Bonnie Raitt Talks with David Remnick
You couldn\u2019t write a history of American music without a solid chapter on Bonnie Raitt. From her roots as a blues guitarist, she\u2019s created a gorgeous melange of rock, R. & B., blues, folk, and country\u2014helping to establish a new category now known as Americana. But she\u2019s far from resting on her laurels; her latest album, \u201cJust Like That . . . ,\u201d is nominated for four Grammy Awards this year, including Song of the Year\u2014a category in which her competition includes Beyonc\xe9 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. \u201cThe 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\u2014it means that blues is always at the root of whatever funky music is out at the time,\u201d she says. Raitt also reflects on how finding sobriety in her forties changed her music. \u201cI think a lot of us are busy putting on a big persona\u2014proving ourselves in the world\u2014for the first two decades of our careers,\u201d she says. \u201cI became more who I really am at forty-one than I was at thirty-one.\u201d