I heard this tune on country radio the other day - "Nick of Time" - the title track (I think) to one of her older (I think) albums. I didn't know it was her, but I was totally swept up by the song - amazing singing, great drums, killer 70s "Rhiannon"-style electric piano - and wrote down some of the words to check on it later. Googled it and found out it was Bonnie Raitt. I kinda always put Bonnie Raitt in the 'adult contemporary blues-for-investment-bankers' file. I think I may have been way, way wrong about that.
― If Assholes Could Fly This Place Would Be An Airport, Monday, 15 October 2007 16:25 (eighteen years ago)
Nick of Time was her 1989 breakthrough album.
Haven't heard that song, but check out "I Can't Make You Love Me" from its follow-up album, Luck of the Draw.
― jaymc, Monday, 15 October 2007 16:28 (eighteen years ago)
I kinda always put Bonnie Raitt in the 'adult contemporary blues-for-investment-bankers' file.
well, she kinda is, but there's nothing wrong with that!
Anyway, she's got loads of great songs, and I may actually prefer nineties Raitt to what I've heard of her seventies work. Until the law of diminishing returns affected her as it does everyone, she actually benefitted from the Grammy, mainstream popularity, and exposure.
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Monday, 15 October 2007 16:29 (eighteen years ago)
Bonnie Raitt - Classic or Dud? Bonnie Raitt
― Pleasant Plains, Monday, 15 October 2007 16:35 (eighteen years ago)
her first seven albums are all great (everything up through 'The Glow'.) after that she went headlong into some kind of AOR thing. her voice lost its expressiveness, and the material got pretty bad. Bill Payne from Little Feat had been I think a sort of "musical coordinator" on all her mid-70s albums, and when they stopped collaborating I think it went downhill. She hired a band which included Ian MacLagan from the Faces, but unfortunately he wasn't featured much at all on the album "Green Light"; also she was barely playing any guitar at all at that point, instead some hot-shit young guy was hired to play generic AOR leads. the album after that "Nine Lives" is even worse. I'm off the train after that (still haven't heard "Nick of TIme" all the way through.)
If I had to pick only one, I'd go for 1974's "Streetlights", which has I think her best singing on a KILLER song selection, including Allen Toussaint's "What is Success" (possibly my favorite song of his), John Prine's "Angel From Montgomery" (which she totally owns), Joni Mitchell's "That Song About the Midway", and Howard Tate's "Ain't Nobody Home" (she steals this one from him I think, and I LOVE Howard Tate..)
― Stormy Davis, Monday, 15 October 2007 18:50 (eighteen years ago)
Are those two comps worth owning?
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Monday, 15 October 2007 18:54 (eighteen years ago)
The Warner one is.
― If Timi Yuro would be still alive, most other singers could shut up, Monday, 15 October 2007 22:45 (eighteen years ago)