Today: Bonnie Raitt is 63

I never saw music in terms of men and women or black and white. There was just cool and uncool.
~Bonnie Raitt

Religion is for people who are scared to go to hell. Spirituality is for people who have already been there.
~Bonnie Raitt

I would rather feel things in extreme than not at all.
~Bonnie Raitt

Melissa Etheridge inducts Bonnie Raitt Inductions 2000:

From Wikipedia:

Birth name Bonnie Lynn Raitt
Born November 8, 1949 (age 63)
Burbank, California, United States
Genres Blues, country, folk-rock
Occupations Singer-songwriter, musician, political activist, philanthropist
Instruments Vocals, guitar, slide guitar
Years active 1971–present
Labels Warner, Capitol
Website bonnieraitt.com

Bonnie Lynn Raitt (born November 8, 1949) is a renowned American blues singer-songwriter and slide guitar player. During the 1970s, Raitt released a series of acclaimed roots-influenced albums which incorporated elements of blues, rock, folk and country, but she is perhaps best known for her more commercially accessible recordings in the 1990s including “Nick of Time”, “Something to Talk About”, “Love Sneakin’ Up on You”, and the slow ballad “I Can’t Make You Love Me”. Raitt has received nine Grammy Awards in her career and is a lifelong political activist.

Maybe her best song… The beautiful “I Can’t Make You Love Me”:

“Bonnie Raitt does something with a lyric no one else can do; she bends it and twists it right into your heart.”
-Graeme Connors

  • After nearly 20 years, Bonnie Raitt achieved belated commercial success with her tenth album, Nick of Time. Released in the spring of 1989, Nick of Time went to the top of the U.S. charts following Raitt’s Grammy sweep in early 1990. This album has been voted number 230 in the Rolling Stone magazine list of 500 Greatest Albums Of All Time. Raitt herself pointed out that her 10th try was “my first sober album.”
  • In March 2000, Raitt was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio.
  • Bonnie Rait is listed at number 50 in the Rolling Stone magazine list of 100 Greatest Singers. 
  • She is also listed at number 89 in the Rolling Stone list of 100 Greatest Guitarists.

Album of the day:

Give It Up (1972):

From allmusic.com – STE:
Bonnie Raitt
 may have switched producers for her second album Give It Up, hiring Michael Cuscuna, but she hasn’t switched her style, sticking with the thoroughly engaging blend of folk, blues, R&B, and Californian soft rock. If anything, she’s strengthened her formula here, making the divisions between the genres nearly indistinguishable. Take the title track, for instance. It opens with a bluesy acoustic guitar before kicking into a New Orleans brass band about halfway through — and the great thing about it is that Raitt makes the switch sound natural, even inevitable, never forced. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg here, since Give It Up is filled with great songs, delivered in familiar, yet always surprising, ways by Raitt and her skilled band. For those that want to pigeonhole her as a white blues singer, she delivers the lovely “Nothing Seems to Matter,” a gentle mid-tempo number that’s as mellow as Linda Ronstadtand far more seductive. That’s the key to Give It Up: Yes, Raitt can be earthy and sexy, but she balances it with an inviting sensuality that makes the record glow.
…read more over @ allmusic.com 

Other November 08:

  • Rickie Lee Jones (born November 8, 1954) is an American vocalist, musician, songwriter, and producer. Over the course of a career of over three decades, Jones has recorded in various musical styles including rock, R&B, blues, pop, soul, and jazz standards. Her songwriting has been characterized as “a blend of bravado and vulnerability [that] wavers on indefinable borders.” She is also known for her unique singing style, especially in live performances. One concert reviewer, describing her rendering of “We Belong Together,” states she “reached her apex, skating from swells into near screams into breathy whispers, from pontillist stacatto scats into brassy, trumpet like bursts.”
  • Clara Ann Fowler (born November 8, 1927), known by her professional name Patti Page, is an American singer, one of the best-known female artists in traditional pop music. She was the best-selling female artist of the 1950s, and has sold over 100 million records. Her nickname is The Singin’ Rage (a phrase commonly followed by “Miss Patti Page”).
  • The fourth album by the English rock band Led Zeppelin was released on 8 November 1971. No title is printed on the album, so it is usually referred to as Led Zeppelin IV, following the naming standard used by the band’s first three studio albums. The album has alternatively been referred to as ZOSOFour SymbolsThe Fourth Album (those two titles each having been used in the Atlantic catalogue), UntitledRunesThe Hermit, and ZoSo, the latter of which is derived from the symbol used by Jimmy Page for the album sleeve. Page often had the ZoSo symbol embroidered on his clothes.

-Egil