Columbia proper....the list is much longer for artists on CBS's Epic and associated labels!)---all of these bands made everything from perfectly solid albums to truly brilliant ones....but, if you don't get radio play, no one knows you've got your product in the bins at record stores!
And, as you've been reading, I only know of these artists because of Dad's bringing home (and giving to me) the CBS promos of the day! By 1975 (I was 20), I was in radio myself, and could, now, get my own grubby mitts on promos, myself....even to the point of being able to saunter into the regional CBS office in NW Houston anytime I wanted, enter their vaunted "closet of promos," and take my pick!!
I distinctly remember this particular day and album: Late August 1975, the week Springsteen's "Born to Run" album was released. I walk into the CBS promo closet, and along with other new releases dutifully stacked, vertically, on the shelves, there it was: About a two-foot wide swath of the wide, white spine of "Born to Run"! Being a gatefold jacket, it had a wider spine.
Check the spines on your (domestic....U.S.) Columbia albums: At the top is about a one-inch tall array of diagonal lines, above which is the CBS album catalog number (in "Born to Run"'s case, it was something like PC 33750--I actually had this stuff memorized at the time! Especially the hit albums....for no other reason than the fact that I could! With that display of "Born to Run"s in front of me, it was easy to pick one that had those lines perfectly aligned...right ON the spine....some had those lines drifting to one side of the front or back cover...and, we can't have THAT!!😂My OCD-Lite comes to full flower! Oh, what a time, Mark!
You know it! And, I didn't take it lightly! Not only did I have the benefit of knowing the folks there ("Oh, aren't you Ed's kid?" kinda thing! And, Dad made a weekly trek over there, himself!), but by that time, too, I had my own credentials (curiously nothing tangible, but, they could certainly tune into KLOL FM-101 to hear me from time to time...and, Dad could happily verify for them)!
And, Warner Bros. had a local office, and I got to know Rob Sides very well, too (he couldn't have been 30 yet!). I wrote at length about Rob and my access to his stash of WB and Sire promo items here:
Bonnie practically put John Prine, Eric Kaz, and Libby Titus on the map....at least to me. I began digging around finding out more about them (mostly in the rock mags of the day). She even gave early cover love to Joni, Jackson Browne, J.D. Souther, and James Taylor....and, all that on top of the spotlight she shone on the blues giants that came before.
I just noticed, Rick, that 'twas Bonnie who was the first to record "Love Has No Pride," followed a year later (10/73) by Linda Ronstadt. And, their two arrangements perfectly illustrate what I mentioned in the piece comparing the two (in response to peoples' questions over the years). On that song (IMO), like so many others by each, Linda belts in your ear; Bonnie whispers to your heart.
Toward the end of Bonnie's, in fact, where the melody takes her into a higher register, it almost sounds like she's switching to falsetto (despite the fact some have said women can't/don't do that....physically). All I know is that where Linda wants to impress you with her strident, brassy instrument at every turn, Bonnie is content to deliver her aches just leaning in a little bit closer.
I have always been torn about Ronstadt. She was obviously an amazing vocalist & gave attention to songwriters who really deserved the help.
But because her voice was so powerful, she often just blasted through a song & that makes it less interesting to me. Honestly, I rarely listen to her music anymore. And when I do, it's primarily music from early in her career, when she was still focused on that country/rock POV.
It's interesting to think about what her albums would have sounded like if she had not have blown up commercially in the way she did and continued to release those gentler albums.
And that's a great point about that Raitt shift in register. That's the moment in the performance that always stood out for me.
I have recently found myself digging back through that moment in music. So many great singer/songwriter albums & one-off singles that no one has ever heard. If I was going to do a music newsletter, that's probably what I would focus on.
Good points! Andy and I did a face time thing earlier today where we discussed (after listening to) both arrangements by Bonnie and Linda on "Love Has No Pride." We came to a consensus that Linda can belt on any song she wants to, but, we appreciate Bonnie's more appropriate and self-aware style choices in how to deliver this part of a song or that.
Linda's approach reminds me of that joke about the golf-playing gorilla, who can consistently send a drive off the tee 500 yards. Of course, armed with a putter with a lie on the green, his resulting 500-yard "putt" kinda defeats the purpose, not to mention zeroes out his rare "gift"!
That's such a funny analogy 😅 but it's so true. In addition to the very good points you both made, I also feel Bonnie adds so much by way of dynamics (in all of her performances, but in this one, the dynamics are particularly noticeable). This is in great part what brings that storytelling quality that goes so well with this song. Her vocal control is of the stature of the great big female vocalists, and her soulful delivery makes my heart melt every single time.
That was a Dad joke from loooong ago he told my bro and me, Andy! To a 10-year-old, it' also an hilarious visual! Great extra points you make re: Bonnie's style and vocal caressing.
I stumbled upon this rare video of her singing this with her longtime bassist, Freebo (he of the fretless bass!), who also provides harmonies.
I'm guessing this was on a TV show, as it's got great camera work (and a live audience), and I'm also guessing it's solidly in the 1973 time frame. With her "Give It Up" album being released in September '72, this video could be as early as later that year. The video poster also begins the video a second time right after the first play ends!
Beautiful! Thank you! I like the slight variations she does here, and the harmonies are a very nice touch. I love the camera close up on her face during the bridge. Goosebumps!
Thank you, Joe! Masterminded and beautifully crafted by Brad. It was such a pleasure for me to collaborate with him on this and to reconnect with this record.
Great write-up guys. Such a great artist but although I have worked at Warner Belgium and was responsible for catalogue exploitation, I never really was into her Warner catalogue. For me it started with her 89 album Nick Of Time, the first Capitol album. I should listen to the earlier repertoire again.
Thank you, Pe! It was all Brad's brilliant work (he came up with the idea, designed the concept, and crafted the narrative). I was happy to make a small contribution and reminisce about my early twenties messy life! If you guys think I am sassy now... the current me is the toned-down, "mature" (sort of 😂) version!
I agree with Brad that her first records are pure gold. For me, this, Takin' My Time, is her absolute best, but I am obviously biased by my own memories discovering it and "living" through it (almost 40 years after its release... that's bonkers if you think about it!).
Thanks a lot for reading and commenting. Hope you're having a nice Sunday!
So much of it is time and place, Pe, and my experience is somewhat topsy-turvy from yours! Having been exposed so early (in my life as well as her career) to her Warners output, that's what I adore. I was certainly pleased for her Capitol success, but my heart just wasn't attaching itself to those songs (although I enjoyed hearing her performances) as the early ones did.
Plus (not that I knew it at the time), but apparently her Capitol years followed years of her being plagued by her personal demons, then having her get over drinking (and whatever), which helped her step into those "hit years" with more gusto and clarity!
I think you'd enjoy listening to her first three albums Andy and I highlighted here, and "listen with new ears" to discover the early- to mid-20s Bonnie, for not only what motivated her songs in that period, but, how it might have informed what she did (and, how she did it) 15 years later!
Thanks, Pe....you, as well! You might find a Bonnie "re-do" on those early albums worth a refreshing article or two for "The Twelve Inch"! A bit "off-brand," it might appear at first glance, but I'm not so sure! As Bonnie would tell us (as she helped Mr. Letterman grok), there's a lot of cross-over in what we call blues and rhythm'n'blues!
Or........how close did Bonnie come to danceable tracks on her late-'70s thru early-'80s Warner Bros output? I'm not suggesting she "went disco," but, I'd be curious to guess/wonder/postulate on how close might the suits at The Label of The Bunny have wanted her to get to "giving them a dance hit"?😁
Or, check good ole secondhandsongs.com to see if any artist has ever done a dance/disco cover arrangement on any of her early-'70s album tracks?😱
Keep us posted, if you'd like, too! Happy week as you go!
As I may have mentioned before, the plan behind The Twelve Inch has always been, apart from the weeklies, to write a series of episodes tracing the evolution of dance music (the missing episode 1 to 99). One of the planned themes is about influences, both the ones that shaped artists and the ones they passed on. I hadn’t originally thought of including her in that particular part of the story, but you make a very solid point. So yes, I’m pretty sure I’ll get there!
It’s a lot of research, though, so I can’t say when that section will kick off or in what order the topics will appear, but I’m slowly making progress.
As for the idea that Warner might have played a role in shaping that direction: honestly, I doubt it. The quote you used in your article, “make whatever music you like”, is classic Warner. When I was still at Universal in the early 2000s, the boss of Warner Belgium headhunted me specifically because they were the last major to enter the compilation business and needed someone with experience. As a music geek, I didn’t need much convincing. The Warner catalogue? Absolute gold, and largely underused at the time.
But the moment I joined and attended my first international meeting, I understood why: unlike other labels, Warner had extremely artist-friendly (or let’s say “restrictive” 😁) contracts. What was common practice elsewhere, like getting artists to agree to compilation requests, was nearly impossible at Warner. Even if they had wanted to push an artist in a certain direction, I don’t think they would’ve had much leverage.
And then there’s the whole story of how the majors responded to the disco boom, most of them didn’t get it, and they certainly couldn’t control it. Another topic that’s definitely going to be covered in a future episode.
One of the best parts of being here on Substack is exactly this kind of exchange, feeding off each other’s ideas, discoveries, and insights. So thank you both for putting her back on my radar. Truly appreciated!
All great points, Pe, and certainly more than valid, taking your in-house experience into account! You're right, as you remind me, about the Warner brass possibly pushing Bonnie into a more commercial sound as disco was flowering! Of course they wouldn't....and, even if they had, she'd-a laughed in their faces! We know Bonnie.😁She had to have appreciated, for her decade+ there, the artistic freedom they afforded her.
Looking forward to seeing how you grow The Twelve Inch (see what I did there?) in the coming months! I love how you've tweaked and jiggled a few things around to make your site so much more expansive to a bigger audience, and made things so accessible and relatable! You've also made an impact on Notes with your recognizable style and content! Onward!🎵✨
Bonnie tackles Joni.....I had forgotten! She was writing quite sporadically on these early albums, preferring to cover songs by (mostly) her contemporaries! I wonder if that was a decision to give props to those who were "running along side her," or, a bit of an off-shoot of her altruism toward the older blues artists she had just then started to champion!
I was talking earlier today with a favorite fellow #MusicStack writer in starting a new lane where we take a song's cover (like this one) and compare the original recorded by the songwriter! The goal would be to guess (or find interviews with artists) for their rationales on how/why they made various arrangement decisions. Stay tuned!
And, thanks for reading, enjoying, and commenting, Rich! Don't be a stranger!
Bonnie certainly did offer interpretations of songs by others. “Under Falling Skies” is quite different from Jackson Browne’s. Another interesting note from “Streetlights”: it’s her recorded version of “Angel From Montgomery” which she clearly made her own.
My expectations were high, but you have exceeded them so much that I am genuinely, truthfully speechless (which doesn't happen very often 😅). It was a tremendous honour to collaborate with you once again. I find it really moving that, across different generations, continents, contexts, life experiences and a million etceteras, we both stumbled upon Bonnie; you, early on in the game, and from the vicinity; me, much later, from far afield. And yet, the fact we both felt comforted, embraced, sort of, by her voice and her music says so much about her brilliance as an artist, musician and peformer (and although I haven't, unlike you, met her, I am pretty confident we can certainly add "person" to the list).
It was particularly interesting and informative for me to learn, in this article, about her early life and her career beginnings, especially her experience opening for blues legends, and what she said about how much she absorbed from them (not only as musicians but also as individuals). Come to think of it, she sounded already SO seasoned on this, her third effort, in genres and in contexts where women had to work twice as hard (sadly still the case, but especially at the time).
Brad, what an absolute pleasure to be your friend, and what a blessing to have met you. Thank you!!!
Thanks so much, Andy! I love your first and third paragraphs for your sweet words para mi, as well as Bonnie's talents! But, your middle paragraph, for me, is why I was so eager to do this with you. I wouldn't have been surprised if you had already known about her "musical altruism," and her decades of lifting up her (and our) R&B forefathers and mothers!
But, because you didn't (or, were "lightly informed"), I was excited to be the one to bring you this heartwarming and inspiring part of what makes her such a treasure! Call it my🎁to you! When we first discovered our mutual Bonnie-love, that's the first thing I thought of....."I wonder if he knows of her love and dedication to the ones who came before!"
And, your extra songs and feelings were the last beautiful thing it all needed to be cohesive, and give it the💖we know Bonnie deserves, after all she's given us! To paraphrase Ivy Jo Hunter's, Clarence Paul's, and William Stevenson's song we both adore, "We've Been In Love [with Bonnie] Too Long" to give her any less!🙏🎵✨
Thank you, Brad! As always your intution was spot on, as I didn't actually know a lot about her background. I have several of her albums on vinyl (including, of course, Takin' My Time), but I'd never actually read a lot about her early days. It's also, undoubtedly, helped me gain a whole new level of appreciation for her and for this record that, as you know, is so close to my heart, and packed with so many personal memories for me.
It was such a good idea to include the selection of songs as it helped me reminisce and connect with it all even more!
We have, indeed, been in love with Bonnie too long... especally you! More than five decades, if my math is correct!
Thanks again for the trust and for your patience!
I missed this because it came out when I was still very new to Substack. Perfect time to bring it back. Great work!
Thank you, Taz! Really glad you enjoyed.
Thanks, Taz! I keep reminding myself to do that more often….there are many here who know nothing of what we published in all of ‘25, and certainly before!
Raitt is an all-time great, not just guitar but vocals and song choices and both of you in your own ways attest to the ways her music finds you, understands you, and leaves you altered.
Thank you so much, Emm! Brad did such a great job coming up with the concept for this post and putting it together. I'm so glad he dug it out of the vault and that it resonated with you. I love the way you described what her music does to you. So true.
Thanks, Andy....I appreciate the "directorial" compliments! I'd really like to do some more Archive featuring....we all have new readers who've never looked beyond last week's/month's posts! I'll highlight some of our Whitney things, too, Andy (I'll leave Wednesday alone, along those lines, as I won't want to pull focus from your IG).
Thank you so much for being so thoughtful as always. But feel free to follow your own schedule. There’s room for everyone 🥰
I know, Boobie...and, you're sweet.....but, for one day, I've got lady-posts aplenty I can feature! You'll have your manos full con su escribes (I love using my butchered Spanish)!!! But, you can TELL what I'm saying...however clumsily I say it!!!😍
Lol 😂😂😂you rock!!! Thanks again!
I loved the humor of the early albums. And the range. And you both get at that from very unique perspectives. Not to mention the way her voice just commands all your attention. I have always thought of her as an underrated singer, but I might be an outlier there.
I wholeheartedly agree. Her singing is a real gem. Clean, genuine, nicely placed sound, right on the centre of the pitch, and let’s not even mention her emotional delivery.
I just fell for Bonnie's warmth and personality (and her dimples!!). For me, that came thru the vinyl, and how that stood her apart (for me) from the shouting Janis's, and the introspective Joni's, Carly's, et al! Especially for teenboy, Brad, who, otherwise was rocking big-time with the Tulls and Deep Purples! I'm just glad I didn't let Bonnie's songs "go by me"!
You were ahead of your time. But you had an advantage. Her voice is a strong part of her appeal, and maybe earlier radio play would have helped. I don't know. I still kind of wish the Prince project had materialized in full. But I don't think she was at her best at that point.
Well, thanks…..but, Bonnie’s a perfect example of the artist communicating thru the vinyl, with her music, voice, and personality! I mean, she (for me) had to break thru all the other music (mostly sharing space with her on her label’s roster!!) that Daddy was bestowing on me, and that was hitting my turntable!
The other Warner female artist who I ended up adoring was Wendy Waldman. I tried like the dickens to make her a star in Baton Rouge, mid-’70s….that story’s here:
https://bradkyle.substack.com/p/behind-the-mic-a-personal-peek-into-870?utm_source=publication-search
Thanks, Emm! I'm glad you read and enjoyed this! All of what you say is what I wanted to compare and contrast.....from across generations and continents, how Bonnie and her talents hit our respective 💘s!
Andy and I love the same things about her as much as there are special things in her songs and musicianship we also might hold singular and dear!
I will admit I was always more into the earlier albums for their humor, their rootsiness, their mix of songs, but more recently came around to the Capitol-era breakthroughs. You may want to check out Ellen McIlwaine, if you haven't. She may be the best guitar player of her generation and was hopscotching blues, folk, rock, etc., like Raitt.
I was on McIlwaine, Emm, with her '70s stuff....getting the promos at the radio stations and record store I was at. She never clicked with me....She seemed to have an unfortunate turn with record labels: In the '70s, her coupla albums were on middlin' (major, but middlin'!) labels like Polydor and UA....not exactly CBS or WB!
Post-'70s, then, she landed with indies or regionals, I'm noticing. All of which would mean little if I truly was drawn to her style/output.....this one comes down to personality....I just SO fell for Bonnie and her persona as she played her music....especially on record, first, and then, meeting her was tops!! Her Capitol output, I followed, but will always love her WB stuff more....but, I was deliriously happy for her success!
Brad, I don't even know if her best album, The Real EM, reached the US. She is a unique talent, vocally and instrumentally. Much looser, even rawer, than her contemporaries. And the way her voice and her guitar interlock is such that it requires a bit of acclimation because it is so fluid that there's no solid ground. So, yeah, she's not for everyone. But she is so underrated and overlooked, and so relegated to regional/small labels that I don't think she'll ever get a proper reconsideration. And that guts me. The way she played, she deserved better than to wind down driving a school bus. But I am that music fan who always roots for the underdogs, so I may be biased :)
No…..her ‘75 “Real” album was only released in Canada and Argentina (per Discogs)!! Argentina’s release, though, was on United Artists, the label that, in the States, released her S/T album in ‘78.
I thought as much. Just so you know, that UA '78 release is a disaster. Everything that made her unique efficiently swept away to make her chart friendly. Anyone who starts with that will likely not walk but run away from her. I know she wanted to put as much distance between herself and that album too.
Wow, this was fantastic! I’m sure I must’ve ready Andy’s piece when he wrote it, but for whatever reason I didn’t check the album out. I’m so glad Brad put this back in my radar as I’m loving what I’m hearing as I work my way through the album. And I loved Andy’s reminiscences, particularly on the ability of music to instantly transport us back to a place and time in our lives and have us reliving those moments, whether good or bad.
I loved the Letterman video, both Bonnie’s solo performance and her performance with Sippie Wallace. I hadn’t been aware of just how much Raitt had worked with some of the foundational Blues artists in her youth.
Somewhat embarrassingly, I only heard of Bonnie Raitt for the first time in 1989 when I went to university in Canada and her Nick of Time album was everywhere. My musical universe was still quite small in those days and I didn’t really have an appreciation of the blues or their impact on the development of rock and roll and R&B. But I remember really enjoying the bigger hits from that album and that was the beginning of a five year stretch where my musical universe expanded exponentially.
Thank you so much, Mark! Brad did a brilliant job, as always, crafting the narrative, telling the story, filling in the gaps and, what I loved the most about this post (his idea, to which I gladly jumped in!) was how he contrasted his experience discovering Bonnie in the early days with my experience of basically just stumbling upon her early 70s work pretty much by accident!
Indeed music connects us, helps us heal, and takes us places, literally and figuratively. I struggle to think of anything more powerful than music, to be honest (maybe love, but that's just about it... and they're intertwined).
Thanks again!
Thanks, Mark! This was really a gas to put together with Andy! So many people picked up on Bonnie with her late-'80s and beyond Capitol Records output....chiefly because of the hits....and, I couldn't be happier for her! But, that popularity seemed to forever bury her '70s Warner Bros. sides (at least, for many '90s listeners). Had her low-sales-'70s and hit-'90s been on the same label, you'd have no problem with, say, Capitol re-releasing the low-selling '70s product, or, in compilations, re-issue them!
But, as her career was largely split into those two corporate elements (low sales on one label, with hits, sales, and Grammys for the other label), the "hardest work" for either "camp" would have to be by the Capitol-era fans to dig and search for her earlier work. If you only knew and cherished Bonnie's Warners work, you couldn't avoid her hit '90s decade as it was happening....radio wouldn't let you!
Again, good for Bonnie! It took her several decades, but both of those parts of her career put her in the rare corner of artists who have earned legit critical praise for her singing, guitar playing and recorded songs, as well as having earned latter-career massive sales with numerous awards!
It’s great that Warner let her continue to make records that weren’t hits. Can’t see any labels doing that nowadays. She could so easily have slipped into obscurity if she’d been on another label that didn’t have the commitment and patience.
You're right about the differences in label "tolerance" from this century to the last, Mark! And, even within THAT dynamic (as mentioned somewhere else here), the differences in label philosophies was (or could be) radically different: Warners' artist-friendly "do what you want, Bonnie, we'll make our $ on Deep Purple and Black Sabbath!" was so rare and eagerly coveted by artists!
On the other hand, a label monolith like Columbia....as an artist, you knew you had the clout and dough of their distribution network and army of local and regional reps to help get your singles heard on AM (and albums delivered to FM), but none of that helped poor '70s-era artists like Columbia's Jules & The Polar Bears, Artful Dodger, Cecilio & Kapono (and, those were all on Columbia proper....the list is much longer for artists on CBS's Epic and associated labels!)---all of these bands made everything from perfectly solid albums to truly brilliant ones....but, if you don't get radio play, no one knows you've got your product in the bins at record stores!
And, as you've been reading, I only know of these artists because of Dad's bringing home (and giving to me) the CBS promos of the day! By 1975 (I was 20), I was in radio myself, and could, now, get my own grubby mitts on promos, myself....even to the point of being able to saunter into the regional CBS office in NW Houston anytime I wanted, enter their vaunted "closet of promos," and take my pick!!
I distinctly remember this particular day and album: Late August 1975, the week Springsteen's "Born to Run" album was released. I walk into the CBS promo closet, and along with other new releases dutifully stacked, vertically, on the shelves, there it was: About a two-foot wide swath of the wide, white spine of "Born to Run"! Being a gatefold jacket, it had a wider spine.
Check the spines on your (domestic....U.S.) Columbia albums: At the top is about a one-inch tall array of diagonal lines, above which is the CBS album catalog number (in "Born to Run"'s case, it was something like PC 33750--I actually had this stuff memorized at the time! Especially the hit albums....for no other reason than the fact that I could! With that display of "Born to Run"s in front of me, it was easy to pick one that had those lines perfectly aligned...right ON the spine....some had those lines drifting to one side of the front or back cover...and, we can't have THAT!!😂My OCD-Lite comes to full flower! Oh, what a time, Mark!
Wow, what a privilege and a joy it must have been to be able to waltz into the promo vault!!
You know it! And, I didn't take it lightly! Not only did I have the benefit of knowing the folks there ("Oh, aren't you Ed's kid?" kinda thing! And, Dad made a weekly trek over there, himself!), but by that time, too, I had my own credentials (curiously nothing tangible, but, they could certainly tune into KLOL FM-101 to hear me from time to time...and, Dad could happily verify for them)!
And, Warner Bros. had a local office, and I got to know Rob Sides very well, too (he couldn't have been 30 yet!). I wrote at length about Rob and my access to his stash of WB and Sire promo items here:
https://bradkyle.substack.com/p/the-ramones-rocknroll-high-school?utm_source=publication-search
It was only a year ago, so you may have read it! But, it's chock full o' fun, and worth a second perusal!
"Give It Up" also included a cover of "Love Has No Pride" and that's a version just gutted me the first time I heard it. So much longing and pain.
Bonnie practically put John Prine, Eric Kaz, and Libby Titus on the map....at least to me. I began digging around finding out more about them (mostly in the rock mags of the day). She even gave early cover love to Joni, Jackson Browne, J.D. Souther, and James Taylor....and, all that on top of the spotlight she shone on the blues giants that came before.
I just noticed, Rick, that 'twas Bonnie who was the first to record "Love Has No Pride," followed a year later (10/73) by Linda Ronstadt. And, their two arrangements perfectly illustrate what I mentioned in the piece comparing the two (in response to peoples' questions over the years). On that song (IMO), like so many others by each, Linda belts in your ear; Bonnie whispers to your heart.
Toward the end of Bonnie's, in fact, where the melody takes her into a higher register, it almost sounds like she's switching to falsetto (despite the fact some have said women can't/don't do that....physically). All I know is that where Linda wants to impress you with her strident, brassy instrument at every turn, Bonnie is content to deliver her aches just leaning in a little bit closer.
I have always been torn about Ronstadt. She was obviously an amazing vocalist & gave attention to songwriters who really deserved the help.
But because her voice was so powerful, she often just blasted through a song & that makes it less interesting to me. Honestly, I rarely listen to her music anymore. And when I do, it's primarily music from early in her career, when she was still focused on that country/rock POV.
It's interesting to think about what her albums would have sounded like if she had not have blown up commercially in the way she did and continued to release those gentler albums.
And that's a great point about that Raitt shift in register. That's the moment in the performance that always stood out for me.
I have recently found myself digging back through that moment in music. So many great singer/songwriter albums & one-off singles that no one has ever heard. If I was going to do a music newsletter, that's probably what I would focus on.
Good points! Andy and I did a face time thing earlier today where we discussed (after listening to) both arrangements by Bonnie and Linda on "Love Has No Pride." We came to a consensus that Linda can belt on any song she wants to, but, we appreciate Bonnie's more appropriate and self-aware style choices in how to deliver this part of a song or that.
Linda's approach reminds me of that joke about the golf-playing gorilla, who can consistently send a drive off the tee 500 yards. Of course, armed with a putter with a lie on the green, his resulting 500-yard "putt" kinda defeats the purpose, not to mention zeroes out his rare "gift"!
That's such a funny analogy 😅 but it's so true. In addition to the very good points you both made, I also feel Bonnie adds so much by way of dynamics (in all of her performances, but in this one, the dynamics are particularly noticeable). This is in great part what brings that storytelling quality that goes so well with this song. Her vocal control is of the stature of the great big female vocalists, and her soulful delivery makes my heart melt every single time.
That was a Dad joke from loooong ago he told my bro and me, Andy! To a 10-year-old, it' also an hilarious visual! Great extra points you make re: Bonnie's style and vocal caressing.
I stumbled upon this rare video of her singing this with her longtime bassist, Freebo (he of the fretless bass!), who also provides harmonies.
I'm guessing this was on a TV show, as it's got great camera work (and a live audience), and I'm also guessing it's solidly in the 1973 time frame. With her "Give It Up" album being released in September '72, this video could be as early as later that year. The video poster also begins the video a second time right after the first play ends!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbqXMQCq59U
Enjoy.😉
Beautiful! Thank you! I like the slight variations she does here, and the harmonies are a very nice touch. I love the camera close up on her face during the bridge. Goosebumps!
Lovely homage to Bonnie and learned a lot I didn't know. Thank you!
Thank you, Ellen! So did I! Brad did, as always, such a brilliant job!
Thanks, Ellen....it was such a pleasure working with Andy on this! I'm glad you enjoyed!
Nice tribute!
Thank you, Joe! Masterminded and beautifully crafted by Brad. It was such a pleasure for me to collaborate with him on this and to reconnect with this record.
Thanks, Joe.....I appreciate the kudos, as I know Andy does, too! He'll be over shortly!
Great write-up guys. Such a great artist but although I have worked at Warner Belgium and was responsible for catalogue exploitation, I never really was into her Warner catalogue. For me it started with her 89 album Nick Of Time, the first Capitol album. I should listen to the earlier repertoire again.
Thank you, Pe! It was all Brad's brilliant work (he came up with the idea, designed the concept, and crafted the narrative). I was happy to make a small contribution and reminisce about my early twenties messy life! If you guys think I am sassy now... the current me is the toned-down, "mature" (sort of 😂) version!
I agree with Brad that her first records are pure gold. For me, this, Takin' My Time, is her absolute best, but I am obviously biased by my own memories discovering it and "living" through it (almost 40 years after its release... that's bonkers if you think about it!).
Thanks a lot for reading and commenting. Hope you're having a nice Sunday!
So much of it is time and place, Pe, and my experience is somewhat topsy-turvy from yours! Having been exposed so early (in my life as well as her career) to her Warners output, that's what I adore. I was certainly pleased for her Capitol success, but my heart just wasn't attaching itself to those songs (although I enjoyed hearing her performances) as the early ones did.
Plus (not that I knew it at the time), but apparently her Capitol years followed years of her being plagued by her personal demons, then having her get over drinking (and whatever), which helped her step into those "hit years" with more gusto and clarity!
I think you'd enjoy listening to her first three albums Andy and I highlighted here, and "listen with new ears" to discover the early- to mid-20s Bonnie, for not only what motivated her songs in that period, but, how it might have informed what she did (and, how she did it) 15 years later!
Will do Brad and I'm sure I'll like them much better this time around. Have a great Sunday
Thanks, Pe....you, as well! You might find a Bonnie "re-do" on those early albums worth a refreshing article or two for "The Twelve Inch"! A bit "off-brand," it might appear at first glance, but I'm not so sure! As Bonnie would tell us (as she helped Mr. Letterman grok), there's a lot of cross-over in what we call blues and rhythm'n'blues!
Or........how close did Bonnie come to danceable tracks on her late-'70s thru early-'80s Warner Bros output? I'm not suggesting she "went disco," but, I'd be curious to guess/wonder/postulate on how close might the suits at The Label of The Bunny have wanted her to get to "giving them a dance hit"?😁
Or, check good ole secondhandsongs.com to see if any artist has ever done a dance/disco cover arrangement on any of her early-'70s album tracks?😱
Keep us posted, if you'd like, too! Happy week as you go!
Well, that’s an interesting question 😁.
As I may have mentioned before, the plan behind The Twelve Inch has always been, apart from the weeklies, to write a series of episodes tracing the evolution of dance music (the missing episode 1 to 99). One of the planned themes is about influences, both the ones that shaped artists and the ones they passed on. I hadn’t originally thought of including her in that particular part of the story, but you make a very solid point. So yes, I’m pretty sure I’ll get there!
It’s a lot of research, though, so I can’t say when that section will kick off or in what order the topics will appear, but I’m slowly making progress.
As for the idea that Warner might have played a role in shaping that direction: honestly, I doubt it. The quote you used in your article, “make whatever music you like”, is classic Warner. When I was still at Universal in the early 2000s, the boss of Warner Belgium headhunted me specifically because they were the last major to enter the compilation business and needed someone with experience. As a music geek, I didn’t need much convincing. The Warner catalogue? Absolute gold, and largely underused at the time.
But the moment I joined and attended my first international meeting, I understood why: unlike other labels, Warner had extremely artist-friendly (or let’s say “restrictive” 😁) contracts. What was common practice elsewhere, like getting artists to agree to compilation requests, was nearly impossible at Warner. Even if they had wanted to push an artist in a certain direction, I don’t think they would’ve had much leverage.
And then there’s the whole story of how the majors responded to the disco boom, most of them didn’t get it, and they certainly couldn’t control it. Another topic that’s definitely going to be covered in a future episode.
One of the best parts of being here on Substack is exactly this kind of exchange, feeding off each other’s ideas, discoveries, and insights. So thank you both for putting her back on my radar. Truly appreciated!
All great points, Pe, and certainly more than valid, taking your in-house experience into account! You're right, as you remind me, about the Warner brass possibly pushing Bonnie into a more commercial sound as disco was flowering! Of course they wouldn't....and, even if they had, she'd-a laughed in their faces! We know Bonnie.😁She had to have appreciated, for her decade+ there, the artistic freedom they afforded her.
Looking forward to seeing how you grow The Twelve Inch (see what I did there?) in the coming months! I love how you've tweaked and jiggled a few things around to make your site so much more expansive to a bigger audience, and made things so accessible and relatable! You've also made an impact on Notes with your recognizable style and content! Onward!🎵✨
Just great thank You very much!
Thank you, Jon! Brad did such a terrific job here. I'm so glad you enjoyed!
Thanks, Jon! Andy's contributions for this are gold!✨
Anything can turn gold as soon as your written word touches it.
https://peterwarrengasper.substack.com/p/bonnie-raitt-quotes?r=2cwh0&utm_medium=ios
Personal favorite recorded performance: “That Song About The Midway” off Streetlights. It’s got her acoustic guitar and a knockout vocal.
Bonnie tackles Joni.....I had forgotten! She was writing quite sporadically on these early albums, preferring to cover songs by (mostly) her contemporaries! I wonder if that was a decision to give props to those who were "running along side her," or, a bit of an off-shoot of her altruism toward the older blues artists she had just then started to champion!
I was talking earlier today with a favorite fellow #MusicStack writer in starting a new lane where we take a song's cover (like this one) and compare the original recorded by the songwriter! The goal would be to guess (or find interviews with artists) for their rationales on how/why they made various arrangement decisions. Stay tuned!
And, thanks for reading, enjoying, and commenting, Rich! Don't be a stranger!
Bonnie certainly did offer interpretations of songs by others. “Under Falling Skies” is quite different from Jackson Browne’s. Another interesting note from “Streetlights”: it’s her recorded version of “Angel From Montgomery” which she clearly made her own.