Bonnie Raitt Come On in My Kitchen By Lydia Hutc H i n s o n When a woman gets in trouble, everybody throws her down Lookin’ for yo’ good friend, none can be found You better come on in my kitchen, it’s goin’ to be rainin’ outdoors —“Come on In my KItChen” by RobeRt Johnson Photo by Sam Jones It’s a sunny Friday afternoon at San Francisco’s Ritz Carlton where Bonnie Raitt stands in the lobby marveling at the gorgeous marble surroundings and breathtaking floral arrangements. “This sure is a swanky joint for a couple of down-home girls,” she laughs. After settling into the quiet comfort of the Ritz Bar, Raitt kicks off her shoes and tucks her feet under her in the cozy brown leather armchair. It has been a hard year. With the loss of both parents and her brother’s fight with brain cancer, Raitt has had to balance her career while absorbing some of life’s toughest blows. Throughout, she has sought solace from the music that moves her, and she is back with Souls Alike, a breathtaking album of songs by contemporary writers whose work she most admires. As inspired as she is inspiring, Raitt has found a collection of songs that shed light on her most personal struggles and triumphs while casting a spotlight on some of today’s most deserving writers. ou usually don’t refer to yourself as about that reflect the more thorny things Bed I Made” and “I Don’t Want Anything to Ya songwriter. Do you not see yourself that I go through. The blues and R&B and Change,” these are adult themes and they’re that way? a lot of the lovelorn songs like “Love Has really not simply-conceived ideas. They’re I have written songs, but, you know, you No Pride,” you know, relationship-based really investigating the meatier stuff without don’t have to label yourself until it’s time for songs; I’ve covered that. I wrote “Hell to being deliberately obtuse. an interview, really. If someone were to ask Pay” about my own feelings about hypocrisy What is your process for finding new music? me in an interview if I was primarily a blues and politics. I’ve done a lot of that on my Well, the people whose songs I’ve covered in artist or primarily a songwriter, I would say the past will send songs as they write them. that when the circumstances are such that They’re not project specific, which is sort of I have the time and the inspiration—and I how they do it in Nashville I think—because haven’t found any other people saying what if Faith Hill isn’t going to cut it they want I want to say—then I will write a song. to send it to someone else who is. But for (Pauses) I didn’t have an answer before me there’s probably a backlog of 50 to 75 I came in here to the question of why my CDs in a box that got mailed to me from songs aren’t on the record. But the songs a combination of people who never made I had in progress before my family health an album, to the DIY artists you cover in crisis kind of got in the way, I ended up your magazine, to people like Mike Reid and finishing a couple of them but they didn’t Allen Shamblin who know that I love their make the cut because I was just much more music so they’re just sharing it. excited about these other songs. And they So it’s a combination of asking my friends just didn’t fit. They’ve gotta be songs that if they’ve got anything new, and going back you feel fit right now, not a pair of pants and listening to hundreds of old records that looked good two years ago, you know? and CDs, mining other people’s record I don’t feel any obligation to have my own other albums, and I didn’t want to make collections and brains for who they’ve been songs on there when what I feel is so well another record unless I found something listening to lately, and listening to a lot of expressed in these songs by other people. different to say. This time around, the hunt eclectic radio shows on NPR. And hopefully You’ve covered a lot of bases with your was deliberately to go through other people’s through word of mouth from journalists songs already. songs to help me put a voice to something and magazines like yours, that’s how I find I deliberately wanted to find new things to new that resonated with me. “God Was In out about a lot of people. I mean, that’s how say so I would have some new things to sing the Water” and “Crooked Crown” and “The I heard about Patty Griffin. Performing Songwriter 56 S e P t e m b e r / o ctober 2005 bonnie raitt come on in my KitcHen continued You’re one of the most active artists out there listening and going to hear live music. Well that’s because I’m not primarily a songwriter. So it’s fun, but it’s also my gig. Whereas I think other people who interpret, maybe their producer or their A&R person or their manager or someone in their band is looking for a tune for them while they’re raising their kids or something. I have found that it’s more difficult to get someone to listen for me, though. I know how to extrapolate from somebody’s voice when someone else might think, “Oh, she wouldn’t possibly do this.” You also have a passion for these songs, which you wear so beautifully. Thank you. I will say that reading all those wonderful comments by songwriters in the Performing Songwriter issue from a few years ago was so moving to me [a pdf of the 2000 article is posted in our Web Exclusives section of performingsongwriter.com]. And when I was able to help induct John Prine into the Nashville Songwriter’s Hall of Fame last year and say those words I said to Eric Kaz, Paul Brady, Beth Nielsen Chapman, Mike Reid … they were all there. And I meant it so much, but to have them talk about me the way they did in that article … I just appreciate them so much. There’s such an incredible joy and appreciation in the community that it makes all of the bad side of the business much easier to take because the joy is just limitless; the amount of love “They’ve gotta be songs that you feel fit right now, not a pair of pants that looked good two years ago, you know?” that we feel for each other. life is that I have written so many personal, and hundreds of songs out there that show On that note, I just have to tell you confessional songs. And because I’m not you don’t have to write it in first person.” So that I got a phone call the other day, and primarily a songwriter, in the last 15 years that’s the big eureka moment. I think that’s found out that Stevie Nicks is doing “Circle I have covered a lot of ground about my probably what has helped, that I don’t have Dance” in her show. And I said, “What?” personal journey. And I have a feeling about to eviscerate myself again. And that’s how I mean, nobody’s ever covered my songs. needing to keep some of my personal life when I’m singing these song, like “I Don’t And then it’s Stevie Nicks? I didn’t know to myself right now. I don’t want to talk in Want Anything to Change,” I can feel them what to say. I just started to cry because interviews for two years about what it’s like so deeply. And so there are other aspects it was about my dad. But I got her on the to be me at this age, how’s your personal life, of me that are coming out in these songs phone and she said, “I was just working what’s your journey, what’s your therapy like. that I would not have been able to write on a treadmill and put in Longing In Their I just want to keep some of this for myself. myself, but I feel are really as exposing as Hearts—I love that record, and it got to Hemingway wrote a line that says: “You I could have been. ‘Circle Dance’ and when the song finished lose it if you talk about it.” That explains Which is the mark of a great song. I just fell apart.” And she started singing it. so succinctly the need to hold things close so Oh, God, yeah. But one of the points that I How is that for a compliment? you can fully feel them, grief or joy. wanted to make is that it’s hard being in the ewton n It’s those little moments …. I know. But then when other people talk public eye and agreeing to make a record cott Yeah, and the songs have to come from about their stuff I love reading that! But and have it released, because you have to s someplace where you really have something you have to be ready.