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.
BONNIE RAITTWith 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.
More Bonnie Raitt Quotes
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The fifth member of my band is my non-profit work.
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The great thing about the arts, and especially popular music, is that it really does cut across genres and races and classes.
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Elvis might have compromised his musical style a bit towards the end, but that doesn’t mean that artists from the rock n’ roll/folk-roots culture – of which he was not really a part – shouldn’t get better as they get older, like the great jazz or blues artists.
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The anti-nuke movement has important and far-reaching implications for grassroots organizing.
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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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In my early twenties, if I wasn’t getting good enough at it, then people would not come and see me. Anybody who has lasted this long – I hope we get better with age.
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I’m happy to have been a positive influence.
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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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I don’t want to sound like a self-help book, but it really has been transformative for me to take a look at my relationships in a new way and see my part in them. Everybody’s going through that.
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I think that we have a unique opportunity as performers and artists to be kind of the town criers and also to get more people to listen, so that’s a blessing and a responsibility that I take very seriously.
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Pat Benatar might need a rock band, but I can just sit with a blues guitar for an hour and a half and do folk songs and great contemporary ballads, and not many people can pull that off.
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We did a two month tour with Taj Mahal that was really healing and cathartic and a good distraction after my brother passed away. Then I knew I wanted to take a year off, and it was really nice to have that chance to fall apart.
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My love was Bob Dylan, but as I got older I realized a good ballad was a good ballad.
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I have been really heartened by how much coverage there has been about inequality of pay across the board, between the entertainment industry and almost every industry worldwide.
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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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There would be no rock and roll or rhythm and blues without Leo Fenders’ contribution … the tone is everything
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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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How I measure success is getting to make another record and being able to the come back to the same town and play again cause you sold out the last time.
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It’s incredible to see labor unions and environmentalists getting together to stop the corporate mentality that destroys both jobs and the environment.
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How unthinkable that, in a country of such bursting plenty, so many people are facing ongoing hunger and poverty.
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Life gets mighty precious when there’s less of it to waste.
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With the new ways of getting music out, you don’t need a label if you’re a legacy artist.
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The experiences of life make all your emotions, I think, deeper.
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I learned by experience that you can change your circumstance. It’s as simple as the serenity prayer; it’s a very, very real thing.
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I think we have responsibilities to be active in the things we believe in, regardless of what our job is.
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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.
BONNIE RAITT