My little girl, pink and white as peaches and cream is she My little girl is half again as bright as girls are meant to be Dozens of boys pursue her, many a likely lad Does what he can to woo her from her faithful dad
John Raitt was a legend of Broadway. The passionate tenor had a warmth in his golden voice that was perfect for the theater, perfect for the music that required a singer to occupy a song as the character in the musical play unfolding onstage, like that of carousel barker Billy Bigelow in Carousel as he anticipates becoming a father to “My boy Bill, I’ll see that he’s named after me,” before realizing that his unborn child may turn out to be a daughter instead of a son. The song was called “Soliloquy,” and I’ll bet Raitt thought of his only daughter in real life each of the thousands of times he sang it. Bonnie Raitt would go into the family business, too, taking an equally passionate but decidedly different path.
Young Bonnie didn’t choose the family business simply because her famous father had wowed audiences for decades, but had it not been for John Raitt taking The Pajama Game, Oklahoma! and Carousel on the road each summer, she and her brothers wouldn’t have traveled to summer camp in the early 1960s. That’s where and when she discovered music of conscience in the worlds of folk, blues and rock music, which she’s been making now for half a century, with 10 Grammy awards, more than 20 albums and more than a handful of songs you know by heart. Throughout it all, the road has been her middle name, just as it was for her father doing summer stock. She made Billy Bigelow proud.
I had the great pleasure of speaking with Bonnie about , her excellent new release, of which she is as excited as she must’ve been at the time of her first album in 1971. She has every right to be, as slides right into her canon as a perfect fit in the soulful singing and slide guitar playing musical life of Bonnie Raitt.
