People write me letters and thank me for turning them on to Fred McDowell and Sippie Wallace, and that’s partly my job this time around.
BONNIE RAITTI’m honored when young people say they’ve gone to school on slide guitar with my records. But people get their influence from my live shows and records and YouTube, not me personally.
More Bonnie Raitt Quotes
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A lot of political music to me can be rather pedantic and corny, and when it’s done right – like Bruce Springsteen or Jackson Browne or great satire from Randy Newman, there’s nothing better.
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I made my first album, and I guess it wasn’t a fluke, because now I’m on my 16th.
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Playing guitar was one of my childhood hobbies, and I had played a little at school and at camp.
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Even if the writers don’t get paid enough most of the time, unfortunately – but there’s never been a more amazing flow of information on all of the issues. I would love to see a revival of what we had against the war in the ’60s – we could do thes
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I just play the music that I love with musicians that I respect, and fortunately, I’m in a position where people are willing to play with me, and perhaps I can do something to help them.
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I’m happy to have been a positive influence.
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The talent on YouTube is incredible, and it can spread like wildfire. The downside is that it’s very hard to convince the younger generation that they should pay for music.
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I don’t know that I’m unique in that people relate to my music, but I would hope people would say that I’m honest and that I do the best work I can possibly do instead of coasting.
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Solar power is the last energy resource that isn’t owned yet – nobody taxes the sun yet.
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Sometimes I’m more true when I’m up onstage than I’m able to be in my regular life. It’s not as exciting to be at home, but I’ve got to learn how to make that work, and then I will be an ordinary woman.
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I’m proud of the way I rearrange and put things together, like a chef who makes a great meal, or a filmmaker who puts together a story – it’s casting, editing, cinematography.
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The anti-nuke movement has important and far-reaching implications for grassroots organizing.
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I’ve watched my peers get better with age and hoped that would happen with me.
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With slide guitar, you’re just hanging this piece of glass on your hand. It’s a really beautiful instrument in that it’s so responsive, you’re just slipping your hand back and forth.
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I have a really full life, both within music and outside it.
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The women’s movement resurgence of standing up for so many things that were kind of sleepy there for a decade or so, there’s been a reawakening and I think the consciousness movement in general is dovetailing with a lot of recovery and self-empowerment.
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The generation I grew up in was the beginning of “stand up for yourself,” whether being a singer-songwriter or a feminist. In my college years, the feminist movement was really coming to fore, so we wouldn’t have put up with guys treating us less than equal.
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Im happy to say that at 62, I think Ive reached that point where stuff doesnt bother me as much, and my gratitude level has gone way up.
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Jazz and blues fests are everywhere now, and Americana is going strong on college radio. What I’m hearing is an appreciation of real music.
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The consolidation of the music business has made it difficult to encourage styles like the blues, all of which deserve to be celebrated as part of our most treasured national resources.
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It can unite kids and musicians, everybody, whether they’re leftist or rightist, or radical, or Republican, because energy is energy. But in fact, it is a real political struggle – it shows people that it’s big business against the people.
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I like to think I get better with age, but maybe absence makes the heart grow fonder.
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You don’t have to look a certain way to have a hit record.
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I finally learned to accept that I can’t make radio play blues any more than I could get Reagan out of the White House.
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Life gets mighty precious when there’s less of it to waste.
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Religion is for people who are scared to go to hell. Spirituality is for people who have already been there.
BONNIE RAITT